National Finals 2024
Championship Section
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£119.95Harrison's Dream (Peter Graham)
At 8.00pm on the 22nd of October 1707, the Association, flagship of the Royal Navy, struck rocks off the Scilly Isles with the loss of the entire crew. Throughout the rest of the evening the remaining three ships in the fleet suffered the same fate. Only 26 of the original 1,647 crew members survived. This disaster was a direct result of an inability to calculate longitude, the most pressing scientific problem of the time. It pushed the longitude question to the forefront of the national consciousness and precipitated the Longitude Act. Parliament funded a prize of 20,000 to anyone whose method or device would solve the dilemma.For carpenter and self-taught clockmaker John Harrison, this was the beginning of a 40 year obsession. To calculate longitude it is necessary to know the time aboard ship and at the home port or place of known longitude, at precisely the same moment. Harrison's dream was to build a clock so accurate that this calculation could be made, an audacious feat of engineering.This work reflects on aspects of this epic tale, brilliantly brought to life in Dava Sobel's book Longitude. Much of the music is mechanistic in tone and is constructed along precise mathematical and metrical lines. The heart of the work however is human - the attraction of the 20,000 prize is often cited as Harrison's motivation. However, the realisation that countless lives depended on a solution was one which haunted Harrison. The emotional core of the music reflects on this, and in particular the evening of 22ndOctober 1707.
First Section
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£50.60Excalibur (Jan Van der Roost)
Jan Van der Roost based this concert piece in three movements on the legend of King Arthur.
Second Section
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£114.99Albinus Variations (Crausaz, Etienne)
based on Bach's Chorales 'Alle Menschen mussen sterben'Johann Georg Albinus wrote a number of Lutheran hymns set to music by various composers. Johann Sebastian Bach reworked and inserted some of these hymns into his cantatas, particularly the chorale 'Alle Menschen mussen sterben' in BWV 162. Albinus Variations opens with a solemn cadenza followed by five contrasted variations on this chorale. Both versions of the chorale, in major and minor keys, were used as a reference for this work.Duration: 12.45
Third Section
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£69.95The Shipbuilders (Peter Yorke)
Suite for Brass Band Movements:Web of Steel (Dur: 2.30) - The Launching (Dur: 2.15)- All Hands at Work (Dur: 2.15)- Maiden Voyage (Dur: 2.00)- Duration: 9.00. Set as the 2008 National Championships Finals test piece, Fourth Section
Fourth Section
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£65.00Smoke Sketches (Daniel Hall)
Smoke Sketches is Daniel Hall's first original work to be published in the Faber Music Brass Band Series. Daniel is one of the most gifted of the rising generation of composers writing for brass bands. Smoke Sketches was composed at the invitation of Brass Bands England for the Intermediate Section of the 2017 National Youth Brass Band Championships of Great Britain. This colourful, jazzy suite draws inspiration from the ancient art of gazing into smoke from fire to find stories through the act of divination. Into the Blaze suggests someone briskly fire-walking, barefoot, with unexpected sparks fizzling from the ground. A Lonesome Ember capturesthe fleeting life of a small ember, beginning insignificantly and gradually evolving into a larger being before disappearing into ash, while Spark of Light bristles with life and energy. Band Grade 3/4, duration 8 minutes.