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£34.00Edward Gregson: Postcard to Grimethorpe
DescriptionComposer's NoteI composed the original version of Postcard to Grimethorpe in 1993 at the request of Elgar Howarth, for a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, given by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. This was at a time when after the Grimethorpe Colliery pit closed the future of the band was in severe jeopardy. The concert was given in aid of the band, both through publicity and funding.Then in late 2022 Jack Stamp, the American composer, conductor and educator, and at that time international composer-in-association with Grimethorpe, contacted me to say that he had discovered my short piece in the band library, and asked if I might extend it for a recording he was sponsoring for the band - the repertoire to consist entirely of music specially composed for Grimethorpe.I agreed and decided to extend the piece by using the miner's hymn Gresford, as a symbolic gesture of protest at the many thousands of miners in the UK who were made redundant from their jobs. After an angular (atonal) first section, the hymn enters, softly at first, but with each phrase it becomes more powerful and insistent, ending with the final phrase triumphantly accompanied by melodic percussion (replacing the drums and cymbals of the earlier phrases, as if the band were then on the march). However, this short work ends softly and gently, as if anger has been replaced by quiet resolution and determination, looking to the future with confidence.For more information on Edward Gregson's music please visit the composer's website: www.edwardgregson.com
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£119.00
Images of the Millennium - Full 2 Band Version - H. Snell
Richard Evans' request was that the work should mirror aspects of the history of banding while also looking forward. 1. FANFARE. In this movement the work is introduced.2. TOCCATA: CONTEST DAY. The gathering together of players and audience for a contest day is treated in a busy, sometimes jazzy manner.3. PASTORALE: 'A GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND'. Looking back to the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century and the rapid birth of brass bands and banding, this short Intermezzo invokes the popular picture postcard view of the past. Images of warfare appear briefly as a reminiscence of Britain's continuing military domination of the world, with Trafalgar and Waterloo still echoing on the horizon.4. MUSIC FOR A SILENT FILM: AN OLD MAN REMEMBERS PETERLOO. The reality of 'England's green and pleasant land' was somewhat different. On August 19th 1819 the Stalybridge Band was playing at a political meeting in St Peter's Fields in Manchester, later to become the site of the Free Trade Hall. The local Magistrate, sent in the cavalry. Shots were fired into the crowd, 11 people were killed and 500 injured. I present the scenes as followsthe holiday crowd in St Peter's Field entertained by the Band the unprovoked attack by the militia the flight from St Peter's Fieldthe funeral wake the lament5. SCHERZO: THE CRYSTAL PALACE. Only a few decades later brass bands were regular visitors to the greatest concert halls in the country. I see the Bands and their followers descending on London in trains and charabancs. 6. DREAM-NOCTURNE. As if in a trance, an unending musical line is passed around the ensemble to celebrate the players who possessed, and still possess, the sound and phrasing to enthrall the listener.7. ODYSSEY. The way forward now beckons. The music passes through conflict, struggle and turmoil on its way to release, resolution and finally to triumph.
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days