Impeccable Thornton....

 

Peter Graham is one of the most important contributors to the brass band repertoire over the past two or three decades and it is fitting that, as he passes his 50th birthday, many of his most iconic and enjoyable works are celebrated on this double CD collection. The recording features groups at the pinnacles of two of the banding 'worlds' he has occupied during his lifetime.

 

Black Dyke's contribution opens with two works considered by many aficionados to be amongst Peter Graham's best - Montage and Harrison's Dream - both of which have survived the banding 'test of time' much better than many compositions of this period and remain as popular today as they were when written in 1994 and 2000 respectively. It almost goes without saying that the playing in both is near impeccable, but Black Dyke also manages to generate the 'tingle-factor' in the energetic build up to the great climaxes.

 

Impeccable also is the soloist in the euphonium concerto that follows - the imaginatively titled 'In League With Extraordinary Gentlemen', which David Thornton performs with all the aplomb of a man who has occupied one of the hottest seats in banding for almost ten years. Not just a technical tour-de-force, this work also allows the soloist to display control and sensitivity, which he does outstandingly in the second movement - 'The Adventure Of The Final Problem'.

 

The Final Work from Black Dyke is a studio recording of 'The Torchbearer', which must be the quickest production by a winning band in the 109-year history of the National Championships. However quick it may have appeared, it is a fine performance nevertheless from a band at thetop of it's game and one could never tire of earing the velvet sound of the bands veteren solo horn, Sandy Smith, in the opening bars of what may prove to be yet another enduring work from the pen of Peter Graham.

 

Kenneth Crookston - Copyright British Bandsman Magazine