War Memorials - Music for Brass Band

The Guardian 100

Tredegar Town Band, Cory Band
(NMC)

Performed by two excellent bands, this disc of mostly recent brass music takes its title from Robin Holloway’s War Memorials, Op 50 – substantial, solemn works commemorating the first world war from the soldiers’ point of view. No 1, Marching Men, has the mood of a funeral march, full of ghostly echoes. No 2, From Hills and Valleys, is wistful and poignant. Lucy Pankhurst, herself a tenor horn player, has written extensively for brass band. Her Voices vividly evokes men in the trenches at Christmas. Works by John McCabe, Simon Dobson and Gavin Higgins are interspersed with Britten’s St Edmundsbury Fanfares and Occasional Overture. The brass tradition is alive and thriving.