TRACK OF THE WEEK
Every week Frank selects his own favourite track of the week from our weekly Music Podcast, and it's completely free to listen too, here on Frank Renton on Brass. As he says this week,
"Philip Wilby has been central to the brass band culture in this country, indeed around the world for some thirty years now, but at the beginning he was known to very few in the brass band world.
He was well known in the academic world because of his Professorship at Leeds University where he taught composition, and he was well known in orchestral circles because he had been a professional string player before taking up composition.
Roy Newsome, who was Music Director of the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, commissioned him to write a work for them and the result was New Jerusalem, then Paul Hindmarsh commissioned him to write a piece which was to be the prize for the BBC Band of the Year 1990, that was Paganini Variations, then Harry Mortimer chose it as the set test for the Open Championships of 1991. And the rest as they say is history.
Those two pieces are very close to my heart because of the success I had with them conducting Grimethorpe, but his work over the years has given me immense enjoyment both as a listener and a performer.
Thirty years ago he was also composer in residence with the Britannia Building Society Band, as Fodens were called at the time, and their conductor Howard Snell had quickly seen the value in Philip’s music and his sense of musical adventure.
One of the big pieces he wrote for Fodens is Lowry Sketchbook, what Philip calls his ‘Manchester’ piece. He depicted in music three pictures by JS Lowry that were hanging at the time in the Salford Art Gallery and created a brilliant suite for brass band.
The Finale is Peel Park The Bandstand, a crowd of people around the famous bandstand listening and dancing to a brass band who are playing, well in this instance, music inspired by the prelude to a Bach Sonata for solo violin. It’s quite brilliant and it’s Track of the Week here at Frank Renton on Brass.
Peel Park The Bandstand from a Lowry Sketchbook by Philip Wilby played by the Black Dyke Band conducted by James Watson, and it’s electric, here at Frank Renton on Brass."
We hope you’ll enjoy our free track of the week that's below - and then will join us to hear all our many programmes, interviews and music podcasts. It’s a lot less than a cup of coffee a week!
