2003 WASBE Conference

The opinions expressed
herein are those of the
authors and not
necessarily the opinions
of WASBE.

Military Band of the German Federal Armed Forces

by Timothy Reynish

For many years colleagues in WASBE have campaigned for our including a march in every programme. I once riposted with a proposal that every concert should include an avant garde piece, a suggestion which I withdrew as being, in my view, equally silly. The point I think is that a march, like an avant garde piece, needs careful programming, and it may or may not be appropriate. This concert began and ended with marches, a Parade March for the Cavalry by Richard Strauss, interpreted by Walter Ratzek with great finesse and charm, and the block-buster of a march by Paul Hindemith from his Symphonic Metamorphosen on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, superbly arranged by Keith Wilson. In between we had one contemporary work, one more traditional and quite amusing concerto and a major traditional piece which should be better known outside Belgium.

At Luzern, I thought Ratzek was one of the finest conductors, and he has honed this wind band into a military band able to rival the best in the world. They have wonderful soloists, strong supporting players, fine control of dynamics and colour and ensemble skills second to none. In Walter Ratzek, they have a conductor of imagination and taste. In this concert, they presented a march and four first-rate works, all superbly played and conducted.

I must confess to having been nervous about Walter's proposal of Thorsten Wollmann's Concerto for Wind Orchestra on Pictures by Paul Klee. My only experience with this composer’s music was with his Jazz Concerto for Trumpet, which I considered to be slightly kitschy, but which could be very useful if you want a jazz concerto. However, this new Concerto (about nineteen minutes long and published by Schorer Musikverlag) is a wonderful major addition to the repertoire in my view.

The paintings which are the inspiration for the concerto were reproduced in the programme. Offenes Buch is a mysterious exploitation of sound clusters with wedges of sound opening out into massive climax and dying away, the whole taking about three
minutes.

Pastorale(Rhythmen) begins with little ostinati (memories of Gorb's Metropolis), again building an arch form. This is minimalism but without the boring repetition of some more famous composers.

Nächtliche Blumen (Night Light Flowers) inhabits a strange world. A slow moving ostinato by clarinets and brass underpins little fragments of melodies in woodwind, later joined by marimba. Gradually the themes become longer-lived, the harmonies more complex. There is an added warmth in both melody and harmony, a deceptive simplicity. As I recall, this is really very beautiful—an element which for me ran through so many of the new works in this conference.

Ad Parnassum recalls the opening sound clusters, but with more energy within the chords and with a constant movement, creating another of Wollmann's beloved arch forms.
Insula Dacamara introduces lighter textures, more widely spaced chordings with high wind patter against menacing brass. Snatches of woodwind figuration answer each other and continue over swirling arpeggi in piano, harp and percussion.

Thorstein Wollmann is currently completing a doctoral thesis at the Auckland University while on the staff at Payap University, Chiang Mai, in Thailand. His is a talent which we would do well to cultivate.

Heiko Triebner, solo Tuba with the Bamberg Symphony, was the excellent soloist in Rolf Wilhelm’s Concertino for Tuba and Concert Band. The programme note reported that it was the aim of the composer to write an easily understood, uncomplicated and jolly work for this fascinating instrument with its enormous range of four octaves and so many expressive possibilities. This is really good fun, a first movement cast in a
traditional style which would be familiar to brass band audiences in the UK, a second movement which is very lyrical and is a great foil for the finale which is in a lumbering triple time with echoes of the circus and reminiscent of Alec Wilder's Ellie the Elephant. Available from TRIO Musik Edition, this is another extremely useful addition to the repertoire, and at just over twelve minutes it certainly does not overstay its welcome.

I think one of the main functions of WASBE is not to dictate taste in any way, but to add to our knowledge of major works from different countries which deserve a place in the canon of "core" repertoire. Earlier attempts to set down that "core" repertoire were doomed because as has often been pointed out to me, "One man's meat is another man's poison". However, I would venture to suggest that just as the Franck Symphony in D Minor probably represents the pinnacle of Belgian orchestral music, Dance Funambulesque by Jules Strens might be the best wind orchestral work from that country. (Belgians, I await with excitement your contradictions and rival claims.)

The work is available from CeBeDem, Brussels, and was written in 1925 for the famous Band of the Belgian Guides (it is high time we tried to attract them to our Conferences). The world inhabited here is that of Strauss, Holst, Elgar, Florent Schmitt, Ravel (remember Scheherezade!). In its melodic and harmonic gestures, this is a true romantic early 20th century virtuoso piece for wind orchestra which we should all know. I have heard the piece played by the Belgian Guides under Norbert Nozy, and on disc they seemed to exert excellent control over the climactic section and the final denouement. In this performance, Ratzek allowed his players their head too early, so that the ecstatic finale was achieved prematurely and the excitement was not maintained.

However, the architecture of the final work, Keith Wilson's masterly transcription of Hindemith, was carefully worked out. A transcription—I hear the purists throwing their hands in the air in horror!—but if it is as well done as this, it results in a great addition to the repertoire. We need to remember that Gunther Schuller has always wanted to arrange the Eroica for band. Our libraries are full of old-fashioned military band arrangements of 18th and 19th century classics that probably need to be ditched and replaced by contemporary transcriptions by master arrangers such as Högsted, Wilson, de Meij and some of our Japanese colleagues. When a transcription is played as convincingly as this, who needs strings?

Under Ratzek this Band plays with a warmth and maturity which in my view rivals the President's Own, a band which was for me the highlight of the Luzern Conference. Ratzek's control of colour and rubato, and the band's sense of ensemble and balance allied with some wonderful soloists made this concert for me the highlight of Jönköping—another CD to buy later this year!