A varied Simon Rattle curated programme at the BBC Proms, redolent of his time in Birmingham, sadly had to go ahead without the great man, who was indisposed. Ryan Bancroft stepped in at short notice, to great effect, further demonstrating what a skilled communicator he is, à la Rattle. The programme mixed attractive English folksong-inspired pieces with more challenging late 20th-century works.
The English Folksong Suite which Vaughan Williams wrote in 1923 for the wind band of the Royal Military College of Music is so well written and complete in itself that it must have been a joy for them to perform. A later fully scored version by Gordon Jacob loses some of the crisp simplicity and directness of the original, so it was very special to hear it play so nimbly here by the LSO’s brass, wind and percussion.
After this sure-fire hit, Gunther Schuller’s Eine Kleine Posaunemusik from 1980, took us into a very different world. A condensed trombone concerto, its musical language is colourful, with short-winded phrases reflecting the part’s lung power, which made it hard to piece together on first hearing. However, the real star of the show was the soloist, Peter Moore, who navigated the technical demands with ease. He produced a wide range of colours on the instrument and never overplayed, integrating well with the orchestra throughout.
Michael Tippett’s great late choral masterpiece The Mask of Time has been shamefully neglected since its triumphant premiere in 1982. The composer, anticipating this outcome, arranged portions of the most striking music into a concert piece for wind band alone, which he called Triumph. The resulting piece has power and mystery in equal measure. Fanfares, some of them taken from the composer’s Fourth Symphony, alternate with dance-like passages. The whole extraordinary concoction was played with apparent ease and buoyancy by the LSO. Bancroft marshalled what must have been an unfamiliar work with confidence and technical precision, particularly in the final passage with its wild repeated notes in all the brass.
After this flight of fancy things came down to earth with the first set of English Dances composed in 1950 by Malcolm Arnold. This arrangement for wind band, made in 1965, sees these miniature gems of memorable English-sounding themes – but not folksongs – into something sharper and more biting than the fully scored version, closer to the Arnold’s models of Bartók and Stravinsky. All four gratefully written pieces were given luxury treatment here.
Percy Grainger is a great favourite of Rattle and one felt, in these performances of his quirky folksong arrangements, that without his enthusiasm and understanding, something was missing, but it was hard to put your finger on why they seemed to fall slightly flat. The Lads of Wamphray is an early arrangement which rather overstays its welcome. The charming Country Gardens saw a feast of crisp woodwind playing. In the longer and more ambitious Lincolnshire Posy, Grainger’s musical language had progressed and his invention had become more intrepid, particularly in relation to rhythmic pliability, posing technical difficulties for performers. The LSO were again able to traverse all the notes and produced a rich and varied sound, but without that Rattle Factor, it seemed less than the sum of its parts.
