One of the best-known British composers of the 20th century, Malcolm Arnold composed everything from symphonies and ballets to concertos and film scores. His music is constantly engaging and directly communicative, but behind the popular image of Arnold was a rather complex personality, with a remarkably rich output to match.
‘Music is the social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.’ said Malcolm Arnold, who is pictured above with his trumpet teacher Ernest Hall in 1946.
His ability to write for and his love of the music of brass bands is no doubt connected to the fact that before becoming a composer he was principal trumpet player with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Despite his popularity within the brass band community he only actually composed 8 pieces himself specifically for brass band:
- Little Suite No.1 Op.80 (1963)
- Little Suite No.2 Op.93 (1967)
- March: The Padstow Lifeboat Op.94 (1967)
- A Salute to Thomas Merritt Op.98 (1967)
- Song of Freedom Op.109 (1972)
- Fantasy for Brass Band Op.114 (1973)
- Little Suite No.3 Op.131 (1987)
His Padstow Lifeboat is a distinctive piece with the horns of the band making the sound of a foghorn and it has been recorded many times for CD. As with many of his works the mood is ambiguous as the lively march is punctuated by the menacing sound of a foghorn emphasising the danger faced by lifeboat personnel in their daily and heroic work.
However, this year has seen the premiere recording for CD of another of his original pieces for brass band and soprano/alto chorus Song of Freedom. In April of this year Foden’s Band (rated as the world’s No. 1 brass band) and a choir from Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester recorded it under the baton of Michael Fowles.
The work is unusual in more ways than one, involving in addition to a brass band a choir of children’s voices. The commission, to mark the 21st anniversary of the National Schools Brass Band Association specified that the work should be within the scope of an average School Band and Choir. A competition was also sponsored, again for children, for poems on the subject of freedom. These poems were submitted to Arnold for inclusion in the Song of Freedom.
He subsequently commented that ‘the standard was so high that I had great difficulty in not making the work twice as long; I found the directness and, very often, the sadness of the poems to be most moving’.
Simplicity and directness are indeed the hallmarks of the resulting four-movement work, of which Arnold conducted the first performance with the Netteswell School Band and Choir in May 1973. The directness of the words necessitated the Malcolm Arnold Society’s recording label, Beckus, to issue the following guidance:
Note that these words reflect the times in which they were written and contain language and themes that may be distressing or offensive to some readers, including depictions of poverty, racism, discrimination, and drug addiction. Reader discretion is advised.
Arnold wrote three Little Suites for Brass; No.1 in 1963, No.2 in 1967 and No.3 in 1987.
Rather surprisingly it was not until well on in his composing career that Arnold’s first dedicated brass band score is found. The Little Suite for Brass No.1 was written to a commission from the Scottish Amateur Music Association for the National Youth Brass Band of Scotland, and first performed in Aberdeen in July 1963. Perfectly tailored to the capabilities of the young performers, it is a miniature lasting just over seven minutes. The first movement is barely more than an extended fanfare, with the difference that it becomes progressively more subdued: the staccato demands of the opening change into legato, and the young players are also required to sustain tone and intensity as the music becomes ever quieter. The second movement is a siciliano in slowly swaying six-eight time, and features a memorable melody announced first on solo cornet, and requiring proper good taste in its execution; while powerful unisons at the start of the final rondo make sure that each return of the rondo theme is unmistakeable.
The Little Suite for Brass No.2 seems very much modelled on the pattern of its predecessor, and this time it was a commission from the Cornwall Youth Brass Band in 1967. By this stage in his life Arnold had moved to the West Country, to the village of St Merryn in Cornwall, and had begun to immerse himself in local custom and culture. If he had been unaware of it beforehand, his arrival there, early in 1965, soon brought him up close once more to the county where he had often holidayed as a youth. He rediscovered the landscape of deserted tin mines, the rugged seascapes, Methodism with its revivalist hymns by Sankey and Moody – and the Cornish brass band tradition; there, they are often known as silver bands.
Arnold himself conducted the first performance of this Suite in March 1967. The opening Round brings in different sections in imitation of one another, before alighting near the end on some deliciously unexpected harmonies. Then comes a songlike Cavatina, a sorrowful tune with angular intervals announced first on lower instruments but soon taken up by the cornets, over a continuous throbbing accompaniment. A contrasted motif in the rhythm of a slow waltz is given to the solo flugelhorn in the middle of the movement. Finally, an Offenbach-style Galop brings in a flavour of the circus to round things off.
Composed between 1973-74 for England’s 1974 National Brass Band Championships where it was the test piece, Arnold’s Fantasy for Brass Band, despite it not being easy to play, it has proven to be a hit with bands across the nation. The Cory Band, then conducted by Major H. A. Kenney, won the competition that year but the opening performance was by the Morris Motors Band.
It is actually split into six sections (Prelude – dance – elegy – scherzo – postlude – vivace), all of which run into each other to create one piece of music which is just less than 10 minutes long. The elegy contains one of his most beautiful melodies played by principal cornet depicting loneliness and isolation.
Salute to Thomas Merritt Op. 98 has never been recorded for CD but was recorded for LP by the Cornwall Symphony Orchestra for LP. Little Suite No. 3 Op. 131 has been recorded for CD including by Fine Arts Brass on the Nimbus label.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, Arnold’s symphonically-scored music has regularly lent itself to transcription or arrangement for the brass band medium.
His earliest piece to be arranged for brass band is the 1955 Fanfare for a Festival, written for the Hastings Festival and first performed there the following year by members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult. Thirty years later it was arranged for brass band by Philip Sparke, a composer with much band music to his name, whose pieces have won various international awards as well as being chosen as test pieces for national brass band championships.
Arnold was well known for his film music having written over 100 scores for film and features between 1947 and 1969. His most famous being Bridge Over the River Kwai for which he won an Oscar. Among the film scores arranged for brass band are Hobson’s Choice, The Roots of Heaven, and The Inn of Sixth Happiness.
Arnold was an accomplished writer of ballet music. His score for Sweeney Todd has been expertly arranged for brass band by Philip Littlemore; Philip manages to retain the characters of the main protagonists extremely well in the piece as well as including the well-known ‘have a banana’ motif.
The Sarabande and Polka from Arnold’s score for the ballet Solitaire have recently been recorded on a wonderful CD by Cory Band called “October” conducted by Philip Harper.
Well known and loved amongst Arnold’s works are his sets of Dances, inspired by different parts of the British Isles i.e. English (2 sets 1950/51), Scottish (1957), Cornish (1966), Irish (1982/86) and Welsh (1988). Both sets of the English Dances, the Scottish and Cornish ones have been arranged for brass band by Ray Farr.
The two sets of English Dances were composed as companion pieces for Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances. The music is essentially English in style, suggesting folk-song origins with their at times melancholy and at other times boisterous character, however, it’s pure unadulterated Arnold. His Scottish Dances remain very popular and are regularly played in concerts throughout the world.
The second movement which is a vivace based on a melody from the score to the film called The Beautiful Country of Ayr which leaves the listener with the distinct impression that the bass trombonist had spent too long in the bar before the performance! The third movement is an Allegretto with a lovely, lilting, nostalgic melody. Arnold at his poetic best. The Cornish Dances were written at a time when Arnold and his family lived in Cornwall. Each movement represents a different aspect of Cornish character seen, in Arnold’s own words, through the eyes of a ‘furrener’. Two years later saw the release of Padstow Lifeboat.
The March: Overseas was first written for military rather than brass band, to a commission from the Central Office of Information for the 1960 British Trade Fair held in New York City in 1960. In 2008, Neil Richmond, a long-time member of the Malcolm Arnold Society, spotted its potential and re-cast it for brass, in which guise it retains the cheerful aspect of a typical British quickstep. The result is a rather engaging march in true brass band style.
The Overture: Peterloo by contrast has gained a secure foothold in its original orchestral guise: written for the centenary of the first meeting of the Trades Union Congress, the music not only refers to, but graphically portrays, the notorious assault by the local yeomanry on thousands of unarmed demonstrators at a protest meeting held on St Peter’s Fields in Manchester in 1819.
The tumult is framed in the Overture by a solemn hymn-like theme suggesting (after we have heard the brief hint of a funeral march for the victims) the ultimate victory of peace over violence. Various arrangements exist, for different forces: in 2002, Andrew Duncan, tuba player first with the Hallé and then later with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and a conductor, adjudicator, composer and arranger with a worldwide reputation, made his version which fully respects the mood and manner of Arnold’s original. The return of the hymn theme in triumph near the end, decorated with rolling semiquaver scales on the cornets, makes for an exciting apotheosis.
Other arrangements of Arnold’s work for brass band are:-
- Machines Symphonic Study Op. 30(1951)(arr. Philip Littlemore) This arrangement has not yet been recorded for CD
- Flourish for a 21st Birthday Op.44 (1953) [Philip Sparke, 1987; John Wallace, 2000]. The Wallace arrangement has been recorded for CD by the Royal Academy Brass Soloists
- Tam O’Shanter Op.51 (1955) [Howard Snell, 2001; Alan Catherall, no date]. This has been recorded for CD by the Eastern Brass Quintet
- Little Suite No.1 Op.53 (1955) [Robin Norman, 2007; Neil Richmond, 2002 (March only)]
- A Grand, Grand, (Festival) Overture Op.57 (1956) [Ray Farr, 1985; David Richards, 1988 ]
- Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) [John Glenesk Mortimer]
- ‘The First Lady’ theme(1968) [Ronnie Hazelhurst, 1969]. Starring Thora Hird as crusading local councillor Sarah Danby, in the fictional borough of Furness in Lancashire.
- Trumpet Concerto Op.125 (1982) [Tony Rickard, 1998]
Written by Ken Talbot, Secretary of the Malcolm Arnold Society