Bold as Brass:
01. W Hogarth Lear: Red Sky At Night [3'45]
02. W Hogarth Lear: Hogarth's Hoe Down [2'26]
03. Stephen Foster (arr. Howarth): Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair# [2'43]
04. W Hogarth Lear: Barney's Tune [3'27]
05. Elgar Howarth: Cornet Concerto* [6'24]
06. W Hogarth Lear: Chinese Take-Away [4'25]
07. Elgar Howarth: Parade [4'41]
08. W Hogarth Lear: Paris le soir^ [3'57]
09. Elgar Howarth: Mosaic [4'40]
10. Sousa: The Stars and Stripes Forever [3'46]
Elgar Howarth- cornet* & flugelhorn^; David Moore- euphonium#; Grimethorpe Colliery Band conducted by Elgar Howarth
Belart (Decca) 450023-2 (recorded April 1976; CD issued 1998)
Classics for Brass Band:
01. Gustav Holst: A Moorside Suite [14'26]
02. John Ireland: A Comedy Overture [10'48]
03. Edward Elgar: Severn Suite, op.87 [19'31]
04. Arthur Bliss: Kenilworth [9'00]
Grimethorpe Colliery Band conducted by Elgar Howarth
Decca Japan UCCD 7456 (recorded June 1976; CD issued January 2019)
(CD-rip; cover and LP sleeve scans only)Recording venue: Huddersfield Town Hall, Yorkshire
Recording engineer: Michael Mailes; Producer: James Mallinson
The Bold as Brass was one of my first attempts at ripping a CD to flac files, 20 years ago. At the time, I couldn't scan booklets and I no longer have the original so these scans are only from the interweb.
At the time of these recordings, Elgar Howarth - a member of the New Music Manchester school along with Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies and Alexander Goehr - was working a great deal with the Grimethorpe Band - although he is better known for his more 'serious' work with the London Sinfonietta and Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and championing contemporary music. He brought the standard of brass playing to the highest level during his time at Grimethorpe.
W Hogarth Lear was Howarth's anagrammatical nom de plume when writing light music - although none of the works on Bold as Brass published under his real name could be considered heavyweight. But the Cornet Concerto does allow him to demonstrate his prowess on the cornet.
It seems incredible that Universal Music would think it worthwhile issuing the Classics for Brass Band recordings on CD in Japan only. Only Kenilworth is new to CD with Decca having issued the other three separately on other discs worldwide. I understand that they also issued a number of rare Howarth Decca recordings with the Philip Jones Ensemble at the same time but unfortunately not the Decca Headline release with the Grimethorpe Band of works by Henze, Birtwistle, Howarth and Takemitsu. This still languishes as only an LP issue. (If anybody has a rip that they could post, I would be most grateful.)
This rip of Classics for Brass Band was sent to me by an internet friend and comes with a health warning. There seems to have been no remastering of the three works that were issued earlier on CD and Ireland's Comedy Overture exhibits the same early cut-off at the end as on other commercial download sites.
Both discs represent brass playing of the highest standard, superbly conducted by Elgar Howarth.