Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Terms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Nineteenth-Century Brass Music: The Beginnings
- 2 Brass Music-Making in the Early Twentieth Century
- 3 European Brass Music after World War II: The Establishment of the Brass Quintet in Britain
- 4 The Stimuli of the Modern Brass Ensemble: The Record Industry, Contemporary Music, International Activity, the Player-Arranger
- 5 Howarth’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and the New Reach of British Brass Playing
- 6 Continuity and Change: The Succession of British Brass Ensembles after the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
- 7 Aspects of Historical Brass: Uncovering Phenomena of the Past
- 8 Envoi
- Appendix 1. Selective List of Published Music
- Appendix 2. Selective Discography
- Appendix 3. London Brass: Major Commissions 1986–2001
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Continuity and Change: The Succession of British Brass Ensembles after the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Terms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Nineteenth-Century Brass Music: The Beginnings
- 2 Brass Music-Making in the Early Twentieth Century
- 3 European Brass Music after World War II: The Establishment of the Brass Quintet in Britain
- 4 The Stimuli of the Modern Brass Ensemble: The Record Industry, Contemporary Music, International Activity, the Player-Arranger
- 5 Howarth’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and the New Reach of British Brass Playing
- 6 Continuity and Change: The Succession of British Brass Ensembles after the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
- 7 Aspects of Historical Brass: Uncovering Phenomena of the Past
- 8 Envoi
- Appendix 1. Selective List of Published Music
- Appendix 2. Selective Discography
- Appendix 3. London Brass: Major Commissions 1986–2001
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For the programme of the PJBE’s last concert, held in 1986, tubist John Fletcher composed an appreciation of Philip Jones’s fundamental achievements:
We all had to drastically re-think some of our most cherished notions about playing, and a good thing too. Brass players, understandably are too hooked on trying to feel certain. It sets the concrete far too early in life and kills music and the joy of playing. That, dear friends, is our chief stumbling block; too much brass playing; too little conveyed pleasure. It quickly became our job to redress this balance. We did our best with the brass playing – you can’t please everyone – but we worked like stink at the pleasure. At the music, the communication, the humour, and, dare I say it, a higher cultural level. That has been Philip’s massive contribution to the world of music.
By then, brass quintets and other types of orchestral brass ensemble were popular with a concert-going public in Britain and beyond; the preceding twenty years had been an exciting period of change. Brass ensemble music was becoming embedded into the curricula of some British music colleges, alongside solo playing, orchestral playing and other idioms. Original music was supplemented by collections of arrangements and transcriptions, many generated by player-arrangers in established groups.
Jones served as principal of Trinity College of Music, London from 1988–94, and was chair of the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund from 1995. During this period, he continued to take a strong interest in developments in brass music. Indeed, the absence of the PJBE seemed to spur on subsequent ensembles to grasp or create opportunities. Particularly from 1986–2000, various parallel evolutions ensued in Britain. The music-making, composing, arranging and music publishing expanded, showing strong continuities as well as branching off in new directions.
Music for the orchestral brass section, for instrumentation akin to Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man (1943), was furthered by the London Symphony Orchestra Brass, directed by Eric Crees (b. 1952), the orchestra’s trombonist from 1973–2000. His arrangement of a suite from Bernstein’s West Side Story was sanctioned by the composer, and the premiere given by the LSO Brass in 1983, conducted by Howard Snell. Thereafter the ensemble was conducted by Crees, who had a penchant for American music and large-scale transcription; his commitment to this speciality was explicitly inspired through performing in the PJBE Prom performance of Pictures in August 1979.
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- The Modern Brass Ensemble in Twentieth-Century Britain , pp. 102 - 124Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022