Nouveautés : Classique

In March 1973, composer Wilfred Heaton (1918-2000) completed his best known work for brass band, Contest Music, from material sketched in the early 1950s. The work was rejected by the organisers of the National Brass Band Championships for whom Heaton had prepared it and it was not used in that competition until 1982, since when it has become one of the most cherished works of the 20th century brass band repertoire.

Heaton originally composed the three movements as separate exercises in compositional techniques. Instrumentation was not specified at that stage. He made the brass band score over 20 years after the initial composition. In later years, he observed that he was content for his band music to be rescored for other ensembles to encourage wider performances. 

With that wish in mind, Paul Hindmarsh has prepared a performing edition of Contest Music for symphony orchestra and also reimagined it for wind orchestra, reducing substantially the reliance on high brass tone. The layering of the Contest Music material is well suited to orchestral scoring.The influence of the methods of Hindemith and Walton is clear. Hindmarsh has created editions that accentuate the work's symphonic credentials as a neo-classical Sinfonietta – I. sonata allegro, II. slow cantabile, III. rondo.

This is a demo recording, made with Note Performer and East-West II sound design,
and is an authorised edition from Studio Music, under Boosey & Hawkes.



Heaton - Contest Music (Sinfonietta for wind orchestra)

A demo recording of Wilfred Heaton's brass quintet - Five Bagatelles - in a new performing edition by Paul Hindmarsh.

In 1989 Wilfred Heaton was approached by the adventurous young musicians of the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble [FAB] to write brass quintet. Heaton was composing very little by then, but had become adept at recycling his "old things" for other formats. In this instance he reworked and updated a Little Suite (1955) originally for recorder and piano. The result was a dynamic and virtuoso suite of cameos founded on baroque dance forms. 
     There was a major problem, however, in that the first trumpet part lay very high in the outer movements - rather too extended in range for B flat trumpets and a stretch for the C trumpets that Heaton writes for. After exchanges of correspondence with FAB, Heaton conceded that the piece did not come off in this format. Five Bagatelles was withdrawn before being performed. 
      Heaton left the door open for future editing, indicating that it really needed fresh eyes on it to make the necessary adjustments. In 2003 FAB's current principal trumpet Simon Lenton worked out a scheme to use piccolo trumpets where necessary and Five Bagatelles was premiered (and broadcast) in 2003 from a concert from the Chester Summer Music Festival. 
      However, the finale in particular remained problematic. In 2025, short after completing his biography of Heaton, Paul Hindmarsh returned to the piece to create a new performing edition, easing the extremes of register in the final movement with some re-voicing down an octave. In order to support the remaining exposed high lines, he restored some of the textural detail Heaton from the original version.

This is not the Fine Arts Brass! It is a digital demo made with Note Performer. 

The music is now available in The Wilfred Heaton Collection from Studio Music.

Heaton - Five Bagatelles for brass quintet (ed. Hindmarsh)

In June 1990, as part of a music festival promoted alongside Manchester's Olympic bid, I was asked to devise a programme featuring brass bands and voices for a Free Trade Hall concert. In part one Britannia (Foden's) Band gave a brilliant premiere of a BBC commission (at my suggestion) from David Bedford - Toccata for Tristan. Novello did not publish (hire only!) so it has rarely been performed since, but is a really colourful and inventive piece. 

Toccata for Tristan is a sequel to David's wind band Rondo for Isolde. Both are built form famous passages form Wagner's great opera. The Toccata is a much tougher proposition for perform than the Rondo. The rapid repeated figuration is rhythmically highly complex. Howard Snell and the band performed it impeccably. It would be great to hear it live again sometime.

I came across a copy of the digital DAT cassette a little while ago among the collection of old "Safety" recordings I kept rather than deleting or reusing them.  It was a pleasure to relive this dramatic performance. I hope you enjoy it too in this transfer.

David Bedford(1937-2011) - Toccata for Tristan

Prologue to a Workers' Meeting for Brass Orchestra
Year: 1935
Opus: 16
Duration: 7.5 minutes

Written for The International Music Bureau, Moscow, this imposing prelude and fugue was later re-written as 'Resolution' - Overture for Orchestra, Opus 25 in 1943 also for the International Music Bureau, Moscow

The original was composed for a brass choice of trumpets, horns, trombones and tubas. This edition is based on a score ( in Bush's hand)  and set of parts for a version created for Callender's Cable Works Brass Band. I am grateful to Dave Chadwick for making the material available. The character of the music audibly favours symphonic brass even on this mock up, so I might venture to rescore for orchestral forces if the original does not turn up.

ALAN BUSH - Prologue to a Worker's Meeting

In 1910, Frank Bridge (1879-1941) was among a collection of leading British composers of the rising generation to contribute music for massed forces - military bands and choirs - to The Pageant of London, which was a huge community event staged in The Crystal Palace to celebrate the Coronation of George V. Because of his ill health the 28 day event was delayed into May 1911. The pageant was given daily performances throughout the celebration month. Holst and Vaughan Williams were also  among the group of composers.

Bridge wrote two marches and a sequence of dances, which I edited some years ago as the suite The Pageant of London (Faber Music). The second of the marches, played to mark Henry VII arrival into London is partly based on an organ march (1905) and the Westminster Chimes. Last year I arranged the military band original for brass band. 

This is a demo. I hope to be able to publish in due course.

FRANK BRIDGE - March Henry VII (arr. Hindmarsh)

Performed by Marta Fontanals-Simmons and Timothy End, premiered at Presteigne Festival 2025

Four Faerie Folk Songs

Danny Boy Bar

Animal Talkin' is a cycle of 5 small pieces of music for strings, wood winds and modular synthesizer. The piece is a study of the potential of animal communication as a model for musical form.

01 - Animal Talkin' - I Die Albatrosse

French Nationals (Gala Concert) 2020 - Brass Band Schoonhoven (Vos)

Programme Notes:

Commissioned by Brass Band Schoonhoven as part of their set for the Gala Concert for the French National Championships, 'Intrada for Rouen' is a vibrant opening piece which makes liberal use of 'Les Marseillais'!

Intrada for Rouen

Chämifegers mit Tänzli

"Hereinspaziert"
aus: "Die Flötenorgel"
Komponiert und eingespielt von Raphael Benjamin Meyer

Hereinspaziert

Like the Track? Click the [Repost] 🔁 button so more people can hear it! 💙

🎸Follow @pandhora
🔸Mastering : @veytik

🎁 Free Download: https://music.artvibesmusic.com/becausepandhoratribute

"Because" is a song written by John Lennon (credited to Lennon–McCartney) and recorded by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on their 1969 album Abbey Road.

According to Lennon, the song's close musical resemblance to the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was no coincidence: "Yoko was playing Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' on the piano ... I said, 'Can you play those chords backwards?', and wrote 'Because' around them. The lyrics speak for themselves ... No imagery, no obscure references."

French duo Pandhora worked with an original acapella track and recreated the whole piece around the vocals with modern sounds. Extending the track with instrumental parts, they are giving a tribute to the original with an outdoor festival dance in mind.

👾 Alternative Free Download link for non-spotify users: https://hypeddit.com/track/6lfjrg

Connect with Closing Sounds
Facebook > www.facebook.com/Closingsounds
Instagram > www.instagram.com/closing_sounds
Spotify > spoti.fi/2KnyGah

Intrada for Rouen

Christian Overhead - Composer

Recent comments

Karin-Maria Brunner

Related tracks