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

Chiedza.mp3

In September 1950, Wilfred Heaton (aged 31) completed his first and only work for symphony orchestra. It was a four movement suite, which had it included a substantial symphonic first movement would have merited the title Symphony. Inspired and influenced by the Symphony completed in 1935 by William Walton, it marked Heaton's first departure from the more limited scope of the brass band genres of The Salvation Army. It was also the first work exhibiting a more extended range and intensity of language for which he searched in the years after returning from WW2 service as RAF ground crew.

With little prospect of  a performance, Heaton returned to this experimental opus on three occasions, making a truncated brass band version shortly after finished the work, elaborating its dynamic scherzo and joyful rondo as two movements of an adventurous Piano Sonata and in 1983, revising the text as Partita for brass band.

In his later years, Heaton wished to suppress this version, and it was not performed until some 20 years after his death in Germany under the baton of Phillipe Bach. Sadly, a recording was not made at that time, but given the quality of the music and orchestration, the work deserves to be heard. This digital demo (made with Note Performer and Spaces II) though far from giving the full sonic picture of the work, at least presents of flavour of the music in orchestral colours.

Heaton - Suite for orchestra "Partita" (demo)

Shortly before his death in May 2000, Wilfred Heaton completed the sketch of Variations for brass band, a 30-minute semi-autobiographical work for brass band. It had 10 years of 'stop-start' to get this far. The first part of the works was fully scored, but the rest was realised with consumate skill by Howard Snell, to whom the work is dedicated. As he composed the sketches, Heaton left various notes alongside the music including a number which reveal his expressive intentions and others explaining the challenges that a band would have in performing the work as composed.  That was one reason why the Heaton family sanctioned a shorter version, more practical for brass band concerts and competitions. 

Heaton's first love was the orchestra, not the brass band. Much of Variations, like Contest Music, feels like a sketch for an orchestral work. To that end, I have ventured an orchestration to present his fine music with greater colour variation, particularly in the central section (Variations 6-8) and the finale Chorale (Variation 12). 

The demo sound is far from perfect, but I have uploaded it with the intention of providing another perspective on Heaton's final masterpiece.

Heaton - Variations for orchestra, orch. Hindmarsh (demo)

On Saturday 29 November 2025, Foden's Band (conducted by Michael Fowles) revived a long lost concert march by Percy Fletcher (1979 - 1933). This recording IS NOT Foden's Band but a digital demo demonstrating I think what a strong, resolute and substantial march it is. Fletcher composed it for the Callender's Cableworks Band (based in Kent) in the 1920s or early 30s . It survives as a set of water damaged parts that are part of a unique, bespoke collection of manuscript originals and arrangements that this once famous band played. There are two titles on the parts - Grand March and The Callender March. 

Who scored it is unclear. It could have been the composer himself or the band's in-house arranger, who in its re-incarnation post-1945 as BICC Callender's Cables band in Prescott (Lancs.) was John Capper. 

When the Prescott factory closed and with in the band, the manuscripts were purchased by nearby Haydock Band. I first came across this march when undertaking some research in the band's library - what a collection it is by the way - and at long last, with my Wilfred Heaton work almost complete, I have reconstructed the score and prepared a new 'urtext' edition. What a find it has proved to be! Fletcher composed some great marches - Spirit of Pageantry (1910)  and Heroic March (1926) being the best known. The others he composed for organ. 

BBC Wales recorded Foden's terrific performance in St. Asaph's Cathedral, and I will upload that if I can obtain a copy and the appropriate permissions. In the mean time, I hope this demo with give a flavour of this spirited march.

Percy Fletcher - Grand March "The Callender March"(demo)

Music of Thanksgiving and Hope

Hope - Brass Band

Dorothy Gates was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Like her fellow countryman, George Bernard Shaw, she believes in the power of art to see your soul, and transform the world. Dorothy received her Bachelor of Music degree in Composition and Trombone Performance from Queens University Belfast, Master of Music degree in Trombone Performance from the University of Michigan and her PhD in Composition from the University of Salford. Her principal composition teachers were Kevin Volans, George Wilson, Joseph Turrin and Peter Graham.

Hope - Brass Band

Dorothy Gates Composer

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