Why wind bands aren't just hot air

If you don't know your brass from your oboe, try this weekend's symphonic band conference in Co Kerry, writes Michael Dervan

'The brass band," explains veteran wind guru and activist Tim Reynish, "came in in the 1850s. The wind band in England was introduced in the 1820s, in the factories and the mines, as a way of keeping the workers quiet. If they were playing instruments, they couldn't be asking questions about their working conditions. Contests began, and then in 1853 a band called the Mossley Temperance Band very unfairly put out an entire brass instrumentation, with conical instruments invented by Adolphe Sax [ the man who also invented and gave his name to the saxophone].

"These instruments play in tune and they play together and they make a nice sound, much more easily than other instruments. If you imagine you're working in a pit, and your hands are bashed around, and you're hewing coal, it's quite difficult to play an oboe or a clarinet, but relatively easy to play a euphonium or trombone." One has just three keys, the other none at all. "Mossley Temperance Band swept the board. Within five or 10 years, most of the top wind bands in England had turned into brass bands."

Reynish is in the middle of rehearsals with the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble in Glasgow, ahead of its performance at the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (Wasbe) conference, which is rolling into the National Events Centre in Killarney, Co Kerry this weekend. This international event will bring an influx of bands from around the world for concerts, research sessions, a free fringe festival and a trade show.

When most people think of wind bands, they don't actually think of anything involving the word symphonic - they think of brass and military bands. But symphonic bands and ensembles are a subculture within the world of classical music, and, as the word band suggests, we're talking exclusively about wind instruments. I asked Reynish about what actually defines a "symphonic band" and a "symphonic ensemble".

"If you go back 200 years to 1800 or so, you'll find the little wind ensembles that Mozart and Beethoven wrote octets for, often known by their German name, Harmoniemusik," he says. "Suddenly these broke into the huge bands of the French Revolution, which were really the basis of the symphonic wind bands of the 19th century. They were basically military, and they played arrangements of symphonic music.

"That went all the way through up until 1950. The big bands in America were 120 strong. That was the norm. Nowadays in Paris, in Brussels, you have bands with 12 first clarinets, 12 second clarinets, 12 third clarinets, and multi-flutes, multi-trumpets, 96 or 100 players. The symphonic wind band can sound wonderful, and very exciting."

The wind ensemble is an entirely different matter. "That was created in 1952 by Frederick Fennell, at the Eastman School of Music, and it plays basically one musician to a part. For the first time, composers knew what they were writing for. They would write for 45 players and they knew they would have 45 players, instead of writing for 45 and having 120." The result, says Reynish, is the creation of a new, "more refined" repertoire over the last half century.

The brass band, as mentioned earlier, proved more popular than the earlier wind bands, thanks in part to the army. "The military band had gone on throughout the British Empire, mainly for ceremonial purposes, and it has an emphasis on bugles and drums. They usually have a full complement of instruments, but not too many oboes, and usually only a couple of saxophones. They play for marching and also for entertainment."

Here Reynish gets on to one of his hobby horses. "One of the big problems is that the 'musical profession' thinks of the wind band as being simply for entertainment or ceremony or education. It doesn't really understand its potential, which Percy Grainger was convinced about back in the early part of the last century, and I'm convinced about, and I hope you are, too."

The musical profession's attitude, of course, is not without foundation, because very few symphonic bands are actually full-time, professional institutions on the lines of a symphony orchestra. And that also limits the attraction for the major conductors of the day.

"There are professional bands," says Reynish. "There's one in Tokyo, called the Kosei, there are two or three in Scandinavia, and two or three in South America. And some of the military bands play 'art music' at a very high level, like the Marines in Washington, which is I think really the Vienna Philharmonic of the wind-band world. They play very taxing repertoire in a wonderfully cultured, refined way.

"It's very exciting that at Wasbe in Killarney we have Gerhard Markson conducting the International Youth Wind Orchestra. He will bring all his years of experience working with professional players and really up the ante with their style and refinement of playing. That's a great step forward."

Reynish highlights a number of concerts that are taking place during the Wasbe conference. "The Chetham's School of Music Chamber Choir and Wind Orchestra are doing a great choral piece by Joseph Phibbs called Rainland [ on July 11th at 8pm]. I think Gerhard Markson's International Youth Wind Orchestra [ July 14th, 2.45pm] will be very exciting also. It's very interesting to have players from different countries, playing in different styles, with different sounds. The Shostakovich evening [ on July 12th] should be very exciting. And, of course, there's the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble [ Sunday, 3.30pm] which everyone Irish should want to hear."

REYNISH, HIMSELF ORIGINALLY a horn player with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, is attracted by the challenges of working with symphonic bands and ensembles. "You're working with new repertoire, and there's no hiding place, you don't have a cloud of strings covering any problems of ensemble or intonation," says Reynish. "There's also a stamina problem, because a wind player or a brass player is going to be playing throughout an entire concert, exposed rather than, again, hiding behind the strings or taking it easy for eight bars here and 12 bars there."

His major source of excitement, however, is the repertoire itself, finding music "which gives the players and the audience the emotional impact that they're going to get from a Tchaikovsky night, or Dvorák or Elgar".

Reynish has been involved in the commissioning of 60 or 70 works over the past 20 years or so, over a third of them in the past five years, in a project commemorating one of his sons, William, who died in the Pyrenees in 2001.

He mentions a major might-have-been at the beginning of the 20th century, when the great British conductor Thomas Beecham was interested in setting up a wind band. But then, jokes Reynish, "he got in with a bad lot, with Diaghilev, and with Strauss operas," and when his career took off like that, he never looked back. Simon Rattle, however, is on the case, and has commissioned works from leading Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg, and the stylistically all-embracing German, Heiner Goebbels. Michael Tilson Thomas has also shown an interest, and the potential for linkups with the world of jazz are obvious.

On the one hand, the absence of a significant repertoire stretching back through the centuries is obviously a drawback. On the other hand, it's an advantage. "We're into a kind of postmodernism. We can reach out. It's a broad spectrum. Having 45 solo players offers a brilliant range of colour, which I think is attractive for any untutored ear."

The Wasbe conference runs from Sun, July 8 to Sat, July 14 and will feature bands, ensembles and choirs from Ireland, Britain, the US, Norway, Sweden, Japan, The Netherlands and Switzerland. Details at www.wasbe2007.com