Brass BAnd: Hymn to the Highlands

[Alan H]

Maybe some of you know that there's a tradition of Brass Bands in the UK. These bands had equivalents in the USA through the late 1800's and then the genre sort of died out, here. The Balkan countries have a similar tradition and so does Germany.

For those who are interested, there's a lovely, somewhat cute, but with a real edge to it...."Brass Band Movie" called "Brassed Off" which you can view on YouTube as it was never, to put it mildly... a blockbuster hit. Well, you can view a large quanitity of the musical numbers anyway.

I'd been interested in Brass Bands, the UK version for several years, so you can imagine how excited I was to come across one in Callender, last summer on our trip to Scotland. I got to sit in with the band, playing alto horn for half their concert in the park and I loved..loved it. Now I want to own an alto horn!

Well, it so happens that a fellow by the name of Philip Sparke has written an extended Suite for Brass Band called "Hymn to the Highlands". I happen to really love the piece "Flowerdale", a solo for soprano cornet.

Here are some YouTube links to the individual pieces. This would be very difficult for a High School brass section to play, not because the music is terribly hard, but because the instruments are hard to find in the USA. The Alto Horn parts could be played on French Horn, which would help.

Flowerdale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpWPck3gZxU

Ardross Castle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS3tLYURi_I

Strathcarron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFQ3g_DMPC4

Dundonnell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56UuL6dvsaw