Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 31, 1995 TAG: 9504060008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Look again.
These days Gingrich is brandishing historian Gertrude Himmelfarb's "The Demoralization of Society" in his well-publicized campaign to revive the Victorian concept of shame as a social force. By a strange historical coincidence, the Army Brass Band owes its existence to precisely those social and moral attitudes that Gingrich wants to rekindle.
The group, which plays a free concert Monday night at 8 in Roanoke College's Antrim Chapel, is an example of the Victorian-era British brass band, the only musical ensemble ever spawned by a moral crusade.
You may think you've heard band music, but you've probably never heard anything that sounds remotely like a classic British brass band, which is what the Army Brass Band set out to re-create when it formed in 1981. American high school and college bands are modern symphonic bands, with a full complement of reed and woodwind instruments in addition to the brass section.
The British-style brass band, by contrast, contains only brass instruments and percussion - and only a certain kind of brass instrument at that. With the exception of trombones, all the instruments have a conical bore, giving them a distinctive dark, mellow tone that's worlds away from the bright, hard-edged sound of cylindrical bore instruments.
"The sections are divided up so you've got B-flat cornet, E-flat cornet, flugelhorn, baritone and euphonium, plus alto horns instead of french horns," said Army Brass Band cornet soloist Henry Sgrecci. There are no trumpets, which are replaced by their slightly smaller and mellower conical-bored cousins, the cornets.
British-style brass band musicians also use an almost continuous vibrato, which further sets off their sound from most English and American professional players. American brass bands, including the U.S. Army Brass Band, use less vibrato than their British counterparts.
If you were quick of eye and ear, you had a chance to briefly hear this kind of band last year in the Christmas scenes of the Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger film, "Shadowlands" But since the '70s there has also been a resurgence of brass band interest in America, with North Carolina as the center of the movement. Raleigh's Triangle Band is one of the finest amateur brass bands in North America.
Sgrecci said the British-style brass band largely owes its existence to Victorian moral attitudes - in particular, the conviction of well-to-do Victorians that drink was the curse of the working classes.
"It was a product of blue-collar folks, factory workers and coal miners. The establishment was looking for a form of recreation in lieu of ..."
Sgrecci paused in search of the right phrase.
"Instead of getting drunk and tearing the place to pieces?" suggested an interviewer.
"Thanks for saying that so I didn't have to," chuckled Sgrecci.
But this high-minded social meddling by Victorian middle-class reformers was a smashing success. Wealthy patrons, frequently factory owners, sponsored bands that were named after their factories or mining operations. British miners and factory workers took to their instruments with a vengeance, frequently becoming as technically proficient as the best professional symphonic players. The best bands today still are associated with factories and mills, such as the Black Dyke Mills Band, Jaguar Cars, Williams Fairey Engineering and Desford Colliery Caterpillar.
Roanoke College music teacher Joseph Blaha, who will solo with the band Monday night, says that brass banding became almost unbelievably important to some factories.
"You couldn't just go to work for the mill. Part of the job description would frequently be something like, `Can you play the E-flat cornet?' " said Blaha.
In the golden age of British brass bands, which lasted from around 1850 to about 1918, the brass band movement produced thousands of bands and scores of phenomenally talented working-class musicians, who enjoyed rock-star-like renown. The star system continues today, with players like the Scotch cornet soloist Phillip McCann enjoying god-like status among bandsmen.
In Britain's more class-conscious society, a taste for brass-band music quickly became a token of working-class status. And what blue-collar folks wanted to hear was mainly waltzes, polkas and quadrilles, as well as florid transcriptions of classical works. Musicologists say the brass band movement was the first instance in world history of working-class people on a wide scale taking part both in playing and listening to art music.
The bandsmen also developed another quirk: a fanatical obsession with competition. Contests remain the cornerstone of the brass band movement today, in America and Australia as well as in England. The U.S. Army Brass Band will compete in the North American Brass Band competition in Toronto later this month, but it's an aspect of banding that some see as detrimental to the making of good music.
"I was at the Royal Albert Hall in London a few years ago for the big competition and had a chance to see the ferocity with which they approach this event, recalled Sgrecci. ``I'll never forget. The manager of the British Leland Band was sitting next to me, and he said, `There's nothing to do with musicianship here - this is all gladiator-jumping.'
"It was vicious. I just wouldn't want to make music that way. It seems counter-productive to everything I've known."
When the Army Brass Band plays at Roanoke College on Monday night, they'll be joined by former Army Band member Joseph Blaha, who now teaches at the college. A trombonist, Blaha will solo in Alexandre Guilmant's showpiece, the "Morceau Symphonique." Staff Sgt. Steve Cramer, a tenor vocalist, will also sing a variety of popular songs.
The concert is free to the public.
The U.S. Army Brass Band: Monday, 8 p.m., Antrim Chapel, Roanoke College. No charge for admission.
by CNB