EIF: Brass Fanfare: A Tribute to John Wallace
Usher Hall 13/8/26
Players from The Wallace Collection, The Cooperation Band, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, RCS Junior Conservatoire, St Andrews Music Participation (StAMP)
Clark Rundell conductor
The stage gleams with more brass instruments than I can name, as Nicola Benedetti pays her own tribute to John Wallace, trumpeter, composer, teacher and friend. The massed instrumentalists of all ages play Wallace's short arrangement of Bendinelli's1664 sonata.
The 15 players of the Cooperation Band, in their uniforms, take their places to honour Wallace the composer in two movements of his 2024 Symphony. Fifty years in the making, it was completed after the death of his father. Despite their playful titles, 'Methilhill Scherzo' and 'Dunsire Street Rag' are serious pieces of contemporary music, very much oriented towards the virtuosic requirements of top level brass band competition. Percussionists from band and the Scottish Orchestras provide imaginative accompaniment. There are many variations in moods and styles, with the more lyrical sections featuring muted instruments – a grand sight when looking at tubas. The final coda recalls the Baroque opener in its counterpoint. A challenging work in many ways, it was part of the programme which John Wallace chose for this event before he died.
The players from the Scottish orchestras and the Wallace Collection who've been listening avidly in the choir stalls, swap over and take the stage for Howarth's 1977 arrangement of Mussorgsky's 1874 'Pictures at an Exhibition'. Clark Rundell is again the cool - headed conductor of the 14-string brass ensemble, including weill kent faces such as SCO's trumpeter Peter Franks and RSNO trombonist Davur Juul Magnussen. Howarth's brass version retains the many dramas of the original as well as its lighter moments. The scherzino 'Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks' includes delightful chirps and twiddles. The lesser known section 'Two Jewish People, Rich and Poor' has a nice klezmer feel and there are beautiful muted effects and trilled harmonies in the con lamento 'With the Dead in a Dead language'. The Great Gate of Kiev retains its usual majesty with such splendour that I was sure the organ was playing.
Before the grand finale, John Wallace's son, Cosmo, tells us that his father, “despite working almost as hard as Nicola Benedetti” had doubts about his work and legacy, and would be delighted with tonight's tribute. “Music,” Cosmo says, ”like life and love carries on.” Brass players and drummers from Edinburgh's Oi Musica, and Fife's StAMP, some astonishingly young, with two of their conductors, join the other players for 'Lament, Hope and Stomp', five minutes of joyous music-making. On stage are Alistair Mackie and Gavin Reid, chief executives of the RSNO and SCO respectively, both lapsed brass players, who have taken up their instruments again tonight. At the front of the stage, shakers in hand, SCO percussionist Louise Lewis Goodwin dances next to a small blond boy trombonist, so completely intent on playing his instrument (taller than him) that his feet are rooted to the spot...
Somehow we can believe that future of music and musical education in Scotland is assured.
