Variations on WL…for ‘With Love’ ❤️?
New year, New Sticks
This week was my first week back at the amazing Wingates Band since our Christmas concert series where the band shook off a whirlwind 2025 to end with brassy brilliance to sell out local crowds. Obviously, a positive December is a nice way to round out the year, but it’s also a really good way to put some ‘miles in the legs’ of your prep for the area. That month, plus some brilliant work from the band with our Musical Consultant Captain Andrew Porter meant that, I was really impressed with the results. I often find myself becoming more and more a coiled spring the longer I spend away from a rehearsal, and on this occasion I had double the reason to be excited to finally vault in to action.
New baton makes it’s debut with the first post it note of correction…
A new baton is always a moment of trepidation for any conductor. Especially as, at current, it is impossible to find the trusty ol’faithful cheap ones I like in the UK- something about Brexit and imports… That said, for the last few years I have experimented with differing orders of custom made batons from Pagu Batons in the USA. Through no fault of the maker I have never been 100% sold on each one I designed- some too long, some too light, some too heavy. A veritable Goldilocks of batons which would 100% suit someone, but each time I got one part of the design wrong, for me. Consequently, for the last 2 years or so I’ve conducted with pencils, straws, fingers, paper clips, a battery, ever shortening old batons, the lid of pen- you name it I’ve waved it at bands. So it was with a little trepidation I made an order for one more baton. (ok two… but don’t tell anyone at my bank!). Perhaps the revelation of perfection in this new baton is why, after just one short week, my obsession with love in ‘Was Lebet’ has seen our band manager rename the area test piece ‘Variations on With Love’.
In this context we set off on our journey towards the North West Regional Brass Band Championships in Blackpool in March. All the while asking ourselves the same question that bands-people up and down the land grapple with every January… How, exactly, does one win a brass band contest?
With Gold of obedience…
“O worship the Lord, In the beauty of holiness!
Bow down before Him, His glory proclaim;
With gold of obedience, And incense of lowliness,
Kneel and adore Him: the Lord is His name!”
Andrew Wainwright's Variations on Was Lebet is the piece we, alike all first section bands, will hope to answer that question in performing. First off, a humungous thank you to Kapitol’s Music Selection Panel for introducing this music to us all! (And on a broader note- what a year of good tunes we have!)
As a piece, it follows one of brass banding’s classic test piece tropes- a theme and variations. In this case, the theme is one found on a 1754 manuscript by composer Johan Heinrich Reinhardt, from Uttingen in Bavaria. The most famous word setting of which is ‘O Worship The Lord, in the Beauty of Holiness’. Happily for the time of year at current, this is an epiphany hymn- focusing on the adoration, fear, hope and offering of the magi in the epiphany. It portrays a trust in God. Faith.
In my late night musings and mental wanders I often imagine another reality where religion (or sport/politics etc.) is brass banding. With minor edits of iconography, we could write a bander’s hymn tune something like this… We bring to Blackpool what we believe is our gold of obedience to the score; we deliver it in hope or fear, and we leave it on the stage whilst praying, with a trust in the judges, that it may be deemed enough for salvation at the end of the day.
Therefore, it is at this time of year I always ask myself- what is obedience to the score? Naturally, we hope that our band will play the right notes, in the right place; add in the right length, attack, volume, balance, decay and more. These are the tenets we assume are fixed somewhat by the score. You may also think that in a theme and variations style which is sometimes ‘academic’ this may be doubly true.
However, I have more than ever before found myself in WL discovering that the black and white on the page only goes half way to realising the potential soul of a piece of music. There are so many articulatory markings, so many layered dynamics, so many small details to nail down you would think that this would be all you would need. However, in some of the recordings I studied of very good performances I found that the music left me cold, when treated in this academic manor.
But… if you live in the character of each variation, if you go beyond what is on the page in notes, if you ask: why is it on the page? How should it be lifted from the page? What does this music mean? Where do we want the vib to go? What is this cadence saying? Well then, this music is a beautiful little gem. I wasn’t expecting this piece to take me from Bach sensibilities to Sondheim waltzing with Ravel in a Parisian cafe; via Bernstein chasing across New York; Gregson on a sleigh ride; Bavarian organs; and at it’s heart a stunningly beautiful, sometimes fearful, but always adoring, love letter to faith. If we can bring any and or all of this to our performance… That’s my personal gold of obedience to Andrew Wainwright’s clarity rich black and white score, and after that I’ll accept any judgement upon us.
I appreciate I’m treading a fine line here of sounding holier than thou in lots of above. I promise, that is NOT my intention at all (I’ll remind anyone reading that this is just my place to ramble and the readable public element gives me motivation to write fluff)- I realise that unless any band can do the first bit, the second bit is an irrelevance on a contesting stage. I hope for every area’s audiences sake that across the UK many, many bands find that ‘Was lebet was schwebet’ and our judges across the land are moved by the efforts of all to keep contesting alive and flying.
A Preview, you say? My what fun….
That said, I’ll refrain from any more detailed explanation until after our performance because ‘banding innit’. We will appear in a preview though so be there if you want!
Good luck y’all!
(Did you spot that this was just a long winded ploy to advertise coming seeing my band?)
