Brass bands strike a different note

Three research projects reveal the many roles music can play

THE popular perception of the industrial-age community brass band as an undisciplined gaggle of working-class amateurs is a myth, according to research from the Open University.

Trevor Herbert, of the university's music department, has uncovered and resurrected the 100-year-old manuscripts of a Victorian ironworks band from Merthyr Tydfil.

They challenge the way community brass bands are thought of and have been portrayed in films such as Brassed Off.

The Cyfarthfa Band, formed at Cyfarthfa Ironworks in Merthyr in 1836 by Welsh ironwork magnate Robert Thompson Crawshay, played music demanding a level of virtuosity barely achievable today.

"Brass band meetings from the 19th and early 20th century, when they had their heyday, are often seen as places where people just turned up to have a good time," Dr Herbert said. "But it is clear that brass bands were extremely ambitious, always very disciplined. It is clear from the music I have found that it could only have been played by very serious musicians."

He has gathered musicians to record the uncovered works for a compact disc titled The Origin of the Species.

"Performing from the original manuscripts really unlocks the sound," he said. "Things started to become clear. The music was written by the bandmaster especially for the band, so you get a good idea how good they were. He would not have written music that was beyond the ability of his musicians."

Dr Herbert, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments, has plotted how brass bands became a part of working-class life and "galvanised working communities".

He said the brass band culture began as a leisure pursuit of the rich, who sought to engage workers in a "wholesome but reasonably docile" activity. But as instruments became cheaper and urbanisation increased, workers "hijacked" brass playing for themselves.

"It's helped untangle the heritage myth," Dr Herbert said. "By the 1870s, hundreds of working-class men were virtuosos. Most great brass players have their origins in the working-class brass band culture. The legacy has even informed modern, mainstream orchestral music."