Sweet Songs of Zion
Anyone who watched the Olympics couldn’t fail to notice how potent the music turned out to be. National Anthems abounded and became absolutely emblematic, the musical equivalent of the team colours or the national flags. Hearing your own anthem accompanying worldwide success in sport is certainly a musical moment that unites all members of ‘the tribe’. Just like joining those massed voices at the ‘Last Night of the Proms’, these are proud national moments, and I’m sure that we have all enjoyed the stirring strains of ‘God save the Queen’ or ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ over the last few weeks. Triumph has its downside, however. Hearing the anthem of a rival never sounds as sweet. Those who equate the words ‘Wider still, and wider let thy bounds be set’ with Victorian Imperialism will find even this wonderful music becomes stale and sour. Irrespective of the composer’s invention, or the excellence of the performance, music has power to unite and divide in equal measure.
Why is it then that the hymn tradition of the British brass band is so deeply embedded into Western European consciousness? From the world’s greatest bands to the most modest community groups, all public ceremonies still enjoy close links to the band movement. From the solemnity of Remembrance Day, to those uplifting TV spectaculars such as ‘Songs of Praise’, at home and abroad, the ‘Brass Band + Hymns for the people’ combination still finds a warm place close to the nation’s heart.
Salvationist bands have earned our gratitude here for a huge amount of selfless work over many years. However, community and contesting bands have played their part also, and the summer months have thrown up some wonderful illustrations of this tradition at its best. Our ‘Cathedral Brass’ CD is still one of our best selling items.
Black Dyke visited Bristol Cathedral at the invitation of Canon Wendy Wilby in early July. The Saturday concert was wonderful as always, impeccable in both musical performance as in cut-glass choreography. The capacity audience were rightly astonished by those professional standards that we old-time Pondashers so easily take for granted. Including Elgar’s Severn Suite, Saint-Saens’ Organ Symphony and Wagner’s Procession to the Minster, it exploited all musical possibilities to perfection.
Although there is a strong Salvationist tradition in Bristol and the South-West, being the home town of both Eric Ball, and Ray Steadman Allen, (also of Nipper the HMV dog by the way!) the local bandsmen still regard the North of England as the heartland of banding. In the audience were the two Bristol City Trumpeters, Arthur and Norman Golding, and they were thrilled to meet Prof. Childs in the interval.
However, the icing on the cake for all in Bristol came on the following morning. Prof. Childs had announced at the concert that the band would also take part in the Sunday morning service, and once again the building was full to bursting with local enthusiasts. There were two choirs on that day. The Bristol Cathedral Choir was joined by the choir from Sydney Cathedral in Australia, and they began the service in stately fashion with organ accompaniment. However, when the band appeared at the halfway point, they simply raised the worship to previously unattainable heights. A sequence of great hymn arrangements began, starting with ‘Guide me, Oh Thou Great Redeemer’, introduced by an off-stage fanfare that would have been clearly heard in South Wales. Communion was accompanied by Bach’s ‘Air on the G String’, Hyfrydol rolled in like an ocean wave, and the last hymn, complete with three fanfare groups surrounding an amazed Mark Lee, director of cathedral music, was ‘Thine be the Glory’. To seal the deal, the band accompanied the choir out with one of the world’s most famous pieces of organ music, Widor’s ‘Toccata.’ There were two choirs, 3 organists, and four conductors…… but only ONE BAND!
It was indeed a proud moment, and one that has earned us many new friends.
Thirty years ago, the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, made his last broadcasts. Entitled ‘Sweet Songs of Zion’, he spoke these last words on BBC Radio Four in 1975.
‘Hymns are the poems of the people. From ‘Abide with me’ to ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, they provide us with memories of happier, more devout days of Sunday School and school assemblies, of weddings and funerals. They’ve given phrases to the language; ‘change and decay’, ‘bright and beautiful’, ‘soft refreshing rain’, ‘all is safely gathered in,’ ‘meek and mild’, ‘God moves in a mysterious way’, and dozens of others. Even today, when it is assumed that we’ve all given up religion, millions of people enjoy programmes on the radio and television that consist solely of people singing old familiar tunes. And you can still catch milkmen and bus conductors whistling hymn-tunes (especially if they happen to be West Indians).
