Edward Gregson has just returned from three days at the Royal College of Music in London, where he conducted a concert in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall of his music with the RCM Brass Ensemble. The two major works were his Symphony in two movements and Music of the Angels, both scored for a large brass and percussion ensemble. The concert was well received by a large and appreciative audience. Here is an extract from a review on the 4barsrest website:
Britten famously said that he never wrote a piece for trumpet player Philip Jones because ‘…he couldn’t hear the sounds of brass in his head’. Had he been here for this concert he might, like Tippett, have been more inspired to write for the medium. The imposing ‘Music of the Angels’, adapted from his original brass band composition ‘The Trumpets of the Angels’, commissioned by Foden’s Band in 2000, provided a fine climax to the concert. Its starting point comes from a quotation from the Book of Revelation: “…and I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.” Each delivers with imposing Biblical authority – the last an apocalyptic four note motif climax spanning three octaves to herald the end of time. The demands were well met, with lyrical contributions from flugel horn and euphonium leading to Andrew Crowley delivering the seventh trumpet call from the balcony behind the audience with omnipotent certainty.