As Above, So Below (album) [audio download]

Description

(album) [mp3 audio download]  The two works on this recording are groundbreaking landmarks in new composition for brass band. From 2017, Jay Capperauld’s visionary masterpiece – As Above, So Below – extends composition for brass band into the realms of spatial quasi-religious experience. With the quintet elevated and spaced around the band, the band responds with a new vista of sound: everything from spoken and whispered distant murmurings to cataclysmic rending of the air.  From 1975, the Derek Bourgeois Concerto for Brass Quintet and Brass Band introduces a concertante quintet of orchestral instruments into the brass band milieu. Derek’s masterly exploitation of the increased palette of colour and texture results in a work of towering power and passion.

TRACKLIST:

1. As Above, So Below (20:52)

Concerto for Brass Quintet and Brass Band:

2. i. Allegro energico (04:44)

3. ii. Adagio (06:55)

4. iii. Allegro Vivace (06:11)

PROGRAMME NOTES:

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
Jay Capperauld (composer) | The Wallace Collection | The cooperation band | Bede Williams (conductor)

introduction by John Wallace

With the quintet elevated and spaced around the band, the band responds with a new vista of sound: everything from distant murmurings to cataclysmic rending of the air.  As well as playing the players speak, shout, verbalise.

Jay worked closely with us both in first performance, with the Dalmellington Band at the Cumnock Tryst in 2017 commissioned by Sir James Macmillan, and with a subsequent performance with the Cory Band in Cardiff.  This performance and recording took place with The cooperation band in early 2024, in a special concert in the wonderful acoustic of the Govan and Linthouse Parish Church, Glasgow, promoted by Paul MacAlindin and the Glasgow Barons.

programme notes by Jay Capperauld

Based on the Hermetic maxim “As Above, So Below”, the phrase comes from the cryptic text of The Emerald Tablet, which was purportedly written by a mysterious character who is thought of as an amalgamation of Greek and Egyptian Gods, Hermes Trismegistus.  The text first appears in Arabic between the 6th and 8th Centuries and is intended to outline the primitive and hidden sources that constitute the basis of all matter in the universe.  The phrase “As Above, So Below” implies an essential “oneness” of all matter and a correlation between the physical elements and supernatural entities that make up our surroundings. The philosophies expressed within The Emerald Tablet have become a founding principle of Alchemy, Occultism, Witchcraft, Theosophy and various other ancient gnostic systems of belief, and this work attempts to explore these forms of so-called “secret knowledge” in a ritualistic trance-like Adagio steeped in the esoteric. 

The Brass Band is placed at the centre of the stage while the solo Brass Quintet are spread antiphonally around the concert hall and are placed above both the Brass Band and the audience in an attempt to create a direct dialogue between the Above and the Below.  Therefore, the piece endeavours to explore the meaning behind the text of The Emerald Tablet as well as the phrase ‘As Above, So Below’ in a music context while giving particular attention to the ‘SOLVE’ (Latin for ‘Separate’ which correlates to the Above) and ‘COAGLUA’ (Latin for ‘Join Together’ which relates to the Below) that is depicted in the image of the Baphomet by the French occultist author, Eliphas Levi, which is a visual representation of the phrase ‘As Above, So Below’.   

The Emerald Tablet Text
By Hermes Trismegistus
(translated by Georg Beatus and found in the Theatrum Checicum Vol.IV of 1613 in the Aureliae Occultae Philosophorum) 

1. This is true and remote from all cover of falsehood 
2. Whatever is below is similar to that which is above.  Through this the marvels of the work of one thing are produced and perfected.
3. Also, as all things are made from one, by the consideration of one, so all things were made from this one, by conjunction. 
4. The father of it is the Sun, the mother the moon.  The wind bore it in the womb.  Its nurse is the earth, the mother of all perfection. 
5. Its power is perfected.  If it is turned into earth, 
6. Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle and thin from the crude and coarse, prudently, with modesty and wisdom. 
7. This ascends from the earth into the sky and again descends from the sky to the earth, and receives the power and efficacy of things above and of things below. 
8. By this means you will acquire the glory of the whole world, 
9. And so you will drive away all shadows and blindness. 
10. For this by its fortitude snatches the palm from all other fortitude and power.  For it is able to penetrate and subdue everything subtle and everything crude and hard. 
11. By this means the world was founded. 
12. And hence the marvelous conjunctions of it and admirable effects, since this is the way by which these marvels may be brought about. 
13. And because of this they have called me Hermes Trismegistus since I have the three parts of wisdom and philosophy of the whole universe. 
14. My speech is finished which I have spoken concerning the solar work. 

Instrumentation:

Brass Band:
Soprano Cornet
4 x Solo Cornets in Bb
Repiano Cornet in Bb
2 x 2nd Cornets in Bb
2 x 3rd Cornets in Bb
Flugel in Bb
3 x Horns in Eb
2 x Baritones in Bb
2 x Trombones in Bb
Bass Trombone in C
2 x Euphoniums in Bb
2 x Basses in Eb
2 x Basses in Bb
Timpani
Percussion 1: Gong Ageng, *Tam-tam (with normal stick and metallic Tri-angle beater), Drum Set (4 Tom-toms, Snare Drum, Kick Pedal Bass Drum, Hi-Hat, Crash Cymbal, Ride Cymbal and Wind Chimes)
Percussion 2: Bass Drum dampened with blanket (with two sticks)
Percussion 3: Tam-tam (with normal stick and metallic Tri-angle beater), Whip, Chains (to be rustled and rattled in mid-air), Shekere, Tubular Bells

Quintet:
Trumpet 1 in Bb, doubling Handbells (C7 & B5)
Trumpet 2 in Bb, doubling Handbells (Bb5 & A4)
Horn in F, doubling Handbells (Ab4 & G4)
Trombone, doubling Handbells (C5 & B4)
Tuba, doubling Handbells (Bb5)

CONCERTO FOR BRASS QUINTET AND BRASS BAND
Derek Bourgeois | The Wallace Collection | The Cooperation Band | Bede Williams (conductor)

by John Wallace

From 1975, the Derek Bourgeois Concerto introduces a concertante quintet of orchestral instruments into the brass band milieu. Derek’s masterly exploitation of the increased palette of colour and texture results in a work of towering power and passion. It is in three compact movements which run breathlessly into one another. The Wallace Collection worked closely with Derek Bourgeois on a version for Brass Quintet and Orchestra, which they performed with the Odessa Philharmonic and Hobart Earle in the Odessa Opera House in 2000. The concert was in February, and on the platform of Odessa railway station from which the night train to Kyiv was to depart for our next destination, the orchestra turned up as if out of nowhere, to play us a Dixieland  encore to match the third movement’s rumba, as snow fell on the shoulders of the greatcoats of the tall surrounding Ukrainian soldiers. We all joined in an impromptu dance. A memorable scene in fitting with some of the Cold War ‘John le Carré’ influences in Bourgeois’s music.

The concerto was originally written for Brass Quintet alone in 1972, and was tried out by the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. Alas, in this version, it proved too difficult and tiring even for them, so Derek recast it as a Concerto for Brass Quintet and Brass Band. This new version was first performed in a broadcast in 1982 by the Sun Life Band conducted by the composer himself.