100th Spring Festival
The Spring Festival featues three tiers of competiton, the Grand Shield, Senior Cup and the Senior Trophy. Unite will be competing in the Senior Trophy competition.
Our test piece for 2022 is Life Divine by Cyril Jenkins.
4barsrest said of the set work when it was announced in October 2019 :
"Written for the 1921 National Championships, 'Life Divine' by Cyril Jenkins was notable not only for its musicality, but also for the severity of its technical challenges — still as testing today as they were almost a century ago.
It was to become Harry Mortimer's favourite test-piece, although he was never as pompous in his thinking as that of the then editor of British Bandsman Herbert Whiteley, who felt the original title, 'A Comedy of Errors' to be inappropriate given its use at Crystal Palace.
Jenkins later amended his preface to suggest that his tone poem reflected, 'certain phases of Life (that) are common to most if not all men' — the work expressing dignity and seriousness to vigorous optimism, elements of stress and the ennoblement of true love.
Whatever his thoughts, 'Life Divine' become a central foundation stone of the test-piece repertoire — its detailed thematic working and florid technical challenges balanced by lyrical interludes and contrapuntal interest, setting the standard for a generation of test-pieces that followed — including many modern programmatic test piece works"
The full article by 4barsrest can be viewed here.
WHEN:
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