Landscapes is a work structured around two main ideas. On the one hand, the music freely paints some of the superb landscapes I’ve seen during several of my trips around the world.

Brass Cinema is a work containing many extremely descriptive melodies and atmospheres, inspired by the fascinating world of film music. It was commissioned by the Swiss Brass Band 13 Etoiles to celebrate their 30th anniversary and is a cinematic masterpiece that will be loved by both performers and audience alike.

This composition by Bertrand Moren presents various dreams which could have an effect on a dreamer’s life. Its very high level of difficulty provides a great challenge for the conductor and musicians.

The “Teufelsbrücke” (devil’s bridge) is a very old bridge connecting the Göschenen and Andermatt valleys in the canton of Uri, central Switzerland. Legend has it that in the 13th century the people of Uri made a pact with the devil to build a bridge across the canyon.

Wounded Knee portrays in musical pictures the tragic events which took place in 1890 when over 300 Indians perished in South Dakota. The work spans a range of aspects from the spiritual beliefs of the Indians to the fate of the North American Indians today.

Test piece 1st Division Brass Band - World Music Contest 2022

The hymn tune on which these variations are based is the third of nine that Thomas Tallis wrote in 1567 as part of a psalter for the first Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker. It was later used by Vaughan Williams in the English Hymnal and as the basis for his Fantasia.

Of Men and Mountains was commissioned by the Netherlands Brass Band Championships for their 10th Anniversary Contest, held in Drachten in December 1990.

The title of the work and its genesis came about as a result of a train journey the composer took in July 1989 across Canada from Toronto to Vancouver. The awe-inspiring journey through the Rocky Mountains, with its high peaks and shafts of sunlight breaking through the clouds, with its canyons and ferocious rapids, made the composer understand a little more about the majesty of nature and the fragility of humanity. The eternal struggle between man and nature was personified in the building of this incredible railway, hence the title (after Blake).

The work is dedicated to the memory of Eric Ball, who died shortly before the writing of the work was commenced.

Of Men and Mountains is in one continuous movement and lasts about 17 mins. Its form is difficult to describe because of its motivic and accumulative nature, but it is essentially a symphonic tone poem in search of a theme, which eventually comes in its final and complete state in the majestic ending after an ever-increasing paced scherzo.

Commissioned by the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain and first performed in 1990, a revised contest version was subsequently used as the set-work for the 1992 National Championships of Great Britain. It has since become one of Philip Wilby's most revered compositions and has been performed throughout the contesting world. Although initially inspired by a quotation from the Revelation of St John — "And I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth; for the first Heaven and the first Earth were passed away….", in the composer's mind it subsequently took on an almost allegorical dimension — much like Eric Ball's 'Journey into Freedom'. Revised against a backdrop of huge political change following the demise of the Soviet Union and the domino effect of collapse that occurred throughout former Eastern Block communist countries, for Wilby it came to represent "the triumph of the human spirit over oppression". As he himself wrote: "For a moment, the prophecy of St John's Revelation was suddenly highlighted in a new and quite unexpected way. The off-stage fanfares*, the turbulent nature of a large proportion of the band music and above all, the piece's life affirming end may all be seen as an optimistic vision of that social and religious rebirth".