GRENADIER GUARDS BAND

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21355, 24 December 1934, Page 11

GRENADIER GUARDS BAND

CHRISTCHURCH SEASON On Wednesday afternoon next, at 2.30, and oil Wednesday night at 8 o'clock, J. and N. Tait will give the people of Christchurch their first opportunity to enjoy the world-famous Grenadier Guards Band, which is being presented by the special permission of his Majesty the King. The opening programme is the grand gala one in 1 which they made their initial appear- '■ ances in Auckland and Wellington, i where in each city they created a posi- • tive sensation. The band will also appear on Thursday, Friday, Satur- ' day, and Monday nights, December ' 27, 28, 29, and 31, and the final matinee will happen on Saturday next. Monday being a holiday, the' box plans , will be on view at the Theatre Royal on that day. To-day seats may be selected at the D.1.C., The director of the music is Major ■ Miller, M.8.E., whose name is a household word in the musical and band world of England. The Band of the Grenadier Guards, it is said, grips the eye as well as the ear. To every audience is given colour visual as well as aural. A listener is in spite of himself gripped as much by the rich scarlet and gold as by the splendid tone colour of the band. A man may play an instrument splendidly, dressed in a sombre dress suit—put him into the red and gold and he becomes a new creature—a figure of history and tradition. His little sword or cuff patches may not bring a better note tone from the instrument, but they are a tonic for the imagination; an enemy of drabness and ordinary affairs. Australia, like London, took the Grenadiers to its heart. The specialised training of the Guards musicians has the nafural result of magnificent attack without loss of tone or feeling. It is, it is said, an education for bandsmen to watch the various players in the Grenadier Guards Band. A trombone player has a few bars to play in 50 bars. He is there on the second with the full, unforgettable trombone richness playing its part in the ensemble. "The brass," wrote a Sydney critic, "is splendid: the work of the French horns and euphoniums and tuba has never been eciualled in Australia, and the wood wind is perfect. In the vivid arrangement of the Liszt Second Hungarian Rhapsody the full tone pro« dueed was like that of a giant orches-

tral combination." Major Miller is said to be a forceful, unassuming conductor. He has no disconcerting his-' trionics. and he gets from the score every necessary note. The splendour of flashing scarlet and gold, together with the impressive dignity of the bearskins, created by j his Majesty's Grenadier Guards Band' as they parade through the streets adds something to the life of a city. Traditions, memories, and heroic I i deeds in battles seem to encircle that . single Grenadier Guard as he stands to attention with all his buttons gleaming in the sunlight and his bearskin i balanced with wonderful equilibrium ■ on his head. , One hundred and nineteen years ago , we stand on the field of Waterloo look--1 ing over the country to the right—to the dim expanse of a hazy past, and just through the mists, again a figure breaks, followed by the footguard of his Majesty's soldiers. There the bright colouring of tunics was no less distinctive than in our guards today. But on their heads they wore the featured shako, more or less cylindrical in shape, with peak and upright plume. After that memorable Waterloo the soldiers adopted the bearskins through the French Grenadiers. This type of regimental headgear is to be distinguished from the busbies of the Coldstream Guards in that they are twice as his*h and wear the white plume on the leftside, whereas the latter wear theirs on the right. Right un till the Crimean War the troops fought in full regimental clothes. This was discarded later. A PARADE CANCELLED Mr H. Gladstone Hill, conductor of Derry's Military Band, advises that Mr Claude Kingston, concert director of the Grenadier Guards Band, telephoned to him from Wellington on Saturday evening, with a request from Major G. Miller to cancel the parade with Derry's Military Band on Boxing Day. Mr Kingston said that the tour of New Zealand had proved more strenuous than was anticipated, and that the Guardsmen were thoroughly tired and would appreciate a morning's rest on : arrival. Accordingly, Mr Hill has i cancelled the parade. <