WELSH GUARDS’ BAND

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4190, 29 May 1939, Page 8

WELSH GUARDS’ BAND

40 MILITARY MUSICIANS FOR DOMINION. TO PLAY AT CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. Under the command of Lieutenant T. S. Chandler, L.R.A.M., A.R.C.M., P.S.M., 40 members of the Welsh Guards’ Band will reach Wellington by the Rangitiki on October 18. The band, which has been engaged to play at the Centennial Exhibition, will be away from England for nearly nine months, one of the longest periods that any British band has been away from its regiment. All members of the band, which is one of the first five military bands of the British Army, are picked men. Some of them have been trained at the Royal College of Music, others have been selected from the best line regiments and many have passed through the Military School of Music, according to an air mail message. THE BANDMASTER. Lieutenant Chandler has not been to New Zealand before, but he has a link with the Dominion in that his brother-in-law, Major Harold Gooch, superintended the electrification of the Otira Tunnel. Lieutenant Chandler is regarded as one of the outstanding military directors of music in the British Army. He comes of a musical family, for his father was bandmaster of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment, now disbanded, and his mother was a wellknown amateur singer.

As a boy Lieutenant Chandler was a solo chorister first at St. Stephen’s Hounslow, and then for five years at King Edward’s School in Surrey. While at school, he was trained by Mr Claude Hill, an Oxford 8.A., who taught him musical theory and gave him a thorough grounding in the use of the clarinet arid the violin. Shortly after leaving school Lieutenant Chandler joined the 87th Irish Fusiliers, which won the last Army band contest, held in 1906. While serving m this regiment he was wounded at Armentieres. After the war he studied at the Military School of Music, and was appointed bandmaster of the King’s Own Royal Regiment, which on one occasion, so pleased the Duke of Windsor, then Prince of Wales, that he congratulated Lieutenant Chandler on its excellence. Lieutenant Chandler held this position as bandmaster for 16 years, till in 1935 he was specially selected to take charge of the band of the Royal Tank Corps. After holding this position for two years he was appointed to succeed Major Andrew Harris in charge of the Welsh Guards’ Band.

HISTORY OF BAND. The Welsh Guards’ Band is the “youngest” of the famous five regimentals, the others being the Grenadiers, the Coldstream, the Scots, and the Irish Guards. It was in 1915, by order of the King, that the Regiment of Welsh Guards was formed, and in a few months it had taken its place in the Guards’ Division in France. On September 8, 1915, Major Andrew Harris, M.V.0., L.R.A.M., was appointed director of music by the King, and ordered to form the band.

The first performance in public was at a Welsh patriotic meeting, at the London Opera House, on March 1, 1916 (St. David’s Day). Since then it has taken its place with the leading British military bands, serving with the Guard’s Division in France, and performing in Parish, Rome, Milan, and Florence, in addition to Great Britain. Outstanding events, in the band’s history are concerts given in the Trocadero and the Tuileries, Paris, in May, 1917 (with the massed bands of the Brigade of Guards), to assist French charities, and the visit of the Allied Bands to Italy in February, 1918. During the band’s visit to Italy each member was presented by the Queen of Italy with a silver cigarette case. In May, 1918, at the request of the American Embassy, the band played at the memorial service in Paris, and in July, 1919, it was again detailed for duty in Paris, on the occasion of the great French Victory March, when it played the Colours of the British Army through the Arc de Triomphe. A HIGH AWARD. Military bands are not now permitted to enter the various annual band competitions; instead they are inspected by the Military School of Music, which has six “rankings” to award. “Outstanding” is the highest comment it can make, and this was recently awarded to the Welsh Guards’ Band. The personnel chosen to play in New Zealand will comprise 12 clarinets, six cornets, four horns, four trombones, four tubas, three euphoniums, two flutes, two oboes, two drums, and one bassoon. The 12 clarinet players will also play the violin or the saxophone when required. One of the men, Musician A. Bristol, is also an excellent pianist, and Musician Tudor Evans is a fine baritone. Many members of the band play privately in first-class orchestras and dance bands, and Corporal Cooper, one of the leading military cornetists, is frequently engaged by Bobby Howes, the well-known comedian. It is not too much to say that the band will be able to play any item that anyone in New Zealand may request of it.

The average age of the men is about 32, the youngest being 24 and the eldest 42. Many of them have seen experience in various parts of the world with, their regiments, and some served in France during the Great War. Lieutenant Chandler, for instance, has also served in India and Burma. The majority of the men are married, but they will not be accompanied by their wives during their stay in New Zealand. Though they belong to the Welsh Guards, the men do not necessarily come from Wales, and all parts of Great Britain are represented.