I came across this little march back in about 2019 on a trip to the British Library where a copy of it is held in the reference library along with another three pieces published in what appears to be a fairly rare band journal called the “Standard Band Journal”. This is a journal of which…
If I were to exclaim “Eureka!” you’d be forgiven for thinking I’d discovered something – after all it’s an expression probably best associated with Archimedes discovery that if he plopped himself in a bath tub filled to the brim with water then, lo and behold, all of the water that spilled over the side would…
In my last blog post I explained how as the banding community is currently stood down whilst the virus pandemic has created mayhem I had looked to other ways to explore the sheet music in our collection and, on the advice of Mr Tim, our local music shop owner, turned to music software for help…
There can be no doubt that these are unprecedented times for us all, wherever we happen to be. The breakout of a global pandemic has wreaked havoc on our day to day lives and brought suffering and uncertainty to so many. As with many countries around the world, the British Government has ordered a lockdown…
For this blog post, as it’s been a while since I’ve posted on any progress, I’ve included a piece of recent correspondence between Ken Irvin of Ashbourne Band (whom I must again thank) and myself, in part because it illustrates one of the challenges we’re having at the moment in understanding George Allan. Why did…
When I think of the Victorian era, which came to a close almost 120 years ago, it’s tempting to consider how our perception of the importance of time has changed. We currently enjoy an era of near instant gratification where much of the information we need can be summoned to our presence within seconds; where…
One of the fantastic things about investigating the lives of Thomas Buch and George Allan is that new mysteries arise almost every week, some of which you think you might be able to trace an answer for and some of which you think you might not. Which category this latest mystery falls into we’re not…
When the group met on Monday and we were discussing the possible reasons why composition titles were chosen one of us, Brian to be precise, tabled a theory that perhaps, with George Allan having worked in railway engineering, some of his composition titles were influenced by the names of locomotives. It’s a very tempting theory.…
Look what flopped onto the doormat today via Pennine Music – only a copy of George Allan’s composition “Phantom”. I’ve been excited about this one coming for a while as I originally ordered it back at the end of last year along with “Ovation” – it’s great to finally see it. I wonder what it…
This week Brian found something interesting which has us scratching our heads. We’ve known for a good while that George Allan composed a march called “Cyclone”, and that he composed other pieces with a ‘wind’ theme such as “The Gale”. We also know that at least one of Thomas Bulch’s compositions, reputedly his first, was…
