Justin Tokke

As I preface all my extended reviews, for the record, I hold no punches, and never sugar coat things. So if there's something wrong, I will tell it to you straight, not bury it in stentiment and wonderful positive thinking. I'll give you both sides, the good and bad. Being from North America, I'm not too familiar with all the brass band traditions. While I know how the instruments work and how their instrumentation and so forth works, I haven't played in one personally, so I can't know if some of my comments will be breaking an untold tradition of the brass band.

Overal remarks:
Overall, it sounded very British. It had that slow-march feel and a great dotted 8th motive that is very characteristic of British marching music. I could imagine a brass band marching along to this or playing it at some convocation, which is good, since that's what you said it's intention was. So you nailed concept (which, IMO, is the trickiest thing to do in composing).

As far as the music itself, it was ok. Good, not great. Your opening motive is a good start, memorable and to the point. Some of the chords clashed and that ruined the opening for me. The worst was m. 12, beat 3. Awful clash in the highest trumpet there. Don't get too caught up on voice leading and paralels. I can tell from your review on my organ piece that you stick to the rules of barouque counterpoint with no parallel 5ths or 8vas. While the rules are valid, this isn't counterpoint here. It's plain old block chords, the typical march style. Now, I agree that voice leading is very important, but the parallels really don't come into play here. It's all about emphazising the tonic of the chord. That's why the brass band is so bass-heavy, to emphasize those fat bass notes.

I thought the tempo was a tad too slow. I tried it by pushing the tempo to 108 and that gave the piece a whole new life! Great excitement was added with only 12 beats per minute difference. Consider that. Key-wise, C major is an interesting choice. It's not dark, but not bright either. I tried moving it up to E-flat and again, a new life! C major is the most overplayed key in the history of keys. Don't join that realm. Keep it in a band they so that the cornets won't kill you. E-flat is unique because it's a flat key yet still very bright because of where the ranges coincide on the instrument. It's a great compromise for bands who need to do all those fanfares and big boomy glorification marches.

The orchestration, overall, was not using the band to it's full potential. The flugelhorn is not another cornet and the trombones are not extra trombones. Each instrument has a very distinct sound that should be exploited. There was also a dispointing lack of percussion. In a march, there should be lots of it! Pull out the snare drums, cymbals, bass drums, tam-tams, and glockenspiels. Go William Walton on it! Look up his "Crown Imperial", a great use of subtle percussion.

Local remarks:
m. 1-4, Timpani too high. Place an octave lower. The flugelhorn would be drowned by the trombone because it's not as powerful an instrument. I would stick it in the solo horn. Also, a bit funky thing is that because it's a G, the tonic of G is estalished. Then at m. 5, the key of C catches the listener off base. Not a good idea to do that. Either make it C, or find some way to make it sound like a dominant. Senza vibrato indication is not necessary. Unless you specifically ask for vibrato, a player won't put any in unless the music calls for it. This section doesn't.
m. 8, Bass note moves too early causing a clash
m. 9, Starting with a sus4 chord seems funny
m 12, clashes in beat 2, change Ab concert to a G, clash in beat 3, change Ab to A, G bass to D
m 13+, all those sfz accents need some sort of percussive accent. I suggest a bass drum on 1st beat, cymbal on accent. Some of your cornet chords don't agree
m 17, again, funky sus4 on beat 1. Why did you suddenly go into minor here? That makes no sense from a listener's point of view
m 21, Yay! The first climax! Mark it with a big cymbal crash.
m 22-23, the dominant 7ths (Gb concert) make no sense here. Perhaps a blue note? If it is, this ain't the place for them. Your still stating the theme here.
m 25+, you have to orchestrate the diminuendo. Drop out instruments gradually. Flugels, while able to use standard trumpet mutes, are very rarely seen with mutes simply because the sound it too quiet and just muffled. Your flugel player won't be heard here. If you really want that muted sound, stick it in the repiano cornet, then it will have a chance at being heard. Also, the glock part is a nice refresher, but it should move with the trumpets at octave, not just doubling their notes in the same octave. Perhaps a vibraphone here too would be effective at giving a little sustainment to the notes.
m 29, the Crescendo isn't necessary. You should stay soft here. If all the low brass are playing whole notes at mp, they'll cover up the soloists. Keep it pp and make the solos mf. The mark tree won't be heard over the timpani roll.
m 30+, nice contrast here. I would use the flugelhorn to it's advantage and put the solo there rather than the 1st cornet. The flugelhorn matches the euphonium better and is much more mellow. Very nice melody! Good balance of non-chord tones and nice color tones in the harmonies esp. that augmented chord. Yay! Love that stuff. Those nice countermelodies in the horns/cornets should probably moved to only horns simply for color contrast, though that's a personal preference.
m 40, a few disagreeable notes.
m 44+, I’m assuming your going for an alternation between quiet and mysterious and loud and brash. Again, use of percussion will make or break this. I don’t like the inclusion of the xylophone, seems too out of character for a piece like this. The triangle would be swallowed up in the timpani roll. Come to mention it, a good deal of the band would be swallowed up there. Score carefully. Make use of the brass and percussion being the loudest families of instruments. Throughout that section until the recapitulation, the crescendo should be orchestrated. All those 32nds should be grace notes. There’s several funky notes that don’t belong. Another thing that will help the buildup is simply more notes. Get some of the cornet or horns to play some rhythmic stuff going faster and faster until m. 52.
m52, another nice cymbal crash needed.
m55, same disagreeable notes as beginning m 12
m59-60, I saw the circle of 5ths modulation coming from a mile away. I also don’t see the point of going to E-major this way. A M3 modulation is much more effective if you just go! C – G7- E! Very bright and unexpected. But with the circle of 5ths, it’s like “Yeah, ok. What next?” See what I’m saying? The following section seemed cheap too. Just repeating that whole note thing twice is really unnecessary. Do something different each time; don’t rely on copy and paste.
m73, Ah! Triplets! Very nice use of them too. It’s a nice refresher though then it feels like they should have been in the beginning. Consider adding some of this triplety stuff in the exposition. Loose the xylophone. Make it a glockenspiel instead. Spice it up with some nice snare rudiments and a steady pulse with the cymbals and bass drum
m76, Those same darned notes again!
m80, Those same darned notes again again!
m81+, Nice moving chromatics in the chords! Well done! Only change the bass G’s to either an F# for a tense sfz or a C for not so tense. Make everyone triplet on beat 4.
m83+, Nice surprise dynamics. Orchestrate the crescendo more. f < fff in low brass? No! They will cover everything up. If it’s just the bass note, you don’t need it that loud.
m87, A few disagreeable extensions in there
m88-89, The extensions ruin it for me. I would expect a grand and glorious, huge, bombastic, brash, loud, glorious, Rule Brianniaish… you get the idea. Give the brass band one of the most gorgeous tonic chords ever! The first big chord should have lots of extensions to emphasize the tension and release; from lots of dissonance to perfect consonance. Fermatas on the last 2 bars and long accents not ^ accents should be used.

Whew! That was long! All 1,508 words of it. I hope this is helpful to you and I greatly await the revised version! Good luck and happy composing!