Book: The 'Celebrated' Black Dyke Mills Band

David Hirst’s fascinating new book, ‘The ‘Celebrated’ Black Dyke Mills Band – The Victorian Years’, is a must-read for any brass band enthusiast, covering hitherto unearthed learned research about the most famous brass band in the world and also giving the reader a snapshot of what it was like to play in a brass band during the embryonic beginnings of the movement. If Roy Newsome’s book, ‘150 Golden Years: The History of Black Dyke Band’ (2005), was a general overview of the band’s development, David’s book is a detailed forensic account of its evolution from 1837-1901. 

The book is well-bound in a soft glossy jacket and structured into five chapters comprising almost 200 pages describing the early heritage of the Black ‘Dike’ Brass Band. The chapters include information on the first competitions, significant personalities who influenced change, the glory years under Owen and Gladney, and the end of an era in 1900, when the band seemed to settle into a routine that sowed the seeds of what we know and expect from the most successful brass band in the world.

The book is very well-written, with some powerful illustrations that include pictures, tables, music excerpts, posters and personal letters. However, it’s the detailed and easy-to-negotiate references, appendices and index that also contribute significantly to making it an essential resource for music colleges, universities, lecturers and music students at both post-graduate and under-graduate level.

There have been several brass band books published over the years that deal with the development of the brass band movement, in which much of the material has been sourced from living memory. This book, however, differs from its predecessors, in as much as a large percentage of the material within is original work taken from various local newspapers and brass band journals long-forgotten.

I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to David Hirst for producing what I’m sure will become a valuable resource for academics and enthusiasts alike.

DR. ROBERT CHILDS

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