Vintage Cornet - Harry Dilley

Glory to His Name (Cornet solo by Eric Ball)

Harry Dilley, Salvationist Publishing & Supplies Band, cond. Eric Ball

Regal Zonophone 78rpm disc, MF 283

Rec. 1939

A lovely old recording from the world of Salvation Army brass bands.

Professional music organisations, most notably some of our finest orchestras and military bands, have over the years gained much from the presence of brass players with a Salvation Army or other brass band background. Harry Dilley, a one time salvationist and the soloist here, was also principal trumpet with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden for many years: readers may recollect the Joan Sutherland album, The Art of the Prima Donna, which included Handel's Let the Bright Seraphim (still available on Decca) - trumpet obbligato courtesy of the same Harry Dilley. Professional colleagues regarded Dilley with unstinting admiration. His apparent easily-produced tone balanced power and projection with lyricism and sweetness, an ideal combination not least in the great ballet scores of Tchaikovsky.

Eric Ball, also a salvationist, was, and remains posthumously, a towering figure in the brass band movement, having composed marches, extended suites, and 'test' pieces which continue to this day to feature strongly in band programmes. Glory to His Name is cast in the traditional 'bandstand show solo' mould of theme and variations, the theme being the Hoffman/Stockton hymn from 1878 of the same name, an old favourite from the Salvation Army Song Book. A largely triple-tongued flourish opens the proceedings and the Salvationist Publishing & Supplies Band gives strong support under the composer's baton.

The record used for this transfer was in fair condition bearing in mind its age: considerable physical cleaning was still necessary before digital transfer but only very light filtering was applied from there in order to preserve the recorded sound: surface noise remains, but the signal remains admirably true.

As with other posts here, I will willingly remove this album from this blog should anyone concerned in its production or copyrighting complain about its presence here on legal grounds.

For an incredibly wide collection of Salvation Army recordings (not downloadable) visit regalzonophone.com . Very highly recommended for free listening via the site's online player. Based in Australia, the site's author, Ian Barton, has amassed just about every recording made by the Salvation Army over the last 90 or so years.

Download links (Flac is high quality, but takes up significant computer space (about the equivalent of an audio CD for the whole album). Use flac for reference listening or for further editing/mixing etc.; Mp3 is more suitable for mobile listening, still of fairly high quality, but takes up much less space. Both downloads come with the same notes and high resolution artwork. Click on above image for preview):

Glory to His NameFLAC

Glory to His NameMP3


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