After World War II, the British Government made great efforts to stimulate renewed confidence and endeavour in culture. In 1946, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts was consolidated into the Arts Council of Great Britain; in addition, the BBC launched a Third Programme (radio), of great stimulus to music and drama. In 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival was launched by Rudolf Bing, an Austrian impresario who had fled the Nazis, and from its inception the festival was the most illustrious of many throughout the country. In the community, music-making was encouraged to be less esoteric, less middle-class in its demography. Amateur and school music-making proliferated, and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain was founded in 1948. In 1951 the Festival of Britain, that included the opening of the Royal Festival Hall, London, was aimed to offset post-war austerity and mark the centenary of the Great Exhibition.

What we perceive as modern brass ensembles were virtually non-existent in Britain at this time, but through the 1950s and 1960s the repertoire, sound world and aspirations of many professional brass players changed significantly. In postwar Britain, many players imported orchestral brass instruments from Germany, the United States and France; a standardisation of brass instruments’ pitch in 1964 helped align amateur and professional cultures and a rapid and vital expansion occurred in Britain’s recording industry. In this reforming environment, respective professional brass players formed chamber music groups that became competitive and influential.

A public concert given by the brass of the London Baroque Orchestra in 1948, including trumpeter Malcolm Arnold (1921–2006) and hornist Dennis Brain (1921–57), was exceptional in respect of its repertoire. The programme contained music by Cherubini and Rossini, as well as more recent works by Hindemith and his ex-pupil Arnold Cooke. It also listed a transcription of Orlando Lassus’s music by Malcolm Arnold, whose later Brass Quintet would have a significant impact in the 1960s. In post-war Britain, such events were rare; the most familiar brass music in Britain was that of the amateur brass band, which adopted a radically different repertoire and performance practice.