Wind Bands

The counterpart of the tower watchmen in town were the fife and drum players in the country. They not only provided music for the dance but also, for instance, accompanied processions. As early as the Middle Ages they had provided the marching music for the riflemen.
A shooting tournament (Freischießen) in Hall in 1640 was attended by fifers and riflemen. In the municipality of Eppan every shooting match around 1720 included a military drummer (Tambour) and a fifer. “Pritschenmeister” organized the program of riflemen’s meetings (Schützenfeste) in the 16th century to include musical accompaniment for the riflemen’s parade, meals, and dances, fanfares and drum reveilles. Fifers and drummers, who still accompanied national defence units around 1800, continued to be considered essential for riflemen’s meetings in the first half of the 19th century.[68]
The organist and composer Father Johann Josef Kliebenschädl OFM (1811-1871), active in northern and southern Tyrolean Franciscan monasteries, collected the old melodies of the riflemen’s fifes and published them in the Tiroler Schützen-Zeitung of 19 August 1847. He had them reissued in an arrangement for piano by Josef Schöpf around 1850 in Innsbruck: “Melodien für die Tiroler-Schützen-Schwegel wie diese ehemals auf den Schießstädten üblich waren, nun aber größtentheils in Vergessenheit gekommen sind [...].”[69]
Around the middle of the 18th century, the fife and drum were joined by wood and brass wind instruments: in Eppan in 1764, in the festive procession of the riflemen for the celebration of the Peace of Hubertusburg, the fifers (Pfeifer) and two military drummers (Tambouren) were joined by “the whole orchestra consisting of 11 parish church musicians that deserved any amount of praise for the ‘Turkish’ military music they played.” This riflemen’s band (Schützenkapelle) is a forerunner of the wind bands started later in the region, in St Pauls (1813), Girlan (1838) and St Michael (1898).[70] As in other municipalities at the time, what had at first only been an ensemble of individual musicians, assembled a few times a year when music was needed, eventually turned into a band.
Existing from about 1800 on in the Tyrol, besides the Spielmusik of the fifers and drummers, were wind bands (“Banden”) with about ten members each in different combinations: the ensemble known as Feldmusik (later Harmoniemusik) consisted of woodwind and brass players, usually clarinets, horns, trumpets and trombones, but no oboes. The türkische (Feld-) Musik was an ensemble with woodwind and brass players, percussion, such as drum (Trommel) and cymbals, a bell-tree (“Glöcklhut” also known as Turkish crescent or jingling Johnnie) and sometimes with a triangle.[71] A “musica turca” with 17 players, including pairs of drums, cymbals, triangles, and “cimbali” (jingles, i.e. possibly bell-trees), had itself officially registered in Rovereto as early as 1764. The prototype of a Tyrolean türkische Musik band was depicted by Josef Weger in his colored etching “Feierlicher Aufzug der Tiroler Schützen” (Festive Parade of the Tyrolean Riflemen) just after 1800.[72]
The Hötting riflemen’s company (Schützenkompagnie) set out in 1813 with a band that consisted of two violins, a bass violin (“Bassettl”), one fife (Schwegel) and clarinet each, two trumpets and trombones each, and a small drum. In 1819 it changed to a türkische Musik band, following the example of the imperial riflemen’s band known as Kaiserjägermusik.[73] New, independent bands organized by the riflemen, which enhanced the communities’ ecclesiastical and profane festivities with music, arose at the beginning of the 19th century. Decisive for their foundation was often the collaboration between the priest, teacher or organist, and patrons from among the local residents, who for example donated instruments, and the musicians. In Vils for instance, the initiator and first bandleader (Kapellmeister) of the wind band around 1850 was the parish organist and schoolteacher at the same time. Popular were arrangements of extracts from romantic and cheerful operas from the Italian, French and German repertoire. The Städtische Musikkapelle (municipal band) in Bozen under the direction of the parish organist and director of music Jakob Johann Schgraffer had a similarly consistent repertoire around the middle of the 19th century. Various organizations started to set up their own bands, such as the firemen in Telfs, who founded a Musikkapelle of their own in 1899 from the local Feldmusik.[74] The instrumentation was expanded in the course of time and the modern instruments available included.[75]
The wind band soon had fans in all levels of society and became the representative medium of a community or a province as early as the 19th century. High-ranking official visitors were welcomed and honored with a band. With the growth of concert activity, bands became a welcome addition to the program for the audience. As a result, musicians who used to play by heart and by ear in the past, now had to learn to do so from music. Ever since Franz Bühler (1760-1823) and Johann Baptist Gänsbacher (1778-1844), many Tyrolean composers have devoted themselves to composing for bands, among them Josef Abentung (1779-1860), Josef Netzer (1808-1864), Josef Gregor Zangl (1821-1897) and Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907) of Bozen, who was the leading figure in the Munich School (Münchner Schule) circle of composers in Munich around 1900 and whose opera “Lobetanz” (world premiere in 1898 under Felix Mottl in Karlsruhe) Richard Strauss found a “splendid [...] score.”[76]

Fussnoten

[68] Hermann EGGER, Die Entwicklung der Blasmusik in Tirol, typescript, PhD Innsbruck 1952, p. 13, 70;
Karl Franz ZANI, “Aus der Geschichte der Schützen von Eppan,” Festschrift anläßlich der Fahnenweihe der Schützenkompagnie Eppan, Eppan 1976, p. 14;
Karl Franz ZANI, 150 Jahre Musikkapelle Girlan, Festschrift (Überetscher Buch 2), Girlan 1983, p. 13;
Erich EGG and Wolfgang PFAUNDLER, Das große Tiroler Blasmusikbuch, Vienna, etc. 1979, p. 28ff. -
Benedikt Edelpöckh, the Pritschenmeister of Archduke Ferdinand II, wrote the “Comedie von der freudenreichen Geburt unseres ainigen Trost und Hailandt Jesu Christ,” with musical interludes, in 1568 at Ambras Castle: Franz HÖLBING, “Theater in Innsbruck,” Theater in Innsbruck, Festschrift ed. Theaterausschuß des Landes Tirol und der Stadt Innsbruck, Innsbruck 1967, p. 73. Pritschenmeister also contributed to the spread of plays and songs: Anton DÖRRER, Tiroler Volksgut auf dem Heideboden: Unterinntaler Weihnachtsspiel in der Dreiländerecke des Neusiedlersees (Burgenländische Forschungen 17), Eisenstadt 1951, p. 43f, 54.
 
[69] Konrad FISCHNALER, Innsbrucker Chronik 2, Innsbruck 1929, p. 131;
Karl HORAK, “Beiträge zur Volksmusik Tirols,” Jahrbuch des österreichischen Volksliedwerkes 4 (1955) p. 78f.
Erich EGG and Wolfgang PFAUNDLER, Das große Tiroler Blasmusikbuch, Vienna, etc. 1979, p. 37.
 
[70] Karl Franz ZANI, “Aus der Geschichte der Schützen von Eppan,” Festschrift anläßlich der Fahnenweihe der Schützenkompagnie Eppan, Eppan 1976, p. 13ff;
Erich EGG and Wolfgang PFAUNDLER, Das große Tiroler Blasmusikbuch, Vienna, etc. 1979, p. 30, 33;
Karl ZANI and Karl PLUNGER, 225 Jahre Musikkapelle St. Pauls, Festschrift (Überetscher Buch 6), St. Pauls/Eppan 1989.
 
[71] Hermann EGGER, Die Entwicklung der Blasmusik in Tirol, typescript, PhD Innsbruck 1952, p. 84, 88;
Erich EGG and Wolfgang PFAUNDLER, Das große Tiroler Blasmusikbuch, Vienna, etc. 1979, p. 30, 62f.
Erich EGG, “Der chinesische Glöcklhut in Tiroler Musikkapellen,” Festschrift für Karl Horak, ed. Manfred Schneider, Innsbruck 1980, p. 127ff.
 
[72] Antonio CARLINI, “Dal XVII al XIX Secolo,” Musica a Mezzolombardo: Dalla Chiesa alla Banda: spettacolo e cultura tra XVII e XX secolo, Mezzolombardo 1989, p. 79. -
An original print of Weger’s etching is in the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum (FB 4378); see Hildegard HERRMANN-SCHNEIDER, “Josef Wegers ‘Türkische Musik’,” Buergerkapelle Brixen 1801-2001, Festschrift, Brixen 2001, p. 11ff.
 
[73] Hermann EGGER, Die Entwicklung der Blasmusik in Tirol, typescript, PhD Innsbruck 1952, p. 28, 87f.
 
[74] Walter THALER, “Musikpflege [und] Volksschauspiele,” Telfer Buch (Schlern-Schriften 112), Innsbruck 1955, p. 301;
Hildegard HERRMANN-SCHNEIDER, Die Musikhandschriften der Pfarrkirche und der Musikkapelle Vils: Thematischer Katalog (Beiträge zur Musikforschung in Tirol 2), Innsbruck 1993, p. 17*ff, 26*;
Giuliano TONINI, “‘Carissimo Giacomino ...’: il bolzanino Jakob Johann Schgraffer (1799-1859) allievo di composizione all’Imperial Regio Conservatorio di musica di Milano del maestro Vincenzo Federici (1764-1826) [with a list of Schgraffer’s collected works],” La musica a Milano, in Lombardia e oltre 2, ed. Sergio Martinotti, Ž  //??Ort, Jahr//, p. 179f. -
For the foundation of bands in the Trentino in the 19th century, see Antonio CARLINI, “Dal XVII al XIX Secolo,” Musica a Mezzolombardo; Dalla Chiesa alla Banda: spettacolo e cultura tra XVII e XX secolo, Mezzolombardo 1989, p. 80f.
 
[75] See, e.g., Erich EGG and Wolfgang PFAUNDLER, Das große Tiroler Blasmusikbuch, Vienna, etc. 1979, p. 86ff.
 
[76]Erich EGG and Wolfgang PFAUNDLER, Das große Tiroler Blasmusikbuch, Vienna, etc. 1979, p. 86ff. -
JUGENDSTIL-Musik? Muenchner Musikleben 1890-1918, exh. cat.(Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ausstellungskataloge 40), Wiesbaden 1987, p. 210, 290ff.