1.5 A short history of wind bands  (Page 2/5)

The impetus for forming these larger, permanent, standardized, and part-playing ensembles likely came from the influence of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which was having a great influence on Western European society at that time. The Ottoman military had a very long tradition of large musical ensembles accompanying the troops into battle. These ensembles, led by very loud oboe-type instruments and accomanied by trumpet-like instruments and a great deal of percussion, would gather around the battle standard. During actual fighting, the state of each side’s standard (in familiar modern parlance, the battle flag) is a very important signal to the soldiers regarding the progress of the battle; but in the chaos it may not always be visible to every soldier. In Ottoman battles, the musicians would gather in a circle or semi-circle around the standard, and as long as they were playing, it could be assumed by everyone within earshot that the Turkish standard was unharmed.

The value of this in terms of morale (on both sides), particularly if the music was aggressively loud, should be obvious, and it was not lost on the military of Western Europe. In France, by 1665 the mousquetaires had 3 oboes and 5 drums to each company. The gardes du corps had oboe ensembles that played in four-part harmony, with a curtall (another double reed) playing the bass part. Other militaries, including England’s, soon had their own oboe bands; in Germany the generic term for a bandsman was an Hautboist (the French word for oboist).

The influence of the Ottoman Empire on Western music, and particularly on bands, did not end there, however. In fact, a craze, for anything Turkish, that swept central Europe in the late eighteenth century affected not only military music, but also Classical music, with composers such as Mozart and Beethoven adding "Turkish percussion" (bass drum, side drum, cymbals, triangle, and tambourine) to some of their orchestral works. Military bands again got a complete makeover, enlarging, adding instruments, and even wearing exotic imitation-Turkish outfits. The Polish military is generally recognized as being the first in Western Europe to organize a specifically "Turkish-style" military band, but they were soon followed by the Austrians, Russians, Germans and French. By the 1770’s, "Turkish" military bands were common throughout Western Europe. By the late eighteenth century, a Turkish percussion section had become a part of standard European military music. According to a report from Vienna in 1796, military music comprised two broad categories: field music (signals and flourishes) and "Turkish" music.

Community and concert bands

By the end of the eighteenth century, outdoor concerts by military bands became an established practice in the capital cities of Europe; the military band had essentially taken over the duties of the town band and tower musicians. It was also at about this time that community bands, organized by and for the general community rather than being hired by the military or the city government, began to appear. Although these bands were obviously inspired by the military band concerts, they rapidly grew into their own tradition, with a larger and more varied instrumentation and their own repertoire.