Maciej Kierzkowski

The history of the Volunteer Fire Brigade bands in Poland begins in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. This history is related to that of firefighting organisations which, from the middle of the nineteenth century, were established in the territory of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (mainly in the Kingdom of Poland under Russian rule) and remained active as a network of associations in the interwar period in Poland. Along with the development of firefighting unionism that took place after the Great War came coordinated educational activities at the national level, including wind band contests. These musical competitions have become one of the important tools used in the process of socio-musical engineering aimed not only at wide-ranging music education, but also at the promotion of national values. The implementation of VFB band contests resulted in the rise of the fireman band movement and also contributed to the standardization of practices of amateur musicmaking. The primary motivation of the founders of the VFB contest initiators was to encourage the artistic development of both individual musicians and particular bands. However, the overall goal was also more generally aimed toward the development of Polish national musical culture.

Frederic Chopin and his musical output are probably the most extensively researched topics in Polish musicology. Chopin is most often described as a composer and pianist, but he was also an observer of the musical life of his era. The correspondence of Frederic Chopin comprises an extensive primary source of which two letters (first, to Wilhelm Kolberg dated
18 August 1826; second, to Tytus Woyciechowski dated 31 August 1830) are of particular value in researching wind bands in Poland. Both letters (to date not previously compared to one another) provide primary evidence of the early civilian and military wind bands of the late
1820s and early 1830s, including aspects related to instrumentation, repertoires, and performance occasions. The essay recapitulates existing knowledge on the topic of wind bands in Chopin’s correspondence providing comparative analysis of the composer’s own words,
other primary sources, and the outcome of relevant international musicological literature. The article also offers new hypothesis referring to the early use of the piston cornet in the Polish military in the late 1820s.

This paper deals with the issue of brass bands' contests in Poland and is analysed using both the diachronic and systematic approaches. The sources for this inquiry are the international literature relating to the working class contest phenomena and the outcome of my ethnomusico-logical field research conducted in 2001-2005 in the Mazovia region (Central Poland). I briefly examine the history of contests of brass bands in Poland since the interwar period. The systematic part deals with different aspects of contesting, which include motivations of musicians, organisers' assumptions, performed repertoire, as well as evaluation criteria. I explore the structure of brass band contest and its roles in bands' development. The national, multileveled format of musical contest, is described in relation to the fireman band movement, which was being animated by the Main Board of Voluntary Fire Brigades-a non-musical organisation, and corresponds with the well-researched phenomenon of brass band movement in Great Britain.

Brass bands became ubiquitous in Europe from the middle of the nineteenth century, they became a staple component of the local soundscape of the Mazovia region in Central Poland. On the one hand, they benefit their own members who had opportunities for musical expression, and on the other, they provided wider social benefits, performing for and representaing their communities. Brass bands were most popular in Mazovia the post-war period, especially between 1950-1960. In this period there was public patronage for brass bands. The subsequent impact of electronic media culture influenced changes in the musical tastes of both performers and audiences and caused major transformations of performance conventions, repertoire and instrumentation. In this presentation I will briefly examine the history of brass bands of Mazovia in relation to the political and economical changes in the region over the past 150 years: changes which influenced brass bands performers and their patrons.

This paper deals with the issue of brass bands’ contests in Poland and is analysed using both the diachronic and systematic approaches. The sources for this inquiry are the international literature relating to the working class contest phenomena and the outcome of my ethnomusicological field research conducted in 2001-2005 in the Mazovia region (Central Poland). The paper briefly examines the history of contests of brass bands in Poland since the interwar period. The systematic part deals with different aspects of contesting, which include motivations of musicians, organisers’ assumptions, performed repertoire, as well as evaluation criteria. The national, multileveled format of musical contest, is described in relation to the fireman band movement, which was being animated by the Main Board of Voluntary Fire Brigades – a non-musical organisation, and corresponds with the well researched phenomenon of brass band movement in Great Britain. The lack of standardised instrumentation, prevalent in Poland, seems to be different than in other European traditions, and impacts the development of brass bands’ repertoire and their performance standards.