Municipal Band of Barcelona

Founded in 1886 by Barcelona City Council, the Barcelona Municipal Band is a musical institution going back a long way. Since 2007, it has been the resident band at the Barcelona Auditorium (L'Auditori), where it offers a fixed season of concerts and where it develops projects in partnership with artists and groups forming part of the international scene as well as those from the local sphere. The resident conductor since 2008 has been the Catalan composer and conductor Salvador Brotons.

There are records going back to the 14th century of the presence of instrumental groups accompanying official municipal events and celebrations in Barcelona, often under the name of ‘city music’. The trumpets and drums bore the coat of arms of the city and formed part of the entourage of the City Hall authorities. On special occasions, it hired the services of different groups of minstrels, whose function was more to amuse and entertain the public. These musical groups of varying size livened up important celebrations and dates in the city. The earliest mention of them dates from 29 August 1361, when King Peter IV of Aragon ordered five minstrels to attend the arrival of the Infanta of Sicily in the city of Barcelona.

Accounts of performances by groups playing wind instruments in the city abound throughout the 15th and 16th centuries and we even have information about the first steps in the professionalization of Barcelona’s musicians with the founding on 13 July 1599 of the first Musicians’ Guild of Barcelona. Throughout the 17th and 18th century we find a variety of documents that speak of regular relations between groups of musicians and the local corporation. The City Council set out to strengthen these regular but shaky relations by setting up its own band of music, something that took place at the end of the 19th century.

A formation of great importance in society at the time of its foundation, its purpose was to bring the music of the great composers within reach of the lower classes at a time when this art was reserved for members of the better-off classes. At the start of the late modern period, the City Council decided to regularise the situation of municipal music. Since 1837 there had been attempts to set the band up as an independent formation, but this did not happen until 2 March 1886, when it became definitive. It was decided that Barcelona City Council’s Municipal Orchestra and Band and the Municipal Music School should be founded at the same time, in a determined policy to professionalise the world of music and make it more stable. The post of Conductor of the band, which was to go hand in hand with that of Head of the Music School, was at first held by Josep Rodoreda i Santigós, a well-known Barcelona musician of the time. Initial contacts with the public were a success and the new band was enthusiastically received. The City Council built a bandstand in Parc de la Ciutadella so that the band could give concerts on Sundays in summer, while in winter they were held on the corner of Passeig de Gràcia and Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes. These were short concerts with brilliantly orchestratations of pieces by the composers in vogue: Richard Wagner, Felix Mendelssohn, Jules Massenet, Giacomo Meyerbeer, etc.

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Wikipedia