Techniques | The Banda | High Romantic | Opera

The banda was an onstage band, which originated in the eighteenth century and by the nineteenth comprised around 20 brass and woodwind players. Although essentially a military band, the banda was used for ballroom scenes or on-stage parades or processions. The on-stage band was not part of the regular orchestra, but was recruited by the theatre impresario. Consequently, its musicianship was not always expert. The banda appeared occasionally at first, but after Rossini used it in his Ricciardo e Zoraide (‘Ricciardo and Zoraide’, 1818), it became a regular feature of Italian opera performances. The banda was later taken up by Verdi, and in his operas it assumed various guises depending on the on-stage action. It was raucous and somewhat vulgar in Nabucco and in I Lombardi, very much in keeping with the mood of patriotic fervour that gripped Italy during the Risorgimento (1820–70). Verdi’s music for the banda in the ballroom scenes of Rigoletto and Un ballo in maschera (‘A Masked Ball’, 1859) was much more subtle. However, in the auto-da-fé – act of faith – scene in Don Carlos (1867), depicting the burning of heretics, the banda’s music acquired a strident urgency that matched this particularly horrific spectacle.

Styles & Forms | High Romantic | Opera
Techniques | Realism, Naturalisme & Verismo | High Romantic | Opera

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