Competitions in the System of Creative Development of Russian Military Bands

In the article, the author traces the chronology of the formation and development of review-competitions of military bands of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation from the moment of competition at the International Exposition of 1867 in Paris to the present day. And if the first competitive events held in the second half of the 19th century had an international status, then after 1917 their state developed from district and regional review-competitions to competitions on the scale of all the Armed Forces. Performances of military bands on the international arena resumed only in the second half of the 20th century due to regular trips of military bands to Europe, where the festival movement flourished at that time, which appeared in the 1990s in our country as well. The relevance of competitions was in the greater opportunity to demonstrate their creative achievements not only in the field of musical design of military rituals, but also in concert activities.

The development of review-competitions went in parallel with the formation of military-music culture in Russia. The formation of professional military music education, the increase in the number of military bands and the improvement of their staffing, the publication of music literature and, together with it, the development of repertoire practice of military bands were reflected in the conditions of review competitions. In Russia’s recent history, the performance of service and concert repertoire was joined by a separately assessed section of the review-contest – the platz-concert.

In addition, the regular holding of review-contests contributed to the development of the work of many national composers of the Union republics, whose various works were given a chance to come to life at these events. At the stage of the final competitions the participants were given a unique opportunity to take part in a master class of orchestral performance from the leading military orchestral ensembles of our country. By now, a stable system of holding such events in two rounds with a regular frequency of once every five years has been developed, which contributes to improving the growth of musical culture and performance skills of military orchestras.

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