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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2017
‘The ‘German band’ as a concept remains integrally associated with German ethnicity in the Australian public mind though such things as the extroverted oom-pah music of present-day Oktoberfest, or the live and recorded oom-pah music in German or ‘Bavarian’-themed venues. However, the costumed ‘German bands’ that were a feature of nineteenth-century British street and seaside resort life also began to appear ubiquitously in various gold-rush era Australian population centres and remained a fixture of Australian street entertainment until the First World War. Gold-rush era chronicler William Kelly described their music as being able to ‘drive swine into anguish’. Yet they had an opposing reputation for excellence in playing Strauss waltzes, polkas and other popular dance music of the era. They were sought after by dance venue, circus and other theatrical entertainment proprietors and were furthermore hired for private balls, picnics, showgrounds and racetrack entertainment. By appearing at German social functions and venues they buttressed pan-German cultural identity and traditions and, for non-Germans, the sight and sound of a disciplined, groomed and costumed German band provided a mildly exciting cultural tourism experience. In blaring street, circus parade or showground mode they, in fact, conformed to the present-day global stereotype of the Bavarian Biergarten oom-pah band. Through foundation research, this article attempts to apply some social, cultural and musicological ‘flesh and bones’ to what has more or less remained the ‘myth’ of the ubiquitous ‘German bands’ (and their not-always-German bandsmen) that sometimes entertained and charmed pedestrians while at other times represented a social and sonic blot on the streetscapes and public spaces of pre-World War I Australia.
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2 Bands from Bavaria and bands claiming to come from Bavaria.
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5 Barry Trinder, ‘Wandering Musicians: German Bands in Victorian England’, Anglo-German Family History Society, www.agfhs.org/site/documents/BarrieTrinder-Bands.pdf, 11 February 2012, n.p. (accessed 1 November 2014).
6 Widmaier, Tobias, ‘Westpfälzer Wandermusiker: Ein Beitrag zur musikalischen Migrationsforschung’, in Lied und populäre Kultur 52 (2007), 155–167Google Scholar.
7 The Argus (Melbourne), 3 July 1907, 8.
8 A ‘new song’, ‘The German Band’ was presented nightly to ‘so much applause’ at Melbourne’s Polytechnic Hall during 1866 The Argus (Melbourne), 9 April 1866, 8.
9 Boston: White and Goullaud.
10 Bennett Scott, lyrics by A.J. Mills (London: The Star Music Company). Imported by Stanley Mullen Pty, Melbourne with cover image of Florrie Forde.
11 Ira Schuster, lyrics by Eugene West (Melbourne: Allans Music, 1923), with the cover image of a Melbourne jazz band.
12 Widmaier, Tobias, ‘“Listen to the German Band”: Straßenkapellen aus Deutschland als Thema amerikanischer Songs 1872–1932’, Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture 55 (2010): 77–99Google Scholar. This article also offers valuable insight into itinerant German bands in America from the 1870s.
13 Widmaier, ‘“Listen to the German Band”’, 18.
14 ‘Empire Pictures’, The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate (NSW), 30 March 1915, 2.
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22 ‘Grand Ball and Supper’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1852, 1.
23 ‘MESSRS. SMITH and AND SONS’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December 1853, 1.
24 ‘DANCING! DANCING! Dancing!’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 February 1857, 1; I found no accounts of Smith and Sons’ German band busking in the streets.
25 Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 31 December 1853, 2.
26 ‘Simpson’s Ranges’, Empire (Sydney), 28 November 1854, 4.
27 ‘The Colony of Victoria’, The Argus, 27 October 1854, 4.
28 Whiteoak, John, ‘The Development of Australian Circus Music’, Australasian Drama Studies 35 (October, 1999): 59–72Google Scholar.
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30 The Star (Ballarat), 17 March 1857, 3.
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33 John Whiteoak, ‘Brass Bands’, in Currency Companion to Music and Dance in Australia, 90–94.
34 Mixed reeds and brass bands become known as ‘military (military-style) bands’ and later as ‘concert bands’ in Australia. See Whiteoak, ‘Brass Bands’, 90–91.
35 ‘Band Life in Early Australian Days By One Who Was There’, 13.
36 www.powerhousemuseum.com/insidethecollection/2014/12/wirths-circus-musical-beginnings (accessed 1 December 2014).
37 St Leon, Spangles and Sawdust, 34.
38 Don Bennetts, compiler, Melbourne’s Yesterdays: a Photographic Record 1851–1901 (Medindie, SA: Souvenir Press, 1976): 67.
39 Fred Fischer, lyrics by Joe McCarthy and Jo Goodwin (Sydney: Albert Music Stores, c. 1913).
40 ‘Water Police Court’, Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong, NSW), 16 July 1878, 2.
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44 ‘Police Courts: Jostling the German Band’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 May 1909, 6.
45 ‘The Somerville Show’, Mornington Standard (Victoria), 10 March 1906, 2; ‘Bavarians’, Evening News (Sydney), 7 February 1905, 4; ‘W.A.G.R. Employee’s Picnic’, The West Australian (Perth), 6 May 1902, 6.
46 ‘Latest Telegrams’, The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate (NSW), 8 February 1905, 3. See also ‘Bavarians’, Evening News, 7 February 1905, 4.
47 ‘Industrial Legislation’, The West Australian (Perth), 13 October 1909, 7. Also see: ‘Sharps and Flats: German Band Grabster’, Sunday Times (Perth), 23 October 1904, 5.
48 ‘The Profession’, Australian Musical News, March 1912, n.p.
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50 Probably the same as they wore on the street but in better condition for private work.
51 ‘Hartz Mountains Band’, Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser (Vic.) 4 October 1858, 2.
52 Reproduced in Voigt, Australia–Germany, 68.
53 ‘Down the River’, Sunday Times (Perth), 20 December 1903, 10.
54 Widmaier, ‘“Listen to the German Band”’.
55 ‘Music in the Streets: Melbourne’s German Bands’, The Argus (Melbourne), 3 July 1907, 8.
56 ‘The Emerald Concert’, The Brisbane Courier, 11 October 1909, 6.
57 Kelly, William, Life in Victoria, or, Victoria in 1853 and Victoria in 1858: showing the march of improvement made by the Colony within those periods, in town and country, Cities and the Diggings (London, Chapman and Hall, 1859; repr. Kilmore, Victoria: Lowden Publishing Company, 1977 (Historical Reprint no. 6)), 275–276Google Scholar.
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59 ‘Concerning Women’, West Australian (Perth), 18 September 1898, 3; ‘Tuesday’, Western Mail (Perth), 15 April 1898, 14; ‘The Equitable’, Evening News (Sydney), 27 July 1899, 5.
60 This was stressed repeatedly at rehearsals by the renowned brass player, Mervyn Simpson, conductor of the Australian Championship-winning Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade Band (in which I played B-flat tuba) and member of the famous Victorian Trumpet Trio.
61 Love, Harold, The Golden Age of Australian Opera: W.S. Lyster and His Companies 1861–1880 (Sydney: Currency Press, 1981): 94–96Google Scholar.
62 ‘Musical’, The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 19 January 1856, 5.
63 Tobias Widmaier, ‘Listen to the German Band, 97.
64 Squires Cenntenial Collection of Band Music (Cincinnati: A. Squire, 1875).
65 ‘A Gentleman German Band’, Wagga Wagga Express (NSW), 7 October 1893, 6.
66 ‘The Merchants of the Streets’, Sunday Times (Sydney), 18 January 1903, 4.
67 ‘Too Little Too Much’, Illustrated Sydney News, 3 May 1893, 12.
68 Andrews and Ellis, Two Hundred Dancing Years, 17.
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70 ‘German Band at the Zoo Plays “God Save the King”’, Freeman’s Journal (Sydney), 8 April 1909, 26.
71 ‘Adelaide’s German Band’, Daily Herald (Adelaide), 11 August 1914, 5.
72 ‘German Band Arrested’, Chronicle (Adelaide), 6 January 1915, 38; ‘German Band’, The North Western Courier (Narrabri, NSW), 15 January 1915, 7.
73 ‘Popular Conceptions That are Wrong’, The Grenfell Record and Lachlan District Advertiser (NSW), 6 July 1907, 10.
74 ‘Quaint Street Scenes: Picturesqueness of the Past’, The Argus, 9 November 1929, 7.
75 Caldwell, The German Band and the Morning Minstrels, 7.
