The 1923 Contest was held in the Valencia Bullring on August 1 and 2, with a total of five
contest bands participating in this edition (three less than in the previous edition).
On this occasion, the municipal bands of Madrid and Valencia participated as invited groups
to close the two days of the Contest.
The jury was made up of Ricardo Villa González,artistic director of the Banda
Municipal de Madrid,
José Bellver Avella, professor at the Valencia Conservatory, Julián
Palanca Masiá,
composer, principal musician of the Regimiento Badajoz nº73 and band conductor, and
Rafael Pérez
de
Lucía, as secretary of the jury.
AUGUST 1:It was a muggy day, very hot. In the Bullring there was little public and
little lively. Of the five participating bands
three of them had registered in the Division One and only two in the Division Two.
The Contest was declining; it was losing joy and lively.
The parade pasodobles performed by the bands were the following:
-
- Unión Musical de Villamarchante Rosario Olmos by Alberto Martín Manzano,
artistic director of this band.
-
- Victoria de Alcudia de Carlet: En la Matea by José García Pastor,
artistic director of this band.
-
- Ateneo Musical Obrero de Torrente: El Chispero y las Majas by Pedro Sosa López,
, under the baton of José María Rius Lerma.
-
- Primitiva de Liria: El Teniente Raposo by Julián Palanca Masiá, under the baton
of
Emilio Seguí Ripoll.
-
- Centro Instructivo Unión Musical de Liria: Le Cortège de Cupidon by Francis
Popy,
conducted by Eduardo Felip Suárez.
The parade was closed by the Banda Municipal de Valencia, conducted by Luis Ayllón
Portillo, who performed the paso doble Osende, by Dionisio Méndez Irastorza, and,
finally, the
Banda
Municipal de Madrid, conducted by the assistant director, Miguel Yuste
Moreno, who performed the paso doble of La Dolores by Tomás Bretón Hernández.
At the end of the parade, the Competition began with the participation of the bands of the
Division Two, which performed the mandatory piece
Euryanthe, Op.81 (obertura de la ópera) de Carl Maria von Weber,
and then the bands of the Division One that performed the piece of free choice.
To end the first day of the contest, the following bands performed:
-
- Banda Municipal de Valencia (70 musicians), conducted by Luis Ayllón
Portillo, performed El Festín de Baltasar, by Salvador Giner Vidal, and as an
encore, Lo Cant del Valencià, by Pedro Sosa López, who was attended the event. It
finished its performance with the Himno de la Exposición, by José Serrano Simeón.
-
- Banda Municipal de Madrid (90 musicians), conducted by Ricardo Villa
González, who came down from the jury's rostrum to conduct the Madrid band. He
performed the Great Fantasy of the Valkyries, by Richard Wagner. Later he conducted
L’Entrà de la Murta, by Salvador Giner Vidal, and the jota of La Dolores by Tomás Bretón
Hernández. The performance closed with the paso doble Gerona, by Santiago Lope.
AUGUST 2: From the Glorieta the bands started parading with pasodobles to converge on
the Bullring. Like the day before, there was little excitement and little enthusiasm among
the supporters of the respective bands. At 4:30 p.m. the parade of the participating bands
and the Municipal Bands of Valencia and Madrid began. The pasodobles that each of them
played were the following:
-
- Unión Musical de Villamarchante: Rondalla Valenciana, by Rodolfo Mora Arenes.
-
- Victoria de Alcudia de Carlet: García Pastor by Rodolfo Mora Arenes.
-
- Ateneo Musical Obrero de Torrente: En Avant by Ménzel.
-
- Primitiva de Liria: Lérida by Nicolás García Ibáñez.
-
- Centro Instructivo Unión Musical de Liria: Les Sirène by Gabriel Allier.
-
- Banda Municipal de Valencia: El Niño de Jeréz by Cleto Zavala Arámbarri.
-
- Banda Municipal de Madrid: Canciones de la Huerta by Mariano Pérez
Sánchez.
At the end of the parade, the Competition began with the participation of the bands of the
Division One who performed as a mandatory piece the symphonic overture Le Camp de
Wallenstein by the composer Vicent d’Indy. Next, the bands of the Division
Two performed the piece of free choice and, finally, with no option for a prize, the
following bands performed:
-
- Banda Municipal de Valencia, conducted by Luis Ayllón Portillo, who
performed Tannhäuser, an overture by Richard Wagner. As an encore they performed L’Entrà
de la Murta and Lo Cant del Valencià, by Salvador Giner and Pedro Sosa, respectively,
ending the performance with the Himno de la Exposición by José Serrano Simeón.
-
- La Banda Municipal de Madrid, conducted by Ricardo Villa González,
performed the symphonic poem Los Preludios by Franz Liszt, playing as an encore the paso
doble Gerona, by Santiago Lope, La Boda de Luis Alonso, by Gerónimo Giménez and,
finally, the jota El Molinero de Subiza, by Cristóbal Oudrid.
At twelve o'clock at night, the components of the Jury, together with the Mayor of Valencia
and councilors belonging to the Music Commission, appeared in the Municipal Pavilion of the
Fair, to proceed to issue the corresponding ruling that was carried out in the presence of
the conductors of the contesting bands, except for the conductors of the Liria bands that
did not attend.
The prizes awarded by the jury to the competing bands were the following:
-
• Division One: the bands Primitiva y Unión Musical de Llíria
shared the first prize, without priority order, assigning 4,000 pesetas to each
one.
The
second prize went to the band Ateneo Musical Obrero de Torrente, endowed
with 2,500 pesetas.
-
• Division Two: first prize for the band Victoria de Alcudia de
Carlet with an allocation of 3,000 pesetas, and second prize for the
band Unión Musical de
Villamarchante, endowed with 1,500 pesetas
-
• Two prizes for pasodobles, endowed with 250 pesetas for each band, were given
to the Unión
Musical de Villamarchante and the Ateneo Musical Obrero de Torrente.
At the end of the reading of the Jury's ruling, the artistic director of the Ateneo Musical
Obrero de Torrente band, José María Rius Lerma, stated that it had been fifteen days since
he was told the ruling that had just been read. When the conductors left the Pavilion, there
was neither applause nor congratulations. Instead, there were heated arguments, protests and
shouting. The discontent was general, to the point that not even the winners showed the
proper satisfaction of the case.
A total of 5,331 people attended, in this edition, to see the Contest at the Bullring (8,209
less than the previous year), collecting a total of 13,074 pesetas in tickets (21,671
pesetas less than the previous year).
Una Historia Irrepetible en el Mundo Musical
Certamen Internacional de Bandas de Música Ciudad de Valencia
Alfredo Ruiz Cerveró