Inopera, abanda (Italian forband) refers to amusical ensemble (normally ofwind instruments) which is used in addition to the main orchestra and plays the music which is actually heard by the characters in the opera. Abanda sul palco (band on the stage) was prominently used inRossini's Neapolitan operas.^[1] Verdi used the termbanda to refer to abanda sul palco, as in the score forRigoletto. He used the termbanda interna (internal band), to refer to a band which is still separate from the orchestra but heard from the off-stage wings. The early scores ofLa traviata use abanda interna.^[2]

Diegetic depictions of music making are present in the earliestoperatic depictions ofOrpheus accompanying himself but larger onstage ensembles seem to have first appeared inDon Giovanni, most spectacularly in thepolymetric Act I ball where the windHarmonie is joined by two violin-and-bass bands to simultaneously accompanyminuet,contradance andwaltz.Giovanni Paisiello's operaPirro, which opened weeks later in December 1787, marks the first use of the termbanda in the sense of awind band. WhileAlmaviva's serenade is accompanied from the pit in both Paisiello's (1782) andRossini's (1816)Il barbiere di Siviglia, by 1818 Rossini's operaRicciardo e Zoraide thebanda was established as an independent institution in Italian opera houses.^[3]

Composers such as Rossini andVerdi made use of thebanda. Composers wrote music on twostaves, and thebandmaster addedclarinets in the upper register andbrass in the middle and lower. At theParis Opera in the mid-nineteenth century,Adolphe Sax used only brass instruments, many of themsaxhorns.^[3]

Thebanda was much like amilitary band. It comprised about twenty players, but was generally not part of the opera company - usually, the localimpresario selected the players. InPalermo,Bourbontroops were recruited for operas, and, inVenice,Kinsky'sAustrian armyregiment, in a similar capacity, was highly regarded.^[4]

According to Warrack and West, thebanda "makes its most marked appearance in Verdi's operas, where its stirring, frankly vulgar sound accorded well with the generalRisorgimento feeling of such early works asNabucco andI Lombardi. In his later operas he used thebanda convention in a more flexible fashion, ranging from the subtlety of the ballroom scenes inRigoletto andUn ballo in maschera to the stridency of theauto-da-fé scene ofDon Carlos."^[4] Julian Budden, dismissing Rossini's use of thebanda as "always naturalistic and perfunctory", continues by dismissing Donizetti's and Bellini'sbanda music, and finally writes "It was left to Verdi to plumb the depths of vulgarity with hisbanda marches, even at a time when his style as a whole had reformed. .... The so-called Kinsky band at Venice had a very high reputation, and Verdi, who had refused to write for it inAttila, took good care to include it in all his subsequent Venetian operas".^[5]

• List of musical ensemble formats

Further reading

• Kimbell, David R. B. (1985).Verdi in the Age of Italian Romanticism. Cambridge University Press
• Harwood, Gregory W. (1998).Giuseppe Verdi: A Guide to Research. Routledge, 1998
• Tyler, Linda L. (23 (March 1990) "Striking up the Banda: Verdi's Use of the Stage Band in His Middle-Period Operas."The Opera Journal, pp. 2–22. ISSN 0030-3585
• Van, Gilles (1998).Verdi's Theater: Creating Drama Through Music. University of Chicago Press

• The cimbasso and tuba in the operatic works of Giuseppe Verdi: A pedagogical and aesthetic comparison (Abstract). Alexander Costantino, doctoral dissertation (August 2010, University of North Texas). "This acceptance of conical instruments is also evident when Verdi wrote for stage-band (banda)."

• Italian opera terminology

• CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list