Music: Brass Fanfare

If a citizen raises his voice in the Dutch coal-mining town of Kerkrade (pop. 50.-ooo), the locals boast, “They can hear it in Belgium and Germany.” For the last month, Kerkrade has been heard more clearly than ever—but visitors have been making all the noise. As the scene of a quadrennial spasm known as the “Fourth Musical Competition of Kerkrade,” the town has become the Bayreuth of the marching brasses, the Salzburg of the wood winds, the Milano of the mandolin orchestras. Amateur bandsmen travel thousands of miles to compete in Kerk-rade’s concours—this year there were 3,000 of them in 215 bands from 21 countries. When any sizable number of them tuned up and started blasting away together at, say, Berlioz’ Roman Carnival overture, the sound smashed across the borders of Belgium and Germany like an invading army.

Cafe Contributors. The concours that ended last week was, by critical consensus, Kerkrade’s best. As many as 21 bands paraded simultaneously in the town’s big stadium, pumping away together at 21 different tunes. In the enormous (3,500-seat) tent erected for the occasion, the bands played weekends—from early afternoon until early the next morning. Among those present: 40 emotional Italians of the Corpo Musicale del Dopolavoro Fer-roviario of Milan who nearly blasted the $40,000 tent to pieces with Cam Amati, a musical description of attacking Italian tanks in World War II; three bands of sardine fishermen and rice workers from Portugal, who traveled almost two weeks by bus in order to perform for two days at Kerkrade; the band of the tiny town of Eijsden, Holland, which was accompanied to the concours by 2,000 cheering supporters; the Banda Primitiva of Liria, Spain, whose conductor entertained the crowd by dancing on his toes in front of his musicians as they played. When all was said, sung, marched, tootled and done, the overall winner of the world’s biggest brass-band competition was not a brass band at all but an amateur symphony orchestra—the National Youth Orchestra of Israel, which barely beat out New Zealand’s National Band.* The lung-weary winner of the marching band contest was the Dutch drum band, De Trommelaere van Roesendaele.

Relative Quiet. The man who started the noisy affair is 46-year-old Town Clerk Johan (“I’m the worst municipal employee in Holland”) Scholtes. Inspired by local band contests, Scholtes decided in 1948 to organize bandsmen on an international scale. He sat down with an atlas, and over the next three years fired off letters all over the world announcing the first international music concours. Seventy-five bands showed up for the 1951 competition. When the second contest rolled around four years later, the municipality asked everyone in town to paint his house front and set out flowers; chests were placed in Kerkrade’s 148 cafes for contributions (hearty-drinking Kerkraders dropped in $100,000—almost enough to pay all costs of the concours}. By 1958, Scholtes had a dossier of 50,000 bands.

Sadly, this summer’s brass fanfare may be the last. Scholtes has his enemies, who feel that he has won more glory than is proper for a $220-a-month clerk. When he was invited to Salzburg last year and introduced as “beloved Herr Doktor Scholtes,” his fellow townsmen seethed. But if his concours goes, the loss will be Kerkrade’s: instead of listening to the pick of the world’s brasses, the town will have to settle for relative quiet and its own supply of twelve brass bands, 18 male choirs, nine flute, mandolin and drum bands, and one amateur symphony orchestra.

*Although 85% of the entrants at Kerkrade are brass bands, prizes are awarded in four categories: Fanfare Orchestra (pure brass), Harmony Orchestra (brass cum wood winds), Symphony Orchestra and Mandolin Orchestra.

In addition, there is a marching band prize for brass band and fanfare competitors only.