Playing for Supremacy, or The International Contest of Military Bands in 1867

The world exhibition in Paris in 1867 became the venue of an outstanding event in the history of wind music. Ten military bands from all over Europe were sent to Paris to represent their nations in a musical contest that took place in the monumental Palais de l’Industrie. Since the first world exhibition, the Great Exhibition of Works of Industry of all Nations in London in 1851, exhibitions promoted the nucleus of a competitive idea. Bringing people closer together politically and culturally, promoting industry and trade between the participating countries, they accentuated the diversity of cultures providing a platform for national representation and demonstrating national power or claims to power at the same time. In 1867 the newly added contests within the scope of the art exhibition, the International Contest of Military Bands being one of them, implied that nations were now to strive not only for supremacy in the fields of industry, art and science, but also for supremacy in music. Already months before the contest began, European newspapers and journals reported in detail about the participating bands and how the contest was going to proceed. The coverage was even more extensive after the military bands of Austria, Prussia and France, the political great powers at the time, were awarded first place.