10 The birth of our Band

In 1986 the Council of the band and some musicians bravely decided that it was time to collect all the information concerning the birth and the first years of our Association. This historical research would then be gathered in the first edition of this book, published on the occasion of what we thought would be the first one-hundredth anniversary of the Band.Unfortunately, the documents which could have helped us during our research had all become mud during the flooding of the Oglio river in 1960, which invaded the archives of the band, whose headquarter was then situated in the lowest floors of the primary school. The only document we had was based more on tradition than on history, as the legend wanted that two brothers, Isidoro and Massimiliano Caprinali, had gathered the first musicians around the year 1888.Our target was to find more evidence to strengthen this background, which had been passed on until 1919 only by word from player to player. This research took us to the parish archives of the towns nearby, hoping that we would find some written testimony of fairs or such where the band of Darfo could have been present; we consulted the minutes of the Councils of the oldest bands of the province, where we could have found some link with our band due to the relationship between conductors or directors, to cultural exchanges, to contests…; we went to an important library of Brescia and immersed ourselves in the pages of all the newspapers of the time: “Il Cittadino di Brescia” (catholic) and “La Provincia di Brescia” (the liberal anthagonist), we even looked for some descendant of the Caprinali family…All our efforts didn’t bring any certainty, and with few documents in our hands we could only make hypothesis. We gathered that before 1888, and perhaps even around 1850, Darfo had a group of players, maybe too small a group to be called “Music” (the term used in those years); maybe so unorganised that it kept forming and dissolving, never reaching that level of notoriety to be known in Brescia and being named in the news, where the “Music of Darfo” is actually named only at the beginning of 1900.The reason why this hypothesis was formed is due to the precious help of a priest, Don Lino Ertani, who helped us find in the archives the autobiography of Don Giacomo Margosio, a parish who moved to Darfo on August 4^th, 1857, and who wrote “…I arrived in Pisogne and was greeted by the clergymen and the delegations, together with the lords of the town and the sound of the band…”.It was legitimate to think that that band was indeed the “Music” of Darfo. Since at the time we knew, by the documents in our hands, that the only official band of the Valley (the one of Breno, founded in 1850) was divided from the catholic world because of its non-denominational attitude, it seemed fair to think that the musicians of the Band the priest talks about were part of a group of the band of Darfo that had gone to Pisogne to welcome the new parish.The doubt remained that those players could be from Bisogne or some other town, hired for that occasion by the people of Darfo. But then we thought that if such a group had existed before, and being a group that could be hired for any occasion, it would have left some trace on the news of the time, or on other papers that other bands of the Valley had searched before us, in vain.More over, considerino the obvious lacks of the time in communication and transports, and the following difficulty in the organisation of public events (even if they were a lot simpler than now), it was a lot more probable that the band mentioned would be a music group formed by people from Darfo.Another paper supporting this hypothesis (of a band in Darfo before 1888) is an article of “La Provincia di Brescia”, dated September 28^th, 1887, where we have news that two days before “…in Angolo, a town at the beginning of the Valle di Scalve,… the celebration of Saint Luis saw the participation of a catholic band, we don’t know from what town…”. The same article mentions the bands of Lovere, Pisogne and Alzano, who took part in a patriotic celebration organised in Lover, on that same day, for the inauguration of the monument for Garibaldi. The journalist stresses the absence of the band of Breno among the ones present at the event, conjuring the idea that it had joined the catholic celebration in Angolo. The band of Breno replied bitterly on the pages of that same newspaper about its total lack of involvement in that “Saint Luis celebration”, and justifying its absence with other reasons.If we wanted to believe these chronicles and the journalists of the time, all the bands that were known in the valley were already busy on that fateful day, September 26^th, 1887, thus giving the way for the hypothesis that a group of players from Darfo had left and gone to Angolo to play and make both happy and solemn the event with their music.By way of logic, after getting to know the history of our conscript bands, or those founded before ours, it seemed quite unlikely that a town like Darfo would have a band only after 1888, when Darfo at that time was already a flourishing and dynamic centre for the social and economical development of the Valley, It would have been strange to be so late for our town compared to other towns of the province, for a field like that of music groups which at the time were thought to be the best expression of the culture.Our intuitions were confirmed in 1993, when the historian Marino Anesa, famous for his studies on the world of Italian bands, found a very important document in the State Archive of Bergamo while researching for a book on music for bands from 1800 to 1945.It was the “Regulation of the Philharmonic Society of Darfo”, dated July 30^th, 1853.At last it was found what in two years of researches we had always missed because our attention had been wrongly turned on the archives of Brescia and not on those on Bergamo.It certainly was the same band that was active in Darfo in 1888, and this was clear by the names of the founders mentioned, like Gioachino Caprinali, father of the two brothers, Isidoro and Massimiliano, so far thought to be the first founders and directors of our Association.The regulation was structured like a proper code, made of 59 articles which defined aims, organisation, responsibilities, behavioural rules, legal and patrimonial arrangements, fines and whatever regulates a serious and dignified association.It is surprising to see the care and detailed attention for all the aspects of life in the association.The opinion one gets by reading this code is that the writers must have had very clear ideas on a lot of aspects that a musical association must have faced with time, including legal problems (we must remember that at that time Lombardy and Veneto were under Austrian dominion).Probably our predecessors were inspired by similar codes of other associations; the similarity between the first article (and other aspects of the code ) and those of the code of the Philharmonic of Breno dated 1850 is very clear.The aims of the Society are summarised in the first short, but fundamental, article: “This Society is founded for the noble aim of maintaining the dignity of Religion and of the State, and of giving a gentle treatment to the youth, to entertain them and save them from the dangers of idleness”. One of the most interesting aspects was the division of the members in three classes: contributing pupils, pardoned pupils and honorary members. Basically the economical survival of the association was almost completely in the hands of the members of the band, but it would leave the door open for those like the pardoned pupils, who could not afford any contribution.; the monthly fee was set by the Direction according to the economical possibilities of each member who would commit not to interrupt the payment for at least five years.The appendix of the code lists the names of the associates and their monthly fee or the contribution paid for five years. Another important note was the limited number of 25 musicians only, and their duty to be living in the town of Darfo.There were a lot of rules for the members, for their life in the association but also in daily life. Whoever broke the rules (including the conductor) would be fined differently according to what the infringement was.One and a half century later, we can still find a lesson of style in that document, a lesson of sober and severe coherence together with a feeling of human solidarity and a strong will of creating the grounds for a future association, worth the ideals of its founders.Anesa, the historian, found more interesting papers in the Archive of Bergamo: the prospects of the “…private associations of the province of Bergamo. Category 15: recreational associations”, prospects that were redacted by superintendents of the police, or of the Province, of the district of Breno, sometimes completed with the wording “colle notizie interessanti le viste di Polizia di Stato”.On these registers there were lists of all the musical, theatrical, reading associations, active on all the territory of the province.Therefore all these associations were filed by the Police.For each society there was a file with name, location, year of foundation, structure of the direction and names of the directors, numbers of the associates, property of the association, and finally some indications on the registration in the archives or some notes that could interest the authorities.Nothing strange, then, if we think that in those years there were strong ideals spreading on the wave of the Italian Risorgimento against the Austrian domination, and it was an ordinary procedure that the repressive organisms would keep under control all those groups where revolutionary ideas could spread.We were very surprised when we read a date in one of these prospects, corresponding to the Philharmonic Society of Darfo and its “Date of Foundation”: 1852.The following datum gives us the date of registration: August 4^th, 1853, number of Lieutenant Despatch n. 16524.The Philharmonic Sociey of Breno was also registered July 18^th, 1853, even if we know that there was an official code since 1850.Basically, the regulation found by Marino Anesa was nothing but the necessary bureaucratic carrying out to obtain the governmental authorisation, and the registration of the Society at the archives of the Austrian Police.Another stronger evidence that a music group was already active in Darfo before 1853 is the paper reported in the book edited for the celebration of 150 years of the Band of Breno, where a “…social entertainment and union of the three bands of Breno, Darfo and Pisogne…” is mentioned, “to be held in July 1852 in Boario”. It is interesting to notice that even at that time band gatherings were the trend. It is a striking fact that in 1852 the band of Pisogne is mentioned, who will first appear in the prospects of the Police only after 1857, the year of its registration.Once again the exact date of the meeting of a group of Darfo people, gathered to organise a musical association, was slipping through our fingers For now we are content with this date, July 20th, 1853, well stamped and countersigned on a real piece of paper, by those whom we consider our predecessors and founders.But our researches continue. We cannot exclude that one day or another we will find, hiding in a drawer or on some dusty shelf, a yellowed piece of paper that will make our Band turn older again; who knows if our older musicians will make it for our 200^th anniversary.Best wishes to everybody.