History of the band

The Moreland City Band was established in 1882. It has a proud history in representing the community of Moreland that spans 123 years.

For most of its history the Band was known as the Brunswick Municipal Band. In 2003, to improve its identity within the Moreland community, the Band changed its name to the Moreland City Band.

Moreland City Band holds pride of place as one of Australias highly regarded A grade brass bands and is the only community brass band within the City of Moreland. The Band was re-graded to A Grade following success at B Grade level where it was runner up in the 1997 Australian Championships and the Australian B Grade Champion Band in 1998 and 1999.

The following is a historical exerpt of the Brunswick City Band (one of the two original bands that merged to form Moreland City Band). This article appeared in Fusion - Journal of the Brunswick Community History Group, March 1995, and was written by John Whiteoak.

The Big Brass Battle: Brunswick vs Collingwood, 1925 -1927

For twenty interminable minutes after the last sounds of the march, ‘Ravenswood’, echoed around the freezing air of the Exhibition Building, the musicians and their supporters waited for the victor. This had been one of the most dramatic battles in Australian brass band history, and now only anxious murmuring disturbed the silence as the announcement was begun. Which band – Brunswick or Collingwood – would be claimant to the title, Australian champion band? This was late in 1927, but the story behind this famous Challenge Contest begins some years earlier.

During the First World War, the Brunswick City Municipal Band (not to be confused with Turner’s Brunswick Band, like many other bands, more or less put aside its aspiration of becoming a champion band. By early 1920, however, the band had developed sufficiently under the baton of Charles Allison to win a Geelong C grade contest and gain an upgrading to B grade status. Later that it entered the prestigious annual South Street contest in Ballarat and came fourth in a field of seven B grade bands. The following year it achieved more or less the same result at South Street.

The turning point for Brunswick came in 1923 with the appointment of Scottish migrant and cornet champion, Hugh Niven, as conductor. A1926 appraisal of Niven’s career states that the Brunswick City Band in March 1923 “was at a very low ebb, but after being reorganized by the efforts of Mr Ben Warr and Mr Niven, it was not long before it began to claim attention on the contest platform.

In 1924 the band won the B grade championship of Tasmania and was subsequently upgraded to A grade. It was not until the following year, however, that its famous rivalry with Collingwood Citizens Band begun.

1925 was a year of crisis for the Australian band movement. For more than two decades the annual South Street contest at Ballarat had been the mecca for Australian brass band musicians. But by 1925, long standing “acrimony” between the South Street Society (which hosted the contest) and the Victorian Bands abandon the which at that time had very strong local council support, took up the challenge and offered to host the annual contest themselves as part of a Brunswick 1000 (pounds) Brass Band and Athletic Carnival. This was to be held over six days in October at the Brunswick Sports Ground.

As a venture (largely credited to Brunswick City Band Secretary, Ben Warr), the Brunswick Band Contest was stunning success in every way. The contest focused attention on Brunswick City Band in an unprecedented way. The cover and seven pages of the Australian Band and Orchestra News were devoted to photographs and reports of the contest. Segments of the contests were even broadcast to the Melbourne public by 3LO, apparently a first in Australian band contesting history.

It was in the context of this intense attention, however, that Brunswick ran second to Collingwood in the A grade championship. Mind you, it was no disgrace to be beaten by this famous band, which was led by legendary soloist and conductor Frank Johnstone and incorporated Australia’s most famous trombone trio. Yet it still hurt, and Brunswick vowed to remove at the first opportunity this obstacle to their dream of becoming recognized as champions.

This opportunity came on New Years Day 1927 at Burnie, Tasmania, where Brunswick competed against a formidable line up of A grade bands, including Collingwood. Here, Brunswick defeated its powerful rival Collingwood and became the new A grade champion. Now the rivalry between the two bands was a new height. Collingwood’s only hope of regaining the dignity lost to these relative upstarts from Sydney Road was to meet, and defeat, Brunswick in a special, high profile challenge contest. Following considerable public debate a £200 Grand Contest Challenge was arranged for a Saturday evening, 27 August, at the Exhibition Building.

An audience of about 2000 turned up to witness the challenge, which was judged by three separate and very eminent adjudicators, Percy Code, Percy Jones and Robert McAnnaly. A detailed report of the challenge begins as follows:

This contest created a great interest, not only in Melbourne, but in the Commonwealth. Three adjudicators were engaged, and the spacious Exhibition Building was chosen as the area wherein these brass band gladiators should engage in combat. The selection ‘Gounod’, arranged by Rimmer, and the ‘Epic Symphony’ by Percy Fletcher were the pieces chosen.

Brunswick apparently “triumphed’ with their delicate and imaginative interpretation of the first work “Gounod”, but Collingwood later ‘turned the tables” with an impeccably crafted performance of the ‘Epic Symphony’. But wait! Let one who was there give their own colourful account of the battle:

There are some things in the realms of music at which brass is supreme. Such are the stupendous crushing climaxes, the intoxicating marches, that fire the staidest imagination, the fanfare, when the silver snarling trumpets chide, and the heroic themes. The first test pieces was [played] by Collingwood and the power precision and fire of their playing electrified the audience. Brunswick gave a radically different interpretation. They sought the beauty of the smooth chord, the quiet melodic theme. It was the difference of the mountain torrent and lowland stream. The second piece…..was so ambitious in its scope that the powers of the bands were thin threads of sound from the cornets, grave pronouncements by the basses, quick passionate climaxes, and sometimes, sudden silences that left one forgetting to breathe. Collingwood played this piece almost fautlessly.

This anonymous observor could have gone on to describe what I imagine was the combination of intense strain and joyful anticipation on the faces of the thirty or so Brunswick band musicians, their conductor Hugh Niven, their tireless secretary Councillor Ben Warr, and their families and supporters, as the results of the clash were hesitatingly read out:

First test piece: ‘Gounod’ by Rimmer [pause] Brunswick City Municipal Band, [long pause] 92 points [restrained applause] – Collingwood Citizens’ Band [longer pause] 86 points [general uproar and booing]. Second test piece: ‘Epic Symphony’ by Percy Fletcher [no pause] Brunswick City Municipal Band 86 points [nervous coughing] – Collingwood Citizens’ Band [interminable pause] points [pause] 96.

Another brief pause probably followed, in which frenzied mental arithmetic was superseded by a deafening explosion of clapping, sheering, foot-stamping, heckling, booing and atrocious blaring of brass. Collingwood was again champion of champions and Brunswick was –well- I think you are in the best position to imagine the feelings of the Brunswick musicians and their supporters.

This little story of passionate devotion, community spirit, love of music, intense rivalry, ecstatic triumph and dashed hopes does not have a happy ending. Yet it does describe a form of pride in working-class culture and artistic achievement that is almost unknown today.