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Joe Abela: Beland – 150 sena ta’ storja. Żejtun: Għaqda Mużikali Beland. Beland Band Club, Żejtun, 2013. 248 pp.

Żejtun is an old and handsome township that played a significant political role during the so-called Mintoff era.

Since the 19th century, it has also been notable for its enthusiastic brass band clubs. In one of them, the Beland Band Club (the other being Għaqda Banda Żejtun), members of the Diacono family, foremost of whom was Carlo Diacono, composer of religious and secular music, including the opera L’Alpino (1918), were prominent figures.

This large and heavily illustrated volume goes into great detail regarding the origins of this band club and its subsequent history. It is likely to appeal to the people of Żejtun, especially those who are this club’s supporters.

Other readers will probably be put off by the tendency of the author, a much-respected canon of the village, to take it for granted that his readers will be as knowledgeable about, and as interested as he is in, matters and personalities that are mostly little known outside Żejtun.

Abela’s book will no doubt also interest those who study the history of the role played by band clubs in Malta’s music-making community

On the other hand, his community’s readers will no doubt be much interested in lengthy accounts of the Beland’s foreign excursions, such as the one made in 1994 in Germany, a country with which this band club has a remote historical connection.

Abela’s book will no doubt also interest those who study the history of the role played by band clubs in Malta’s music-making community.

They will surely find of interest,as I did, Joe Vella Bondin’s excellent introductory essay on the early days of the band club movement in our country.

The Beland’s German connection is testified by its very name. When Ferdinand von Hompesch, the last Grand Master of the Order of St John who ruled Malta, was petitioned by the village to proclaim Żejtun’s new status as a town, and assented, he did not call it Città Hompesch. This was because he had already graced Żabbar with that title.

So he called it Città Bylandt. This was second-best, of course, since Bylandt was the family name of the Grand Master’s mother, but there it was. Bylandt sounded a little odd to Maltese ears, so it was soon transformed to the more Maltese-sounding Beland. It was in this form that it has survived in the title of the band club that is the subject of this book.

Abela says that music-making in Żejtun’s streets on the occasion of the feast of Santa Katerina (St Catherine), the parish’s titular saint, dates back to the 17th century.

But in the days of the Order, no band clubs existed. And it was only in 1860 that Orazio Diacono set up Żejtun’s first one (the original title is not given by Abela).

Since then, Maltese band clubs have frequently had rebellious members liable to leave and set up rival institutions. As early as 1867, an assistant bandmaster called Angelo Mifsud, nicknamed Iċ-Ċirkes, broke off from Orazio. He obtained control of the club, which he named La Stella.

The indignant Orazio immediately set up a rival band, which he named L’Unione. Mifsud greatly increased the number of band players and seems to have done well despite the rivalry of the band ‘run by the brothers Diacono’ which, however, seems to have closed down in 1885.

It was in 1893 that La Stella, again conducted by Mifsud after an absence of a few years, took the name of Società Filarmonica Beland. The composer Diacono, Orazio’s son, soon became its conductor. This association indicates that the breach between the two warring parties must have been repaired.

The author devotes four chapters to biographical accounts of the main personalities in this history – Orazio Diacono, Mifsud Ċirkes, Carlo Diacono and others. Carlo Diacono (1876-1942) studied music under the well-known Maltese composer Paolino Vassallo, and became Beland’s conductor between 1897 and 1903.

He became maestro di cappella of various Maltese parish churches. He acquired a nationwide reputation for the quality of his music, especially after the successful performance of his opera L’Alpino, an opera I remember seeing as a boy when it was revived in 1946 at the Radio City Opera House in Ħamrun.

Beland remains a very active band club as the comprehensive accounts in this book of its musical and social activities testify, and is surely one of Żejtun’s cultural hubs.

Abela’s volume provides a good record of its history and of all the men (hardly any women) who have brought it into being and keep it so much alive.

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