Military Bandmasters after the Concert of the Orchestra of the 67th IR Professor Zygmunt Urbanyi

The photograph, depicting among other things military bandmasters, comes from Zygmunt Urbanyi’s collection. Urbanyi was a composer, conductor and artistic director of choirs mainly in Bydgoszcz (in the photo first on the left, sitting). He was passionate about collecting documents related to the musical life mostly of Bydgoszcz, but not only. His archive includes items such as photographs, concert posters, programmes, press cuttings and correspondence. This document is valuable mainly because it refers to the musical life of the last century, which was full of exceptional phenomena and included intense activity of choirs and singing societies formed by members of various ages.
Zygmunt Urbanyi was born on 1 May 1872 in Stanisławów [currently Ivano-Frankivsk]. He came from a Hungarian clerical family settled in Galicia after the fall of the Hungarian Revolution in 1848. Urbanyi both composed and led and published reviews of operas and musical poems staged in theatres. He also cooperated with Bydgoszcz and Inowrocław military orchestras, for which he wrote marches, such as: “Pochód kosynierów na Racławice” [“Scythers' March to Racławice”] – a composition for the 16th Regiment of Wielkopolska Uhlans of the Pomeranian Cavalry Brigade. The march entitled “Z orłami w zawody” ["With the Eagles We Compete”] for symphonic orchestra and a male voice choir, composed in 1923, was awarded the first prize in the national composition competition organized by the Ministry of Military Affairs and became the anthem of the Polish Air Force in the period of the Second Republic of Poland.
Sepia-coloured photograph, in red passe-partout. Under the photograph: handwritten signature in black ink on a white background.