From Valletta to Pyongyang: A Maltese Festive Wind Band March and the Politics of Musical Borrowing
Philip CiantarAbstract
Malta’s vibrant wind band tradition sees the annual composition of numerous festive marches. This article explores the politics of musical borrowing through Victory , a festive march by Vincenzo Ciappara (1890–1979) composed following the Allied triumph in the Second World War. The march’s trio was subsequently reworked in another march, adapted as the chorus of a Maltese-Australian football song, and later incorporated into a political song performed in Valletta and Pyongyang. The study contends that musical borrowing fosters engagement, enhances the familiar, blurs musical genres, and generates dialogues between the source and its (re)interpretations across cultural and political contexts.