My Favorite Marches

Copyright 2007 by Ronald B. Standler

Composers of Military Band Music

John Philip Sousa: Sousa at Dallas Wind Symphony; Sousa Archives at Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champaign; U.S. Marine Corps Band; Library of Congress has copies of instrumental sheet music for 158 works, another 314 versions for Klavier; Paul Bierley, John Philip Sousa: A Descriptive Catalogue of His Works, University of Illinois Press, 1973.

Publishers of sheet music for military marches

Alphonse Leduc publishes some French military marches
Bote & Bock, music publishers in Berlin, was purchased in 1997 by Boosey & Hawkes. Bote & Bock published 165 marches in two-volumes, titled Deutsche Armeemärsche.
Carl Fischer published concert versions of Sousa: Belle of Chicago, El Capitan, High School Cadets, Semper Fidelis, The Thunderer, and more. Of special note, Fischer published Frederick Fennell's arrangement of The Washington Post March.
Wilhelm Halter in Karlsruhe, Germany
Theodore Presser published many of Sousa's marches, including many of Frederick Fennell's arrangements: El Capitan, King Cotton, and The Washington Post March. In 1930, Presser purchased the John Church Company, one of the original publishers of Sousa's marches.
Rundel in Germany
Schott publishes Friedrich Deisenroth (editor): Deutsche Armeemärsche, 59 pp.

retail stores:
Fest-Musik-Haus in Texas (USA) imports German and European marches

recordings of military marches

Bundeswehr CD production

Corelia French manufacturer of CDs

retail stores:
Discurio retail store in England

My Favorite Military Marches

The following are my personal favorite marches.

American marches:: Sanderson: Hail to the Chief; Sousa: Belle of Chicago; Sousa: El Capitan; Sousa: High School Cadets; Sousa: King Cotton; Sousa: Semper Fidelis; Sousa: Thunderer; Sousa: Washington Post March
French marches:: J. Alazard: Saint-Cyr; Gabauer: Premier pas de Manoeuvre; Duvernoy: Deuxieme pas de Manoeuvre; Hoering: Marche de la Légion Etrangère; Mehul: Le Chant du Départ; G. Meister Le Grenadier du Caucase; G. Parès: Trocadéro; F. Romain: Sonnez Clairons; Wettge: Défilé de la Garde Républicaine; ?: Pas Cadénce des Sans-Culottes; ?: Les Trainards
German military marches: Michael Haydn: Der Koburger Marsch (composed in 1793); anonymous: Herzog von Braunschweig; Möllendorf: Parademarsch Nr. 1 (composed in 1846); Scherzer: Bayerischer Defiliermarsch (composed in 1850)

My Favorite National Anthems

In selecting these anthems, I only judge the music, not the words, and not the country.

Austria-Hungary (1797-1919) Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, composed by F.J. Haydn. The melody is the subject of variations in the slow movement of Haydn: String Quartet Op. 76, Nr. 3, the so-called "Kaiserquartett".
Austria since 1947 Bundeshymne, sheet music
Belgium La Brabançonne
Canada O Canada
France La Marseillaise
Norway Ja, vi elsker dette landet

Webpages about national anthems:

nationalanthemns.info and david.national-anthems has history, MIDI files, lyrics, and sheet music for more than 400 anthems.

U.S. Navy Band MP3 files

my notes about military band music

I have enjoyed listening to military band music since the mid-1950s, when my mother purchased a phonograph record of French and American military marches, recorded by the Band de la Garde Républicane and sold in the USA on the Angel record label, a label normally devoted to recordings of classical music.

My criticism of most recordings of military band music is that there is too much emphasis on the percussion instruments, and often too much emphasis on the brass instruments (particularly the tuba, which has little to contribute to the melody or harmony). Further, the music is played in a rigid tempo that is suitable for marching, but not like orchestrial music that has subtle changes in tempo.

After I purchased a computer-controlled synthesizer in May 1992, I experimented with arranging some of Sousa's marches for a string ensemble. I was pleasantly surprised to see that such arrangements could expose the real music contained in the band version. The Washington Post March is particularly suited for strings. I have read that the original version of that march was composed not as a march, but as a two-step dance to be played at an ice cream social sponsored by that newspaper. In looking at sheet music for concert versions of Sousa's marches, I sometimes found syncopation and ornaments that were omitted from sheet music intended for school/college bands. Including such syncopation and ornaments in my arrangements made the march sound more like classical music.

In 1993, I was not able to find a retail music store in the USA that would sell me authentic versions of French or German military marches. The development of the Internet makes it easier to find obscure publishers of military marches. I have posted this webpage to make it easier for other people in the USA to find these military marches.

This document is posted at http://www.rbs0.com/music3.htm
created 24 Dec 2007, revised 27 Dec 2007

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