www.heritagebrassband.com

Tag: composers

  • Roland F. Seitz

    By Mike Magers

    Roland Forrest Seitz was born in 1867 in Pennsylvania to William and Magdalena Zeigler Seitz. His paternal grandparents had come to America from Germany just over 100 years earlier. Roland was the youngest of eight children. His father died when Roland was only three, and as a youth, Roland began working as an apprentice printer to help the family out, although he was always interested in music. A cousin had bought Roland a flute and he joined a family band of oddly mixed instruments including his flute, an organ, a trombone and some violins. A little later, Roland had learned to play the cornet and euphonium and played both in a group known as the Glen Rock Band.

    At the age of twenty-seven, Roland entered Dana’s Musical Institution in Warren, Ohio, graduating in 1898, after which he returned to Glen Rock, Pennsylvania. He rejoined the Glen Rock Band, eventually becoming its conductor. Seitz helped develop the band into a well known performing organization while he also founded his own music publishing company.

    Image credit: The Gazette and Daily, York, Pennsylvania, 4/27/1956

    As the caption in the above newspaper clipping states, the Glen Rock Band happened to be seated at the Pan-American Exposition held at Buffalo, New York on September 5, 1901 at the moment when President William McKinley was shot. The President suffered from the wound for a short time. After a brief rally, the President succumbed to complications from the gunshot wound about ten days later.

    His publishing company printed and marketed works by other well known period composers as well as his own works. At least one account has Seitz publishing a composition by composer/conductor Karl L. King when King was still a teenager. Seitz died on December 29, 1946 in Union County, New Jersey and he was buried at Chestnut Hill Cemetery in his home town of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania.

    Image credit – The Gazette and Daily, York, Pennsylvania, December 30, 1946

    Seitz is known to have composed over four dozen marches during his long career in music. One of his best known works, March Grandioso, or simply Grandioso, was composed in 1901. The march is based on a theme from Franz Lizst’s Hungarian Rhapsody #14 in F Minor. The now familiar march theme appears in the Lizst work in the allegro eroico, early in the piano score.

    Seitz – March Grandioso performed by the United States Navy Band (Youtube)

    Franz Lizst – Hungarian Rhapsody #14 in F Minor performed by György Cziffra (Youtube)

    —

    , ,

  • Charles E. Duble

    By Mike Magers

    Charles Edward Duble was a trombonist and composer born on September 13, 1884 in Jeffersonville, Indiana. During his performing career of over twenty years, he played with a number of circus, vaudeville and minstrel bands including the Sun Brothers Circus, John Robinson’s Big Ten Shows, Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth and the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Show, DeRue Brothers All-Star Minstrels and William F. Kibble’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company, among many others.

    Duble was described as a tall and lanky individual with a keen sense of humor, often given to practical jokes. He also was known to have a good memory, from which he recalled accounts of his career, organizations that he had been a part of, and the like.

    (Image believed to be in the public domain)

    His first composition is thought to be a march named “Floral City” (1905). Duble believed to have composed three to four dozen works in all. His best known composition is probably a march called “Bravura” (linked below).

    After his performing career ended, he returned to his home town of Jefferson, Indiana. He wrote many articles for Bandwagon, the Journal of the Circus Historical Society, many of which are available online. He died in August of 1960. His honors include being inducted in 1980 into the Hall of Fame of Windjammers Unlimited, the circus music historical society.

    Duble’s Bravura March (YouTube).

    —

    ,

  • Sousa’s Unfinished March

    By Mike Magers

    Classical composer Franz Schubert lived from 1797 to 1828. During his lifetime, Schubert composed many works including seven complete symphonies. His eighth symphony was begun in 1822, but not finished. By the time Schubert died, he had completed two movements of this composition and two other fragments of movements which may or may not have been intended to be part of it. No one knows exactly why the composer failed to complete this work.

    At the time of his death, Franz Schubert was only thirty-one years old and had completed a large catalog of other work including the seven symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a great deal of piano and chamber music. The completed work was named Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, D 759 (D 759 indicating its order in the Deutsche catalog of Franz Schubert works), and is commonly known as Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony.”

    John Philip Sousa – Image credit Brittanica.com

    John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) composed hundreds of pieces during his long and celebrated career. However, the great composer likewise left at least one work in progress at the time of his death. It was subsequently named the “Library of Congress March.” Sousa had been at work on it when he died. The bandleader and composer left unfinished manuscript sketches, a piano draft and incomplete orchestrations of the work.

    In 2003, some 72 years after Sousa’s death, United States Marine Band staff arranger and composer Stephen Bulla was engaged to complete the work, having spent much time with Sousa’s other compositions over the years. To the best of our knowledge, the unfinished piece was not named by Sousa himself, but was given its name in consideration for the time that Sousa had spent at Washington, D. C.’s Library of Congress.

    The newly completed march was first performed at the Library of Congress on May 6, 2003. Sousa’s grandson, John Philip Sousa IV, was in attendance.

    Sousa/Bulla “Library of Congress March” – Youtube.


    —

    ,

  • Sousa Band Audience Requests

    By Mike Magers

    The Clarksburg Telegram of Clarksburg, West Virginia in its issue of February 11, 1898 carried an article regarding requests that had been handed in at concerts of the Sousa Band.

    On one occasion, a note described as dainty read, “A society lady requests that you play the overture to “Tannahauser” [referring to “Tannhauser” by Richard Wager] as an encore.” This contrasted with a more blunt note from a Southern concert that read, “Damn Wagner. Play the ‘Liberty Bell!’”

    Another note from the St. Louis Exposition requested, “This young lady with me requests that you play your charming composition ‘The Ice Cold Cadets.’” Sousa reckoned that it was a reference to his work, “The High School Cadets.”

    A request contained this note, “Bandmaster Sousa: Please inform me what is the name of those two instruments that look like gas pipes.” Another lady asked, in all seriousness, to hear a “coronet solo by your coronetist.”

    At a matinee, Sousa received this request, “Dear Sir: Please play “Love’s Old Sweet Song.’ I’ve got my girl almost to the sticking point, and that will fetch her ’round, sure.”

    —

  • Frederick Joseph Ricketts (Kenneth J. Alford)

    By Mike Magers

    Better known by the pseudonym of Kenneth J. Alford, Frederick Joseph “Joe” Ricketts was born in 1881 in England. His father was a coal merchant in London. Ricketts had studied organ and piano as a youth. He joined the Royal Irish Regiment as a “band boy” while still a teenager. Ricketts also learned to play cornet, violin and euphonium when he was still a young man. He was hired to be the organist and assistant director at the Royal College of Music after completing his studies there. Subsequently, he was engaged as band master of the Second Battalion of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders in what is now South Africa. While with this organization, he began to compose many of his marches and continued to do so over the next two decades.

    His band became the resident organization for the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Wellington, New Zealand. There they performed two concerts each day for their six month posting. Ricketts was promoted to Lieutenant and Director of Music for the Royal Marines in 1927, located in the south of England at Deal. He transferred to Plymouth where he remained until his retirement in 1944.

    Ricketts has been called the British March King, although he composed works in many other genres. He published all of them under the name of Kenneth J. Alford. Alford was his mother’s maiden name. At the time, British soldiers were not allowed to have outside professions. A younger brother, Randolph Robjent Ricketts was also a composer and published his musical works under the pseudonym of Leo Stanley.
    Ricketts is rightfully compared with American composer John Philip Souza in the depth and quality of his work. Perhaps his most memorable composition is “Colonel Bogey” but his many fine works include marches such as “Army of the Nile,” “Eagle Squadron,” “The Great Little Army,” “ The Mad Major, “ “The Middy,” “ On the Quarter Deck, “ “The Standard of St. George, “ “The Thin Red Line, “ “The Vanished Army” and “The Voice of the Guns.”

    He retired from the military in 1944 due to ill health and died the following year after an operation for cancer. In all, Ricketts had served almost fifty years in British military bands. The genesis for “Colonel Bogey” is said to have come from two whistled notes. Bogey is a golf term, of course. In British golf circles, players at the time would whistle two notes, the first one and then a second that was lower than the first by three half steps, rather than to announce their presence by yelling “fore.” Ricketts was thought to have expanded this motif into the first strain of his march. Although composer Sir Malcolm Arnold did not use the entire march in his score, melodies from it were popularized in the 1957 feature film “Bridge on the Rover Kwai.” What you hear in the film is Arnold’s adaptation rather than Rickett’s compete work, though it did lead to something of a resurgence of popularity in Rickett’s music.

    Two examples of Ricketts’ work: The Eagle Squadron (Youtube) and Colonel Bogey (Youtube) .

    —

  • Karl King – In His Own Words

    (Posted with Permission)

    By Karl L. King (Extracted from a December 19, 1966 Interview with Karl King by Dr. Karl M. Holvik)

    Full interview posted in the June & October 1982 Circus Fanfares, available to Members at MYWJU.ORG

    This article published in the July-August 2020 Circus Fanfare

    Early Years

    I think I first became interested in band music when I was a boy in Canton, Ohio, President McKinley’s home.  This was about the turn of the century — about the time of the Spanish-American War.  There were quite a lot of parades and celebrations around there with a lot of marching bands.   I was rather taken in by all these parades and military extravaganzas. 

    The only way a young fellow could get into a band in those days was to take lessons from some private teacher and try to work his way into an adult organization such as the town band of that period.  It wasn’t easy because you would go among those older players and they would ignore you or push you around a bit before you could “cut the giblets”.

    I bought my first cornet when I was selling papers on the street.  It took all the money I made selling papers to make the payments on the cornet, and I had to take private lessons and dig up the money for those, too.  I was eleven or twelve years old.  The local bandmaster was Mr. Foster of the Thayer Band.  I was taking lessons from him, and he thought I’d do a little better on the baritone;  this was a smart idea, because it was a better instrument for me. 

    My first playing was as a baritone player with the Thayer Band at Canton.  They had two bands there, the Thayer Band and the Grand Army Band,  No school bands at all.  If you wanted to play, you had to get into an older band.   I had to buy my own instrument.  I had to pay for my own private lessons and take my own chances.  I was working in the printing office there at the time, and I was trying to write music without knowing how or why — just interested in band music and determined to do something with it.

    I went down to Columbus and played with Fred Nettermeyer’s Band.  I remember I played the Ohio State Fair job with them.  That was probably my first professional playing.   

    Circus Time

    I was sort of undecided about whether to keep on following that printing career or become a professional musician.  I had a chance to join the Robinson Circus as a baritone player, so that ended my career as a printer.

     I was about 18 years old when I joined the Robinson Circus Band.  I didn’t finish high school — I didn’t even go to high school.  I’m probably the most uneducated member of the American Bandmasters Association. 

    I went on to the Yankee-Robinson Circus the next year, playing baritone.  Then on Sells-Floto; then on Barnum and Bailey in 1913.

    Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite (1913)

    I was going on the Barnum and Bailey Circus to play baritone for Ned Brill, and he asked me to write a special march for them — which I did, and which I dedicated to him.  It was just one of those things. 

    I’ve always loved the baritone.  I always thought it was not only the cello of the band but the soul of the band, too.  I liked to hear the baritone romping around there, and I’ve always tried to write good parts for that instrument.  I just loved the instrument. 

    In 1914 I became the conductor of my own band; that was the combined Sells-Floto and Buffalo Bill’s Circus Band. 

    World War 1 started in ‘14, but we didn’t get involved in it until ‘17.  At that time I was directing the Barnum and Bailey Band and, somehow or other, I managed to escape the draft during the 1917-18 season. 

    But, at the close of the ‘18 season, I was all ready to go into the Army.   After taking two physical exams I was inducted; in fact, I had my orders to leave for Camp Grant, Rockford, Illinois.  I was to direct the band at an officer training school there.  Just as I was ready to leave, the war ended.  So I never really got a chance to get into the Service.

    Life after the Circus

    I didn’t go back (to the circus) after 1918.  I wanted to get into something where I would have a little more time to study and write.  So I stayed in Canton, Ohio and conducted the Grand Army Band.  Then this job in Fort Dodge, Iowa opened up.  They were looking for a director in 1920.  I came out not intending, particularly, to stay (for now 46 years!) 

    I’ve been working on that first one-year contract all this time.  Somebody forgot to fire me, I guess. 

    (As to writing my first march), I don’t even remember for sure what the first ones were.  I know the first several things I wrote were rejected by most of the publishers, and it’s a good thing, probably, because I don’t have them around here to haunt me now.  But I had some music published back in 1909 by Seitz in Glenrock, Pennsylvania; then by the Barnhouse people in Oskaloosa, Iowa.   I wrote experimentally.  I had no formal training in harmony or counterpoint.  I studied a few books in that line, but progress was slow.  To my way of thinking, it was easier for me just to sit down and write the thing and try it over on the piano to see if it sounded right than it was to fool around with all those rules and exceptions.

    I must have just written by instinct and, of course, I did study the scores and the writing of all the good band writers that I could come across.   I learned my instrumentation that way — by seeing how the other men wrote for these various instruments, and I knew, of course, the range and possibilities and limitations of the instruments through a fair amount of experimentation and by playing them somewhat. 

    I have learned in composition or conducting mostly by imitation, by experimentation, and by listening to good men and watching good men.  I think that’s one of the best ways of getting an education. 

    On the circus I got a lot of inspiration.  I did a lot of writing and arranging for different acts.  They wanted a certain type of music; that’s where a lot of these things came from.  An act would come on and need something special, like a Spanish number or a Chinese number or something else.  Naturally, I’d write something for them, and then in the following year I’d put a title on it and get it printed in order to get a few dollars out of it.  About half of the things I wrote in those first years were written directly for the circus — certain acts, certain situations or performers.

    Karl King Music House

    I started that in Canton, Ohio, publishing a few marches and things.  I had a few things published in my own catalog before I moved (to Fort Dodge, IA).   It’s a wonderful place to have been these years.  There’s one thing I still believe:  Iowa’s the greatest band state in the Union.  The support they’ve given our municipal bands by means of the Iowa Band Law — through all of those years!  Iowa was probably the only place I could have conducted this type of band and kept it in continued existence.  The public has been so nice and so receptive to the band and its work.  They’ve been so gracious to me that I wouldn’t have wanted to move from here — Fort Dodge in particular and Iowa in general.  It has been a very fine state, and with a good attitude toward bands and band music.  People out here love bands.  And because they love band music, I love them too.  We’ve had sort of a romance between the public and the bands.   There is a Sousa bridge in Washington (DC) and I don’t imagine he’d resent the fact that I have one in Fort Dodge. 

    John Philip Sousa

    To me the Sousa Band was always the greatest.  Of course, it’s so long ago that it’s hard to make comparisons, but I haven’t heard any band since that I thought sounded any finer than his band when it was at its best.

    The Sousa Band went out all over the land and played good music for people who had very little chance to hear it elsewhere, before the days of radio or TV or anything of that kind.  Even the record industry wasn’t greatly developed at that time, and for a lot of people, the only good music they ever heard was when the Sousa Band came through on tour.

    It was an institution and, of course, there’ll never be anything like it again.  It would be impossible, economically, to take a band of that size and quality on the road anymore.  The expense would be so terrific, and there are so many things to conflict.  No man could do what he did:  take that band on three or four world tours; support them entirely without any sponsorship or financial aid from anyone else.  Money had to come into the ticket office, or he couldn’t have done it.   It was due entirely to his showmanship and his personal ability — a great man.

    I was always a great hero-worshipper.  Sousa was one of my heroes; so was Herbert Clarke, who I think was the greatest cornet soloist who ever lived;  Arthur Pryor, the greatest trombonist;  Simon Mantia on baritone.   Incidentally, at one time they were all soloists with the Sousa Band; they were the outstanding bandmen of that era and I always looked up to them and still do.  They were pioneers in this game. 

    Many of us — Henry Fillmore and Herman Bellstedt, who did so much arranging for Sousa, and others — had to write things, and we had to write them in a hurry, especially when we were with a show.  We’d write a lead sheet, a solo cornet part, and take off from that.  You’d just write the parts without writing the score.  Oh, we’d have something of a mental score.  You knew what chord you were going to use, and you knew about what you were going to do with this instrument or that one.  But we’d just start with the lead part and write from that.   An embarrassing thing:  In the last thiry or forty years I’ve had to go back and write conductor’s parts for marches I wrote fifty years ago without a score and do the whole thing in reverse — write a score from the parts, rather than the other way. 

    Herman Bellstedt, (who) used to write those novelty things for Sousa, would write a cornet part and stick it up on the mantle, and then write a clarinet part and stick it up beside it, and go around the room until he had them all written.  The next day he would have the arrangement done; if he’d had to score it all, he’d have had to write it all twice — the score and the parts.  It was a case of getting it done quickly.  I don’t recommend this to anyone today.  They’d just get confused and all the professors would throw up their hands in horror.

    School Band Movement

    The school band movement was almost full-grown before I became conscious of it.  I remember my first contact with it came in the days of the national contests.  I judged some of those; I judged at one of the first ones … I think that was at Tulsa.  Mr. Sousa was one of the judges there; and Goldman.   The movement has done some tremendous things, and there are some very outstanding school bands.  The university bands are getting better all the time. 

    Things have happened so fast I can hardly keep track of them.  I know a few years ago, when I was very active in conducting massed bands they got to be so tremendous I could hardly conceive of them.  In 1960 I went to Houston to do one with 7,500 players; then I went to Purdue and had 10,000; then to Ann Arbor with Revelli, and he trotted out 13,000. 

    Modern Music

    There’s a lot of the more modern, contemporary music.  I’m not quite as sold on it as some other folks, but that’s probably due to the fact I belong about three generations back.  There are a lot of things being featured and promoted today in the way of contemporary music that would not be suitable for my programs for the simple reason the public out there in the park wouldn’t react too well to them; they just wouldn’t appreciate them.   I play the traditional things like marches and musical show tunes. 

    I think the (current) bands are missing quite a bit by turning their backs completely on the old repertoire, the traditional type of band music.  I don’t think they ought to lose sight of the real reason for bands.  The very first bands that were ever organized were small, military-type organizations, and their original purpose was morale-raising; that’s why they were created; probably to raise the morale of the marching men, the soldiers.  But in this troubled period we’re in today, everybody, not just the military, needs his morale lifted a bit.  (It’s a) crazy world we’re living in now.

    You can’t listen to a really fine band playing the Stars and Stripes Forever and still have your chin down.  I think we should take up again that activity of trying to raise the morale of people by playing inspiring, uplifting , and cheerful music.   After all, I don’t see anything wrong with pretty music.  And if there is anything lacking in some of our latter-day things, it’s a lack of melodic content and a lack of emotional content.  I think that music should say something.  I have always thought that it should sing out a bit.  I don’t think a man should sit down to write unless he’s got a song in his heart. 

    Now, I sang my song.  It was a rather simple one; it wasn’t too involved; I’m happy about it.   In the last couple of years people have asked me why I’m not writing anymore, and my simple answer is that I ran out of tunes.  When I ran out of tunes, I believed it was time to quit, and I’d like to recommend that as a matter of policy to all other composers.

    —

    ,

  • Julius Fučik

    By Mike Magers

    Like so many other band composers, Julius Fučik was born into a musical family in Prague, Czechoslovakia (then known as Bohemia) in 1872. His principal instrument was bassoon and he studied composition under Antonin Dvorák. Fučik joined a regimental Austro-Hungarian band while he was in his late teens and played with the group until he was in his 20s. He then returned to Prague and then on to Agram where he began play with the New German Theater Orchestra and is known to have composed trio music for a small wind group he co-founded. He also began conducting area groups.

    Fučik rejoined the military in 1897 when he became conductor of the 86th Infantry Regimental Band in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. While there he continued to compose, including his familiar “Entry of the Gladiators” which is more commonly associated with circus music here in America. It is also known in the United States as “Thunder and Blazes.” Fučik continued to conduct military bands until his retirement around 1913. He married and moved to Berlin where he continued to conduct and compose. However he was taken ill in Berlin and died in 1916 at the age of 44 of an unknown illness. He is buried in Vinohrady Cemetery in Prague.

    In all, he is known to have composed over 400 works, with “Entry of the Gladiators” and “Florentiner” perhaps being the most familiar to American listeners.

    Two examples of Fučik’s work: Entry of the Gladiators (YouTube) and Florentiner (YouTube).

    —

    ,

  • Karl L. King

    By Mike Magers

    Karl Lawrence King was one of the most prolific composers of American marching band music, penning almost 300 works. He was born in Paintersville, Ohio in 1891. The story is told that at age eleven, Karl bought a cornet with money he had earned selling newspapers. By that time, his family had moved to Canton, Ohio and he had been taking cornet lessons for a few years. King soon switched to trombone and euphonium and joined a youth band known as the Canton Marine Band. He was not formally trained in music, actually had little schooling at all, and learned musical composition on his own. By his late teens, King was supporting himself playing in local bands and circus bands. When King was in his early twenties, he had already performed and conducted a number of bands and was writing his own music.

    He married the former Ruth Lovett in 1916 and three years later the couple had their son, Karl L. King, Jr. Ruth was a keyboard player and they had reportedly met while she was working as a calliope player in Barnum and Bailey’s circus band. The young family relocated to Canton, Ohio where Karl started his own music publishing company. They moved to Fort Dodge, Iowa in 1920 and would be based there for the rest of Karl’s career. King served as conductor of the Fort Dodge Municipal Band for fifty-one years. The band became very well known, had a radio program on station WHO in Des Moines, Iowa and played at almost every Iowa State Fair beginning in 1920.

    During his life, King composed many different styles of music in addition to marches, including overtures, intermezzos, galops, waltzes, rags and serenades while Ruth operated a business selling musical instruments.

    Many of his pieces were composed during his years with circus bands, or were reminiscent of the circus band genre. He also composed works for universities of the old Big Ten Conference. One of his most famous works, “Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite” was also one of his earliest works, composed in 1913. Other familiar compositions included “Emblem of Freedom.” “The Big Cage,” “Cyrus the Great,” “Pride of the Illini” and many others.

    The great composer died in late March, 1971. Ruth survived him until 1988 and both are buried in the North Lawn Cemetery in Fort Dodge. As a tribute to them both, Ruth’s epitaph reads as follows, “A matchless queen to keep him company. Truly a royal family.”

    (King’s obituary in The Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin, 7 April 1971.)

    An example of King’s work: Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite (Youtube).

    —

    , ,

  • Carmen Dragon

    By Mike Magers

    Carmen Dragon was a noted composer, arranger and conductor. He was born July 28, 1914 in Antioch, California to a family of Italian heritage. He died in Los Angeles on March 28, 1984. According to his obituary in the New York Times, by his teens he had learned to play the piano, string bass, accordion, trumpet and trombone. He went to elementary and high school in Antioch and attended San Jose College.

    He began composing even before he went to college. The Oakland Tribune article from February 18, 1930, shown below, mentions a composition of his called “Forward, Antioch!” that was to be performed by his high school orchestra, although it erroneously refers to Dragon as being a high school girl.

    An arrangement he did came to the attention of Meredith Willson, who would go on to compose such musicals as “The Music Man” and “Unsinkable Molly Brown.” Willson introduced Dragon to the film business. By the 1950s, Dragon had been working in films, composing and arranging for over a decade. He shared an Academy Award in 1944 with Morris Stoloff for their work on the musical “Cover Girl” staring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. He had also begun to work heavily in radio and served as the musical director for a number of programs.

    Dragon was an early conductor of one of the orchestras that went by the names Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra. Generally staffed from the large pool of studio musicians in the area, the groups have been known for giving pops-style concerts in the Hollywood Bowl venue. Dragon conducted the group for ten years. While he was conductor, the orchestra performed on a radio broadcast known as the Standard School Broadcast. Funded by the Standard Oil Company (now Chevron), these programs were geared to introduce young students to music and American history. Dragon also hosted a regular program of classical music for the Armed Forces Network, now known as the American Forces Network.

    Over the years, he conducted over four dozen recordings of orchestras with which he was associated, including the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Capitol Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

    Dragon died of cancer after being hospitalized at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California. He was survived by his wife and five children, several of whom were musicians.

    Some of his arrangements are available on his website, carmendragon.com.

    His arrangement of “America the Beautiful” has become a standard performance piece for bands, choirs and orchestras across the country. Dragon did a number of arrangements of this familiar patriotic piece, including one for full orchestra and another for choir and orchestra. The concert band arrangement was debuted an a music conference in Ohio in 1960, conducted by Dragon himself, and performed by the Ohio State University concert band. This particular arrangement was published in 1963. Fortunately, the 1960 concert band performance was recorded, preserved and is available in the link below.

    “America the Beautiful” – Youtube.

    —

    , ,

  • Claudio S. Grafulla

    By Mike Magers

    Claudio Grafulla was born in 1810 (some sources say 1812) on the island of Minorca, a Mediterranean possession of Spain. He was a french horn player and moved to the United States when he was twenty-eight years old. Living in New York, he was a member of Napier Lothier’s Band, part of the 7th Regiment of the 107th Infantry of the New York National Guard. Grafulla became better known as a composer, arranger and conductor and he later served as the conductor of the band. One of its performance highlights was the occasion Grafulla and his band performed at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D. C. on December 8, 1864 for an audience that included President Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865.

    Though Grafulla was recognized as an arranger, he composed many different works in a number of different styles, including marches, waltzes, schottisches and galops. Some of his best known works are Washington Grays (also known as Washington Greys), Freischütz Quickstep, Captain Shepherd’s Quickstep, Captain Smith’s Quickstep and Big Thunder.

    Quoting his Findagrave entry, “Grafulla composed Washington Greys in 1861 for the 8th Regiment, New York State Militia. This work has been called a march masterpiece, a band classic, and the prototype of the concert march. Showing the stylistic influence of both German and Italian marches, the march has a marvelous balance of technique and melody in a continuous flow of musical ideas. It dared to break the old formulas, however, because it has no introduction, no break strain, and no stinger.”

    (Grafulla’s funeral, as reported in the Chicago Tribune, December 9, 1880)

    Grafulla never married and it has been said that he lived for his music. Upon his death in 1880, he was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

    An example of Grafulla’s work: Washington Grays (Youtube).

    —

    , ,