The Guild of Ancient Fifes and Drums

The Guild of Ancient Fifes and Drums

 

by Mike Hall

The Guild is perhaps largely unknown to the general world of military musicians, however, it is a band which recorded on the Bandleader label a remarkable evocation of British soldier’s music of yesteryear. It has seldom appeared in public.

It comprises mainly professional percussion and flute players from the capital’s principal orchestras, augmented by a few Corps of Drums Society members. The Guild, accoutered  in 16th Century uniforms, play music ranging from the earliest of these isles, to music of today, together with the occasional, amiable foray into the re-established, internationally famous tradition of drum and fife in Basle, Switzerland; (whence Britain is thought to have copied the fife). The Guild’s Basle fifes are compatible with concert piccolos and its melody instrument otherwise, is the 16th Century, keyless fife.

During 1966 on BFBS (Forces Radio) their music was to be heard in some stunning recordings, introduced by noted percussionist and Guild President, Professor James Blades. Today the Guild’s music is available on Bandleader CD BNA 5O13 (Cass CBND 61044). The music includes:

Drummers Call/ Drum demonstration/When the King enjoys his own again/ Warwickshire March/ Prince Ferdinand’s March/ General Wolf’s March/ Chester Castle/ Downfall of Paris/ To Danton Me/ The Rogue’s March/ Grenadiers March/ See the Conquering Hero Comes/ Toledo/ It’s a long way to Tipperary/ San Lorenzo/ Wandermarsch/ Morgenstreich/ Sans Gene/ Come Lasses and Lads/ Glopfgaisht/ Stainlemer/ Windischi/ Dritt Varrs/ Arabi/ Septem Juncta in Juno/ Der Vaudois/ S’laggerli.

The Guild always needs recruits: players, (particularly flute players twixt the ages of sixteen and sixty who are able to sight read pretty well, who are reasonably fit and very enthusiastic) or researchers and even non-players who are willing to take over some of the administrative tasks. If interested, contact: Mike Skinner (principal percussionist to the Royal Opera), 138 Springband Road, London 5E13 65U (081.698.7885).

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World Book of Military Music G-I

German Military Band Music

German Military Bands

German Army Bands

Big Band der Bundeswehr

Gebirgsmusikkorps

Heeresmusikkorps 1

Heeresmusikkorps 2

Heeresmusikkorps 10

Heeresmusikkorps 12

Heeresmusikkorps 14

Heeresmusikkorps 300

Musikkorps der Bundeswehr

Stabsmusikkorps der Bundeswehr

German AirForce Bands

Luftwaffenmusikkorps 1

Luftwaffenmusikkorps 2

Luftwaffenmusikkorps 3

Luftwaffenmusikkorps 4

German Navy bands

Marinemusikkorps Ostsee

Marinemusikkorps Nordsee

Grogan Colonel Jack H

First appointed Commander and Conductor of the US Army Field Band he ii a native of Anson Texas . He studied under Frederick Fennell at University of Florida in Miami. He joined the active service in 1969 as a lieutenant and served in various postings until his appointment as Commander of the US Army Field band in 1991. He retired in 1999.

Growth of Military bands in Britain

Regimental music in its earliest form was created by soldiers with trumpet, fife, and drum. It was not until the first part of the eighteenth century that military bands began to make their appearance. They usually consisted of eight instrumentalists comprising two oboes ,two clarinets, two bassoons, and two horns. The bands were privately maintained by the officers in Britain and civilians often were hired to lead the band band were known as the Master of the band. Many of the bandmasters were foreigners because band music had advanced faster in Germany and France.

Guild of Ancient Fifes and Drums

The Guild is perhaps largely unknown to the world of military musicians. It comprises mainly professional percussion and flute players from principal orchestras, augmented by a few Corps of Drums Society members. The Guild, accoutered in 16th Century uniforms, play music ranging from the earliest of these isles, to music of today, together with the occasional, amiable foray into the re-established, internationally famous tradition of drum and fife in Basle, Switzerland; (whence Britain is thought to have copied the fife). The Guild’s Basle fifes are compatible with concert piccolos and its melody instrument otherwise, is the 16th Century, keyless fife.

History of Military Music

(14 Parts)

(6) The Golden Age Begins

THE year 1854 heralded the outbreak of the Crimean War, a serious development which halted progress for a spell in military bands in Britain and France,

Up to that date; these countries had seen their bands at the peak of excellence and influence, but when war came the situation changed causing a dramatic transformation in the role of the musicians .

. During the Peninsular War, British bands had been in the battle line cheering the soldier on to victory. In the Crimean War these bandsmen were turned into the ranks as stretcher-bearers for the ambulance, whilst their bandmasters many of whom were civilians took their departure. The Guards bands and other ’staff bands which remained at home were left intact, but the dispersal of bandsmen played havoc with military music in the Crimea, and at Varna, in 1854, the scratch- bands mustered by the British for a grand review before the allied army made a poor show against those of the French.

After the signature of the Treaty of Paris in 1856 the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of- Canbridge decided to put an end to state. of. Affairs under which regimental bands were in the hands of commanding officers who were a law unto themselves in what concerned regimental music. He decided to abolish the civilian and foreign bandmaster, and bring all regimental bands under War Office control. His first step was to establish the Royal Military

School of-Music at Kneller Hall for the express purpose of training bandmasters and bandsmen for the British army.

This institution opened it’s doors in I857, and the following year the “Ancient Philharmonic” pitch was made general throughout the army. In 1862 it was ordered that enlisted bandmasters would take precedence over civilians. After 1872 all bandmasters had to obtain the Kneller Hall diploma, and by 1874 their pay and allowances were regularized, together with a substantive rank which, in 1881 became that of a warrant officer. One of the early professors at Kneller Hall was Thomas Sullivan, an ex-army bandmaster and the father of Sir Arthur Sullivan. Another was Apollon Barret, the inventor of the Barret action on the oboe. Up to the close of the nineteenth century the so-called “staff bands” were permitted to choose their own bandmasters, but always subject to the diploma rule. Among these bands the most outstanding was that of the Royal Artillery, which had been augmented to over seventy performers in 1856, and a few years later to eighty. By the nineties it numbered, including supernumeraries, over one hundred, the largest band in the world. The bandmaster, James Smyth, had the patronage of men like Balfe, Benedict, Costa, Gounod and Jullien. Greater still was the fame of this band under Ladislao Zavertal (1881-1906)) who raised its performances to an artistic excellence which led the Commander n-Chief to say that “its superior did not exist in this or any other country”. The band of the Grenadier Guards under the famed Dan Godfrey also commanded the attention of the wider world, especially at the Peace Festival at Boston, U.S.A., in 1872. His successor Albert Williams maintained, if he did not widen, this esteem. From the opening of the nineteenth century the Coldstream Guards Band had an enviable reputation for the purity of tone in its clarinetists, a distinction sustained from the days of Fred Godfrey in the sixties to Mackenzie Rogan in the nineties. The Scots Guards Band also had a run of good conductors from Charles Godfrey who followed Henry Dunkerton. The former transferred to the Royal Horse Guards Band in 1869, where he stayed over thirty years, bringing the best music to both the royal functions and the park bandstand. With the 1st Life Guards Band under James Waterson, Van den Heuval and Joel Englefield, and the and Life Guards Band under Carli Zoeller and Leonard Barker, these Household Cavalry musicians, dressed in their gaudy regal accouterments of purple and gold, were always prime favorites at state and official displays. Among other “staff bands” which deserve mention were those of the~aRoyal Engineers which was at its best under Joseph R. Sawerthal and Joseph Sommer, and the bands of the Royal Marines at Portsmouth, ~ under George Miller, J. A. Kappey and Frank Winterbottom respectively.

These bands were not only in demand on state and national occasions, but were in request at innumerable exhibitions, concerts and other engagements throughout the land. Sometimes they would be massed, assembling some three hundred or more performers, as in the Grand Military Concert at the Crystal Palace in 1854. At other times they would combine for purely spectacular purposes as in the Grand Military Tattoo at Windsor Castle in 1897. Nor were the so-called bands of the “line” forgotten in public and private music~making. They too had their share of engagements at concerts and displays, and in parks and spas. Indeed one is constrained to say that they played just as valuable a part in music as the “staff bands”, since in accompanying their regiments on service abroad they not only brought pleasure to their comrades stationed in foreign climes but, as Mackenzie Rogan points out in his Sixty Years of Army Life they made a solid contribution to maintaining the prestige of the British Empire.

France, during the Crimean War, maintained her bands at the front, and delighted in repeating the adage that their music at Inkerman contributed as much to drive back the Russians as did the bayonets. A decree of 1854 had given them as good bands as ever-fiftv-five for the Imperial Guard and thirty-five for the cavalry-with the bandmaster as a commissioned officer, which was more than the British conceded to their bandmasters. The war with Italy brought drastic cuts in bands, and in 1867 those of the cavalry were abolished. Yet in this same year Paris staged its great military musical congress at the Exhibition. Prussia, France, Austria, Bavaria, Russia, Holland, Baden, Belgium and Spain sent competing bands who won rewards in the above order. The smallest band was that of Bavaria with fifty-one performers, whilst the largest was that of Austria with seventy-six, although Prussia pooled its two bands with eighty-seven players. The judges for this festival were some of the most well known musicians of the era and includede Feli.cien David, Ambroise Thomas, Leo Delibes, Hans von Bulow, Hanslick and Kastner.

In 1872, after the Franco-Prussian War had taken its toll, bands settled down to their old constitution. Paulus with the Paris Guard and Cressinois with the Mounted Guides were at the top in France, and the former won laurels at the Boston Peace Festival in 1872. Sellenick then took control from Paulus and was succeeded by Gustave Wettge. In the eighties and nineties the latter created a perfect furore in Britain by the refined playing of his hand. perfect. The Garde Repulicaine Band under Gabriel Pares was declared one of the most amazing ensembles of the century .

The Germans showed their mettle at the 1867 Paris concourse when Prussia massed her two Guards hands under Wieprecht and carried all before them. His colleague, J. Heinrich Saro, with the Franz Regiment Band, created quite a sensation at the Boston Peace Festival of 1872 and received a gold medal in appreciation. After the Franco-Prussian War, militarv music rose to great heights in the German Empire, and its famous Prussian Cuirassier Guard Band-which Hanslick said was the finest in the world-certainly set the pace in western Europe. Although its cavalry bands were restricted to brass, a few of this type made their mark even abroad, notably that of the Bavarian Field artillery under Carl. Germany did not possess a school of military music, but in 1887 a department for this was opened at the Berlin High School of Music, with F. W. Voight as superintendent.

Almost from its inception, the Conservatory of Music at Prague had prepared students for the profession of military music, the result being that some of the finest bands in the Austrian army were under the control of Czechs, and among them Wenceslas H. Zavertal and Carl Sebor, whilst famous Hungarians as bandmasters were Keler Bela and Franz Lehar. Belgium took up the question of reorganizing her bands in 1863 when a commission headed by Gevaert and Mahillon was appointed. Its recommendations were not unlike those of France in I 845. The band of the Guides under the baton of Frederick Staps was the most famed of Belgium’s bands. When it visited Scotland in 1888 it comprised sixty performers with soloists verging on virtuositv. Holland had two worthy bandmasters in her National Guard of those days Cornelius Coenan at Utrecht, and Carl van den Linden at Dordrecht. In Norway, a few celebrated musicians had charge of army bands, including Friedrich A. Reissiger, the brother of the composer, and Ole Olsen who became inspector of music of army bands.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the United States of America jumped to the forefront of the world of military music. Doubtless the ordinary regimental bands were inferior but there were some extraordinary combinations which gained merited esteem. The first of these was the band of the 22nd Regiment (New York Militia) under that amazing entrepreneur Patrick S. Gilmore. He had already organized the music at the Peace Festivals of 1869 and 1872 at which he assembled thousands of players. Adopting similar showmanship when he toured the famous 22nd in Europe with sixty-six performers, he took audiences by storm. Less spectacular, although a far greater musician, was Arthur A. Clappe’, who had been bandmaster of the Canadian Governor General’s Foot Guards. In 1888 he took charge of the band of the United States Military Academy, on which he left his mark, for he was unrivalled as a teacher and trainer. His greater contemporary was the “March King” John Philip Sousa. He came to the when he was bandmaster of the Marine Band in 1880 but when he formed his own combination of forty-nine masterly players in 1892, with which he toured the world, Sousa won undying fame. Two other American bandmasters also deserve recognition-Frederic N. Innes and Victor Herbert.As ancient Ovid taught us, there is nothing stronger than custom; and it was that which troubled the military band in Britain, where so many clung to the ideas of pre-Sax days. Despite the introduction of the euphonium, Mandel, in his Instrumentation of Military Bands (circa 1859) Kneller Hall textbook-was still accepting the ophicleide and the bass horn. On the other hand the trumpet rightly continued to find a place alongside the more popular cornet even in the brass band, and both combinations favoured the E flat soprano cornet and the flugelhorn. Both the E flat bombardon and the BB flat bass had become fixtures. The oboe had been vastly improved at the hands of Barret of Kneller Hall, the mechanism to be soon applied to the clarinet. As early as 1848 the E flat alto saxophone was taken into the Royal Artillery Band; the B flat tenor followed about six years later. That they did not secure a permanency is evident from the fact that they were removed before 1863 and replaced by the tenor and bass clarinets, the saxophones not being again recognized until the twentieth century, although elsewhere they had found a footing. The sarrusophone, invented by a French bandmaster in 1863, also made its appearance in this same band in the sixties, but although the contrabass of this instrument gave the lowest note in the wind, it never became a permanency in this country. In France, Belgium and America the saxophones, in full choirs, remained a feature.

Of course Kneller Hall, as the Royal) Military School of Music is popularly named, ought to have been the overruling authority in matters of instrumentation. We must remember, however, that although this school began its teaching in 1857, it was twenty years before it received official financial recognition, and another twenty years elapsed ere one could say that it had a commanding influence on military music. The first two directors-Schallehn and Mandel-were Germans with old-fashioned notions. Charles Cousins, who followed, had not the initiative. This latter did not come until Samuel C. Griffiths took control (1890), when his book on The Military Band became the textbook. He was followed by Arthur J. Stretton (1895), Hector E. Atkins (1921), the author of another textbook on the band, and Meredith Roberts (1943). Today Kneller Hall continues to train bandmasters and musicians for the British Army.

Although of more recent date, much the same may be said of the States’ Army Music School in its beneficent influence on American music. In the early days there was only a rough-and-ready school for 1 men, and it was not until 1911, under the persuasion of Damroscl America inaugurated its Army Music School at Fort Jay New York, under Arthur A. Clappe himself a Kneller Hall graduate. This school was primarily for the training of bandmasters, although a course for bandsmen was introduced later. It did excellent service during the First World War but for reasons of economy, was closed in 1928. When the clouds of another were blowing towards the States in 1941, it was found necessary to this school which did magnificent work during the last war.

(7) Bands of the Nineteenth Century

The nineteenth century was an important time for the development of wind instruments in general, and subsequently, the rise of the military (or wind) band throughout western Europe as exemplified by the bands of Britain. At the same these developments began to give composers a new medium for large ensemble composition.

Works by Traditional Romantic Composers

1840 Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827): Ecossaise and Polonaise

1815 Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859): Nocturne in C, Op. 34

1816 Beethoven: Military Marche

c. 1820 Johann Nepomuck Hummel (1775-1837): Three Grand Military Marches

1824 Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholody (1809-1847): Military Overture in C, Op. 24

1836 Mendelssohn: Funeral March, Op. 103

1840 Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Grande Symphonic Funèbre et Triomphale, Op. 15

1844 Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Trauersymphonie

1846 Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864): Torch Dance (No. 1)

1865 Anton Bruckner (1824-1896): Apollo March March in Eb

1860 Edvard Grieg (1843-1907): Trauermarsch

1869 Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Orient et Occident

1892 Pyotr Chaikovsky (1840-1893) Marche Militaire

Works

Spohr: NoctornoThis piece was written for the wind band of Prince Güntter Friedrich of Schwarsburg. It is in 6 movements: Turkish March, Menuetto, Andante con variazioni, Polacca, Adagio and Finale. According to Richard Goldman in his book “The Wind Band”, the Spohr piece, “is the first interesting nineteenth century work… composed for Wind Band and Turkish Music (i.e. percussion).” Spohr scored this work for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, post horn, trombone, bass horn, bass drum, cymbal, triangle.

Hummel: The Three Grand Military Marches.This work is scored for a slightly larger band than the Spohr. The original scoring calls for 4 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, piccolo clarinet in F, clarinets in C, bass horn, bassoon, horn in C, trombone in C, bass trombone, percussion.

Mendelssohn: Military OvertureMendelssohn composed this work for the band at the Dobberan resort on the Baltic Sea. He wrote it at the age of fifteen.

Berlioz: Grande Symphonie Funèbre Triomphale The French Government commissioned this work as a part of a celebration to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the French Revolution. According to Berlioz, “It seemed to me that for such a work the simpler the plan the better, and that only a large body of wind instruments would be suitable for a symphony which was to be heard – the first time at any rate – in the open air.”

Berlioz scored this piece for 208 players with the option of adding a chorus in the third and last movement. At a later date, Berlioz also added optional strings. Berlioz describes the first performance, “Habeneck would again liked to conduct, but I prudently reserved that function for myself I had not forgotten the episode of the snuff box.”

He continues, “Despite the volume of sound produced by a wind band of this size, very little was heard during the procession. The only exception was the music played as we went along the Boulevard Poissonniere, where the big trees- still standing to this date – acted as reflectors. The rest was lost.”

Wagner: Trauersymphonie Wagner composed this work for the transfer of the remains of Carl Maria von Weber to Germany. Wagner based the symphony on two themes from von Weber’ 5 Euryanthe. The piece is scored for a band of seventy five pieces plus muffled side drums.

Grieg: Trauermarsch Grieg composed this work on the occasion of the death of his friend Richard Nordaak. Grieg originally composed this piece for piano in the key of A minor. He later scored it for band and transposed it to G minor.

(8) The British Band

1799 Grand Military Piece is composed by J. R. Hoberecht for the Harmoniemusik ensembles that had been popular, and standard, in Britain and the rest of Europe. Harmoniemusik was a chamber wind ensemble famous in the court of Louis XIII of France in the seventeenth century, which became the basis for instrumentation of military bands across Europe: 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 bassoons. Flutes, English bass horns, serpents, ophicleides, trumpets, trombones, and percussion were occasionally added to the Harmoniemusik combination during the early years of the nineteenth century.

1800 Numerous Military Bands across the country of various instrumentation, size and repertoire

1820 The Royal Artillery Band, a British military band established in 1762, serves as a good historical reference due to Henry George Farmer’s ‘History of the Royal Artillery Band”.

1839 Instrumentation of the Royal Artillery Band

1845 Wessel and Stapleton’s Military Journals are published, each subscription including music of a light character and some contributions of British composers. Other journals follow, but the variety of instrumentation between bands is only somewhat simplified.

1846-49 Royal Artillery Band’s Concert Program Most likely involved string instruments or was shared with an “orchestral band.”

1850 Concert Program and Instrumentation of the Royal Artillery Band.

1854 Scutari fiasco embarrasses British Military Band system. At Scutari, in 1854, the British troops, comprising the army of the east destined for the Crimea, held a grand review on the birthday of Queen Victoria. There were some 16,000 men on parade, and while their appearance and marching were perfect, and the cheering deafening, our band struck up “God Save the Queen”, not only from different arrangements, but in different keys. (This event lead to re-evaluation of the British military band system).

1855 Concert Program of the Royal Artillery Military Band.

1857 Royal Military School of Music is founded in the model of the French Ecole Militaire.

1863 Catalog of the Royal Artillery Band’s music library and instrumentation of the military band.

1865 Government takes over the Royal Military School of Music. Founded in 1857, the Royal Military School of Music served to provide uniform instruction for musicians in the service, while eventually ridding the British military of foreign band masters. Its influence resulted in the standardization of band instrumentation and repertoire. It commissioned most of the significant compositions for band at the turn of the twentieth century.

1881Examination requirement added for admission to Royal Military School of Music.

1890 A commissioned officer is placed in charge of the Royal Military School of Music.

1901 The Spirit of Pageantry, a grand march by Percy Fletcher (1879-1932) was published.

1902 The Worshipful Committee of Musicians sponsors a contest for the best march written for the coronation of Edward VII.

Concert Program of the Royal Artillery Band on March 22nd 1902.

1904 Lads of Wamphray’ March, was composed by Percy Granger (I882-l961).

1909 First Suite in Eb.[or Military Band] Op. 28 No. 1 by Gustav Holst begins a series of important commissions by the Royal Military School of Music. These commissions include: Gustav Holst, “Second Suite in F for Military Band,” and “Festival Choruses;” Dame Ethel Smith, “The Wreckers Overture;” Bertram Walter O’Donnell, “Three Humoresques”; Ralph Vaughan Williams, “English Folk Song Suite” and “Toccata Marziale.” Cecil Forsyth, Frank Bridge, Edward German, and Haydn Wood also contributed compositions. Most of these works were commissioned by either Hugh Somerville or J. A. C. Somerville, commandants of the Royal Military School of Music.

(9) The Music of The People

Britain and America, have many things in common, including their inordinate interest in the military band. This becomes increasingly evident when a more comprehensive outlook on instrumentation was sought between them as early as 1920.

. Publishers in Europe and England began to issue for the American Band Instrumentation (40 to 50 players) as well as for the Symphonic Instrumentation (6o to 8o players). Indeed, so adaptable is the British publisher that he actually issued alternative parts suitable for French and Belgian bands whose instrumentation, in terms of completeness, was second only to that of America. To appreciate adequately the rise of the British school of instrumentation, and its own particular treatment in scoring, one must turn back the pages of history.

By the close of the nineteenth century, the instrumentation of British military bands had become static, and there was no appreciable change in the early years of the present century. Still, there were some excellent bandmasters who contributed to the prestige of their charge. Among them were J. Manuel Bilton (Royal Horse Guards), George Miller (Grenadier Guards), Charles W. H. Hall (2nd Life Guards), Robert G. Evans (Coldstream Guards), Frederick W. Wood (Scots Guards), Charles W. Hassell (Irish Guards) Andrew Harris (Welsh Guards), F. j. Ricketts (Royal Marines), and Edward C. Stretton (Royal Artillery). The Royal Family had long appreciated the eminent services of these bandmasters and in 1887, Queen Victoria conferred an honorary commission on Dan Godfrev of the Grenadier Guards. Eleven years later, she promoted four staff bandmasters to the full commissioned rank, and since then the position of Director of Music commissioned rank-has been created for certain staff bandmasters.

Yet, this excellence of British bands was maintained in spite of much that could be considered old-fashioned in instrumentation and scoring, which for a long time was a handicap. In the absence of original music, bands had to be content, in the larger forms, with arrangements. The older arrangers were skilled and experienced men-notably the Godfrey family

In Britain, owing to the fact that hand performances were mostly outdoor, arrangers were compelled, especially under British climatic conditions, to adopt a tutti technique more often than they would have done had they been scoring for the concert hall only.

Even as late as 1910 that admirable composer and arranger for the military band, Albert Williams

Said:” Don’t score too thinly for open-air performances; remember it is not an Academy picture, it is a fresco painting.” Much was tried to prevent this overstress to suit outdoor conditions by cues but this was not always successful because of imbalance and improper instrumental tonality. The future however became very bright as concert halls and the sheltered band stands became more available to the military band, and the composers and arrangers were able to present their scores more to their individual tastes and requirements. American, French and Belgian scoring for the band already revealed an outlook more liberal and progressive than what was found in British scores. The older conception, such as that which remained in Britain, viewed the clarinet family as one would the strings of the orchestra The newer outlook brushed this aside, and choirs of instruments of similar timbre-clarinets, saxophones, trumpets came to be treated as separate entities, a plan which brought much richer coloring to the score. There is no doubt that the American and Belgian influence began new wave of military and concert band arrangements. The employment of instruments in groups as well as the introduction of numerous percussive effects helped to take wind band scoring into new and exciting era. The creativity of the writers now began to accelerate particularly in America. The revolution began at the turn of the century. Composers began to recognize the growing resources available to them and just as in the orchestra, the advent of new instrumental family members helped bring new mediums for composition.

The military band as an ensemble now became a vehicle for more than just military marches. Even some of the orchestral music became strongly influenced by the military band instrumentation. If we review Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps (1913), we are inclined to wonder why there are strings included in the score at all. We are unable to determine what may have been in his mind but we can with analysis discern a fresher coloration particularly in the brass and reed dimension. Honnegar in his Le Roi David (1921) produced a marvelous effect with the almost exclusive use of brass and reed combinations. The transcriptions of these numbers as well as many others written in the same scope were infinitely better than the original orchestral versions because the strings were in fact an adjunct to the composition as a whole. Stravinsky also wrote a Symphony for wind instruments, although not in our formal acceptance of the term, as well as the Volga Song for the same. Even before this, Rimsky-Korsakov had composed a Concerto for Clarinet and Variations on a theme by Glinka for the military band. Richard Strauss also has a place here, although his contribution was but marches for the Prussian Guards. Then came Albert Roussel and Florent Schmitt to devote their genius to this new medium of the band with overtures and waltzes. Henry Hadley with his overture Youth Triumphant and Ralph Vaughan Williams in his Toccata Marziale Gustav Holst contributed two impressive works with his Suites in Eb and F. later writers include John Philip Sousa, Edwin Franko Goldman Leo Sowerby and Morton Gould. The Celtic Set by Henry Cowell and Percy Grainger’s compositions have become a lasting memento of their contribution to the military band library. Other great world class composers and their military band music will be discussed in other chapters of this history. The two world wars revealed the utmost value of army bands in particular It is true that the day had passed when regiments marched into the smoke and din of battle with colors flying ,trumpets sounding and drums beating but the cheer and heartening of martial music still played its part in another held, just behind the fighting line. During the 1914-18 War, the British staff bands and others took their turn at this duty. Only those who know that national and regimental traditions are linked up with military music can appreciate how the playing of an army band revived the spirits of the tired and wounded behind the lines. Looking at a diary of one of these tour bands we can realize what of duty of this sort implied. A two months’ journey thousand miles or more took this band to ninety-six different centers whilst a second tour meant eighty different camps and one hundred and twenty-one performances.

I America also realized the importance of its army bands, and when it declared war in 1917, it immediately promoted its bandmasters to the commissioned rank and raised the number of bandsmen in each regiment from twenty-eight to forty-eight, whilst the Army Music School had to work overtime so as to provide bandmasters and bandsmen to fill the vacancies.

After the close of the war in 1918, America formed the United States Navy Band under Charles Benter, which was soon to number eighty-six performers. Two years later the United States Army Band was raised out of the old American Expeditionary Force Band of the 1917-18 establishment. It won some European fame in 1929 during its visit to Spain under the baton of W. J. Stannard. Yet, it was World War II that enabled this combination to earn distinction and gratitude for its fine work, artistically and socially, behind the battlefront. Many may recall the Army Band under Thomas F. Darcv giving concerts for the wounded and weary in North Africa in 1943, and later in Britain. Few bands could boast of such a galaxy of soloists as Darcy’s combination. Another band of musical warriors was the Royal Artillery Band under director Owen Geary, whom toured I5, 000 miles over the parched African terrain to bring comfort to the troops in distant camps as well as giving concerts at Tunis, Gibralter and Naples.

Thus, we have seen how the military band in the concert hall and the open air has a particular beauty just as much as the orchestral sounds which often frequent the outdoors and the indoor stage. Bands do display an elegance and symmetry even more pleasing at times than the effects of a orchestral combination Admittedly, it is military music which beckons the public, the crowd, but it is not necessarily an inferior art on that account. The one thing, which has made the band an obvious attraction, is its instrumentation and technique, both of which make for lucidity of expression and clarity of rhythm. It requires no great effort on the part of a listener to determine what they enjoy. It is music very often in it’s most simplest and basic form. Some melody, some rhythmic passage, something which allows the foot to tap. It is merely entertainment, but how artistically it is performed. The music of the masses, in a popular form can often convey a message, which is unalterably majestic. The driving passion of drums, the thunderous evocation of brass coupled with the spiraling and sonorous sounds of the woodwinds create a sweet compulsion of music. A picture painted and sculptured in brass and wood is indeed the music of the people. The music of the military band and the profession of the military musician is a culture which has evolved from minstrels and troubadours and is as vibrant today as it was 500 years ago.

(10) The Turkish band

In studying the history of military music one often comes across the expression’Turkish music’. What it actually means is the campaign music of the Janissaries. Sultan Orkran (l326-l359) was the first to employ Janissaries as his personal guards. The word is derived from two Turkish words: veni (new) ehir (army). Strictly speaking, “Turkish music” is synonymous with the characteristic sound and rhythm produced by kettle drums, cymbals, tambourine, triangle and the Schellanbaun or “Jingling Johnny”. The purpose of such clashing noises was not merely to turn their own warrior wild but, primarily, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy with the ear-splitting row.

This type of martial music was heard early on in Europe, during the Turkish wars of conquest in the West, which ended at the gates of Vienna in 1529 and1683. It was also heard in more peaceful circumstances. In the History N”’seu, in Vienna, there is an account, dating from about 1665, of the arrival in Vienna of the Turkish Ambassador which describes the Turkish band as:

“The Turkish military hand of shawms, small kettle drum’, then also four trumpeters (whose trumpets were in the form of trobones, hut narrow and short), two of brightly ringing cymbals of silver (in the shape of two dishes- so they were struck one upon the other, by which means a great ringing sound was made). The drn~rs whose drums were draped with red cloth, beat their druris at the front with a stick like a knobbled, crooked root and at the rear with a little stick or rod.”

The prominence of percussion in the Turkish military bands, as we ought to call this basic Collection of instruments used in Janissary music, confirms the great Significance of rhythm in the culture of the Levant. To the West, the Near East is the nearest self-contained culture. The frequent Contact, in peace and in war, brought about a very intensive cultural exchange – above all in music – from which Europe gained the most. The traces of these Contacts are extremely easy to follow because the musical tradition of the Near East is so completely different from that of the West.

This can be demonstrated by small examples, such as the description of a fresco from the middle of the 11th Century on a staircase in the Cathedral of St Sophie in Kiev, in which Byzabtine jugglers and musicians are depicted. On the frontispiece of the 9th Century Golden Psaltery in St Gallen there is a picture of King David playing a stringed inatninent and musicians with finger cymbals. There are similar percussion instruments in illustrations from the 9th to 11th Centuries, in which may often be seen a smaller pair of cymbals fastened to the end of a sprung fork. They were swung from one hand whilst the other was playing another instrument. The two-handed pair of cymbals came some time later. All evidence of Near Eastern culture, which may be pursued right up to the classical music of medieval Spain.

There can he no doubt that the instruments of the Ottoman were intended to demoralise their enemies, as is described in an entry in a Turkish diary for 18 July 1683 during the Siege of Vienna: “each time after prayers, at sun-down, at night and at dawn, the bands played so that the earth and heaven trembled from the great noise of the drums, oboes, pipes, hand drums and cymbals which were like the roar of cannons and muskets…” And on the afternoon of 25 July there took place before the city walls ” a clashing of cymbals, little bells and shawms as if they were playing a dance, or were preparing for a grand festival…” This was combined with an attack by the besiegers, in response to which and to inspire morale, the defender of the city, Ernst Ruediger von Starhemberg a couple of days later “had the trumpets and kettle drums played right merrily” from the Carinthian Bastion.

There was already in the early Middle Ages a Western institution the purpose of which, to urge on their own troops at the critical moment, was directly comparable with the Turkish band. This was the bell carriage, also known as the flag carriage, (Italian: Carrocio, German: Glockenwagen or Fandenwagan), a Palladium which was also the army’s symbel of honour. It consisted of a waggon on which a bell was hung from a frame, pulled by luxuriously harnessed oxen. This was rung whenever danger threatened or when the whole army had to attend a religious service. Here the banners were also stored. They were regarded as the army’s most sacred property to the defence of which armed troops were summoned by the field calls of the trumpeters. Of the Italian carriages, that of the Milanese was particularly splendid. In 1138, the Archbishop of Milan, Aribert, described its design and furnishing as a real showpiece.

There was during the retreat of the Turkish Army into the Balkans at the end of the 17th Century quite a number of instruments from the Janissary bands fell into the hands of the victorious troops. At the Battle of Petrovaradin in 1697,the Starhemberg Regiment captured a complete Turkish “banda” as they stood end requisitioned them straight into Imperial Service.

This kind of ‘campaign’ music’ appealed to European rulers and generals, so gradually bands were established in the Turkish style, at first from released Turkish musicians who amazed the population everywhere they went.

In this way the Turkish band had found its way by 1699 (1720 according to another source) into the military music of Poland through the Prince Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Augustus the Strong. In 1725 it had reached Russia, and Austria in 1741 through Maria-Theresia – as is well known, after the historic march past of the Trenck Pandur Regiment on their way to Silesia – and, at roughly the same time it was introduced into Prussia by their only artillery regiment.We may safely assume that those ‘bandas’, which were not made up of captured Turkish musicians, did not imitate or seek to imitate real Janissary music.

The existing bands (shawms or oboes, bassoons, horns and, later, trumpets) supplemented with the percussion of the Turkish music, were often simply called Turkish bands’. Around 1800 they were at the height of fashion. Their strong rhythm provided by the bass drum, side drum, cymbals and triangle appealed to us.This percussion ensemble was also specified in the original scores of the prescribed performances of Prussian Army marches.

Later the triangle, an instrument without a range of notes, was replaced by the Glockenspiel, or lyra, which provides its own unmistakable range of sound. By the middle of the i9th Century the Schellenheum (Jingling Johnny) which was also known as ‘Mohemaed’s Banner’ had lost its usefulness as a rattling instrument and it became in Germany and Russia alone the traditional insignia of the band. But it is an undisputable fact, as the author himself can testify, that the rhythmic jingling of the little bells and chimes of a band’s Schellenbaum, whilst playing a parade march at full blast, provides a memorably stirring experience.

The Turkish band,supplananted with the hitherto unknown piccolo, extended into classical music, firstly in the so called ‘Turkish operas’, for example Gluck’s ‘The Pilgrim from Mecca’ with one drum (1764), ‘Iphlgenia on Tauris’ with cymbels; triangle and drum (1779), Moxart’s ‘The Flight from the Seraglie’ with the same instruments (1782) and Weber’s ‘Abo Hassan’ (1812).

In Mozart’s time the upright drum was played on both sides by one man using a wooden baton like ‘a knobbled crooked root’ on the right and a bundle of brushwond, the ’switch’, on the left. The latter was really a predecessor of the side drum which was unknown at that time in its present form. A glance into the orchestra pit at the opera house during a performance of ‘The Flight from the Seraglio’ would confirm that the drum is still played in the same manner today, except that a normal wooden drum stick has replaced the baton end instead of the brushwood, there is a bundle of thin sticks. Cymbals also became thinner and of a smaller diameter.

‘Turkish music’ was not only a way of expressing the oriental flavour which had enjoyed such popularity after the Turkish wars, it was also a means of portraying the warlike and military. For example in Haydn’s ‘Symphonie militaire of 1794 and Beethoven’s ‘Wellington’s Victory or the Battle of Vittoria’ of 1813 which has an additional side drum and rattle to illustrate the noise of battle. At the first performances of this work on 8th and 12th December 1813, soon after the Battle of Leipzig, Beethoven himself stood on the rostrum. The Turkish band of that orchestra was played by three young, and later quite celebrated, musicians; Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the piano virtuoso, Giacomo Meyerbeer, the composer of grand opera, and lgnaz Moacheles, who arranged the piano part of Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’.

The popularity of the Turkish band was such, that in about 1800, even piano-fortes were equipped with a so-called ‘Janissary feature’ which sought to reproduce the Ottoman bells and cymbals, and, by heating a clapper on the sound board, the sound of the bass drum was imitated.

To end let us take a stroll in Vienna’s Prater. Even today, the ponies in the Hippodrome will only start to trot when the orchestrian’s Turkish band starts to play!

From a translation by Mr Peter Bull from a booklet called ‘HISTORISCHE ARMEEMARSCHE’.

Editors Note:The later practice of displaying their Sacred Property evolved into the use by Western Armies of Trooping the Colours,Presentation of Colours,and Laying up of Colours

(11) Regiment des Gardes Suisses 1616-1792

When considering military music we distinguish instruments used to transmit commands – drums, fifes, bugles and trumpets – from those of the hand with its variety of instruments to enhance military ceremonial and entertain the soldiers. The differences also marked by bugle calls (signals) being sounded by company personnel, whereas the band musicians are administered by the unit headquarters, with their own rates of pay and terms of service.

Armies have always used instruments for orders and field calls. During the Burgundian Wars of 1474-1477 (1) mercenaries of the Swiss Gantons were organised as regimental units which were sub-divided. The unit was the Banner and the sub~units the Fahnlein nunbering from 50 to 150 men. Each banner was accompanied by 3 musicians who played the fife, the drum and the bagpipes. These were paid by the Carnmanding Officer. The wind instruments for the cantons of lucerne and Uri were, however, the ‘harsthorner’.

Although German mercenaries ware the first to adopt the fife, it was also used by Swiss mercenaries in France. It is also generally agreed that the fife was re-adopted in France for the regiments of Francis I (1494-1547). The ‘tambourin was encased in wood and was about 2 feet high in diameter: carried on the left side of the body, this was also adopted. Although used in earlier times, it was in the reign of Francis I that the French military forces were supplied with fifes and drums from ordnance.

It is clear that from its formation the French royal household Regiment of Swiss Guards had drums and fifes. In March 1640 there was one instrument of each kind per company. Twenty-five years later these were augmented by three drums (May1665). Later the establishment became 1 drum and 5 fifes. In May 1692 the ‘Mercure Galant’ reported the presence of 40 drums of the Swiss Guards at the siege of Narmir (2).

In spite of successive ordinances regulating salutes and signals for the Corps of Drums in French regiments, the Swiss Guard retained their own original ones and were this distinct from other Royal troops. Precise details of the established ordnance of the Corps of Drums in the Regiment are lacking, but by an Order of May 1754 a Corps of Drums was made obligatory for all French regiments. An earlier Order of 6 June 1745 records the establishment of a drum-major for each headquarters. However, it must be recognized that such an appointment had existed before that date, the title having been given to the chief drummer of a regiment by a decree of 4 November 1651.

When the Swiss Guard carried out Guard Duties ‘Outside the Louvre’ (3) a company of 100 Swiss also formed a part of the guard ‘Inside the Louvre’. In their magnificent Spanish style uniforms (there would come a time when they would be vilified as ‘untellable lackey-soldiers’), the hundred Swiss would march in front of the King with their fife and three drums. They played when the King attended Mass; also on the mornings the sovereign took Communion, usually on the eves of Easter and Christmas; and when ha attended the ceramony of touching the sick (4). The General Salute was writtenonly for the Blessed Sacrament, the King and the Queen. The dks were beaten, without rolls, for the daupoine and marshals of France.

In 1758 the drum-major was paid 600 livres (1 livre = 1 franc), a sergeant-major 540 and a captain 6000. By an ordinance of 25 April 1767 the size of the drum was defined as 33 centimetres high and 37 in diameter. In future the barrel would be of brass, weighing 3½ kilograms.

It was on 24 August 1762, in the recommendation of the colonel, the Duc de Brion, that the King authorised the formation of a band of musicians for the French Regiment of the Guard, which already had a small band of 4 oboes, 2 bassoons and 2 horns. Officially the band would in future comprise 4 oboes, 4 clarinets, 4 horns and 4 hassooms. It is possible that the Swiss Guard had maintained some musicians, but no unit could include musicians in the rolls of authorised personnel. Musicians, whether supernumerary or under contract, were paid by the colonel and/or from officers’ contributions.

We can date the organisation of the band of the Swiss Guard from the end of 1762. Brigaded with the French Royal Guard, the Swiss also had 16 musicians and the authorised number of instruments. In an ordinance of 28 April 1763 and a regulation of 1 June determining the reorganisation of the Regiment, one notes the mention of the drum -major, whose pay was 800 livres. Also the establishment of 16 musicians in the headquarters, each to be paid 900 livres a year, plus 166 livres as clothing, instrument maintenance and heating allowances – making a total budget of 2666 livres for the allowances. We note for 1769 the mention of Cholet as drum-major and his son as junior drum~najor. We now find the marching column being headed by the regimental pioneers (in 1808 to be designated sappers) and the artillery, with the drums, fifes and band following. This change is illustrated in the pictures of Noreau the Younger and in the water colours of Louis La Paon.
With those of the French Guards, the band of the Regiment took part in official festivals, notably those of 16 May 1770 for the marriage of the future Louis XVI (5). Chroniclers noted that the two bands of the Brigade of guards rendered fanfares and were dressed in Turkish fashion and ‘making a great noise’. The band of the Turkish Janissaries was very much in vogue in Europe at that time and had been copied to some extent by the addition of cymbals, triangle and the ‘jingling johanie’ – all visible in the bands, hut not in the rolls of accounts of the Treasury.

Records of the band organisation are contradictory. In 1774 the headquarters company held 16 official musicians (and 21 instruments) quartered at Versailles but, on the other hand, one finds that the band accompanying the guard mounting numbered 21 musicians, including 10 clarinets. Yet it is also stated that in 1774, the same year, there were 12 clarinets, 2 trumpets, 4 or more flutes, horns and bassoons, led by the music-major. In another document we read of 16 authorised musicians of the headquarters corpany and also the military band comprising 23 men. After 1774, however, the names of 16 instrumentalists are recorded.

Around 1780 the journals refer to evening concerts given by the hands of the French and Swiss Guards on the terrace at Versailles and in Paris; also of ‘serenades sur le boulevart’ (sic). This custom was a foretaste of music ten years later for the great public festivals which were to be so dear to the revolutionaries, aiding the develornient of the military band and leading to improvements in the making of wind instruments. Both Guards bands took part in the rendition of the Te Deu’m in 1783 at Notre Dame de Paris on the occasion of a consecration service for the treaty Which granted independence to the young American Republic (6). Louis S. Norean (1740-1814) in his ‘Nouveau Paris’, published in 1799/1800, records that the Swiss Guard took part in the preparation of the Champ de Mars for the festival of the Federation on 14 July 1790 (7), saying “they arrived to the sound of their band”. By then the regulation drum had been re-standardised. In the Regulation of 1 October 1786, well known to uniformologists for militarydress and details, we read that the bass drum must be 32.5 cms high and 37.9 cms in diameter. In referring to the drum we mention that the children of members of the Guards were, from the age of 7, ‘enfants de troupe’. Clothed in the colours of the colonel, they were fifers or drummers and subject to military discipline.

The repertoire of the bands of the Guards was chiefly derived from arrangements of music from opera-comique or songs, such as ‘a Belle Gabrielle, Malbrouk, Aupres de ma Blonde and others. The Swiss Guard marched past to the sound of rolls ‘a’ la Suisse’ and then to La Marche de Colin-Tampon, whose slow rhythm corresponded to that slow tenpo for a march past which endured for many years but is now used only by the French Foreign Legion.

We know of several marches played by the band of the Swiss Guard, including two by Andre Philidore (curator of the Royal Music Library); two by Michel Delalande (1657-1726); one by Michel Corette (1709-1795); one by an officer of the Regiment, Christian Zimmermann of Lucerne, and one by Martini (under his real name Schwarzendorff – 1741-1816) composer of the famous Plaisir d’Amour. His march gained a prize, having been won in competition when chosen by theDuc de Choiseul(8) It was forbidden, under the pain odf death for members of the Swiss Guard to sing the celebrated Ranz des Vaches because this melancholy song, recalling their homeland caused nostalgia which might encourage desertion or even suicide. This fact(9) is confirmed by J Rousseau (1712-78) in his Dictionnaire de La Musique.

In 1792 12 musicians were quartered at Courbevoie. The band was not present in the Tuileries on 10 August. Not so the drummers and fifers attached to the cosrpanies, who suffered the cruel destiny of the massacre. The musicians were then imprisoned in the Palais Bourbon, but we may suppose that they were later freed. A famous bandmaster in Revolutionary and Napoleonic times, Michel Gesture, had entered the band of the Swiss Guard as in instrumentalist at the age of 14. He was a Chapel Royal alto at 20 and in 1791 was a membur of the band of the Paris National Guard. Later he became bandmaster of the Consular Guard and then of the Grenadier Regiment of Foot of the Imperial Guard.served in all the campaigns of the Corps but was among those lost in the Russian Campaign of 1812. He composed over 200 works for military band.

(1) Burgundian Wars: The conflict arising from c)iarles the Bold (Duke of Burgundy) disputing the overlordship of Louis XI of France.

(2) NEaur was besieged in 1692 and 1695. In the first siege victory went to the French hut they were expelled by the English and Dutch in the second.

(3) Louvre: A Royal Palace in Paris.

(4) Touching the sick: Evidently a simllar ritual to that concerning the‘King’s evil’ in EngIrid, a scrofulous disease formerly supposed to be healed by the touch of the King.

(5) Louis, the Dauphin, married the Princess Marie-Antoinette, daughter of the Briperor Francis II and Maria Theresa of Austria.

(6) American Republic: France had played a vital part in the American War of Independence arid without her massive military and naval assistance it is hardly conceivable that the colonies would have become independent as early as the Eighteenth Century.

(7) 14th July 1790: This was the first anniversary of the Fall of the Bastille, the first great event of the French Revolution, but Louis XVI was still on the throne. It is ironic that royal troops should have beensnployed to help prepare the venue for a grand revolutionary celebration, but such cooperation was clearly prudent.

(8) Etienne Franc, nis Choiseul-Amboise (1719-85) a favourite of Madam de Poutry adour. He became a Lieutenant-General in 1748 and later, in 1758 the Du( de aloiseul and Foreign Minister. He remained in office until 1770, whe’ La Pompadour’s successor, Madame Duharry, procured his dismissal.

(9) Ranz de Vaches: The doleful omens connected with a Swiss pastoral song recall similar fears associated with a short violin composition widelyplayed in Europe in the years between the two World Wars, under such tit (depending on the country) as Irauriger Sonntag, Fmsamer Sonntag, Sombre Dimance and Gloomy Sunday. This tune, as well, was said to induce suici( and it has been alleged that one country banned it.

(12) The History of Danish Military Music

Military music was originally just a method of communication and when, during the course of the 16th and 17th century, warfare developed to be more theoretical and complex then it had been previously, the need for unmistakably loud and clear signals for the move forward, retreat or attack was needed. Although the Roman Armies used trumpeters and drummers and the lur (1) was played by the Vikings, these were mainly used ceremonially.

Originally the Infantry used fifes and drums as their way of signaling and the Cavalry trumpets and the kettledrum. These were also used on ceremonial occasions, especially those of a Royal nature. At a later date the Infantry started to use the bugle and it was often young boys that played both the bugle and the drums and there are not many Danes that have not seen the Monument or -heard of “The Little Bugler”. (Little Hornblower!). During this century the advent of radio naturally rendered the bugle and drum signals superfluous but the sounds of the Reveille and Retreat can still be heard at certain Garrisons and occasionally members of the Royal Family or High Ranking playing. Many of these Historical Regimental signals can be found as part of the official march of these Regiments.

During the 16th century the ‘shawm’ began to emerge as a military musical instrument and it was then that the musical side became more important as the rather brittle sound of the shawms could hardly be used as a signal. The shawm was later replaced by the ‘hautbois’, (known now as the oboe) and the musicians that played these instruments were called ‘Hautboys’. Later this term was used to describe all military musicians irrespective of whether or not they played this particular instrument.

The 17th century brought important changes, in that the discovery was made that by adding holes and flaps to a trumpet tones other than a natural ones could be provided. This meant that melodies could be played using whole and half notes. The other significant innovation was the arrival in Europe of the Turkish musical tradition with its cymbals, rattles, tambourines and drums.

During the beginning of the 18th century all of these instruments were merged together, oboes, trumpets, drums and the Turkish Janizarian music to that we know today as the wind hand.Up until this time Danish military music did not differ too much from the rest of Europe but let us now concentrate on the developments in Denmark. At this time during the beginning of the 18th century -Danish regiments competed with one another in producing the biggest, best and most colorful hand as possible. More often than not it was the Officers of the Regiment that paid out of their own pocket to maintain the bands. A number of the members of the hand were German in origin and many musicians and composers who were later to become famous started their career in a military band. Carl Nielsen and Hans Christian Lumbye to name two of the most well known.

In 1842 guide lines were drawn up by the Danish Government for military music in Denmark, uniforms were standardized unfortunately at the expense of the many varied and colourful uniforms. But there was also a cut back on the number of military bands. The end result was five brigade bands and the band of The Royal Danish Lifeguards. The complement of the six bands consisted of thirty-five musicians each and all were wind bands with brass and woodwind, but there were also twenty battalion bands of sixteen musicians each and these were brass only.

It was here that the very special Danish military music tradition began and has continued until the present day, where the Regimental ‘Musikkorps’ consist of less than twenty members and are still all brass.

Musically there is a disparity when comparison is made with a complete wind band but this meant that a very special Danish military music tradition was provided with its own instrumentation, style and composers. A tradition that was also adopted by a number of civilian hands during the beginning of this century and it should be noted here that the Danish brass tradition cannot be compared to the British type brass bend. Both instrumentation and not least the playing ‘style’ are very different.

It is true that in 1842 the cutbacks were critical but at least there were more than six hundred musicians involved in military music – today there are only about one hundred left.

It was the Royal Lifeguards ‘Musikkorps’, the five brigade hands and the smaller battalion bends that were musically to play an important role during the Schlesvig-Holstein wars of 1848-49 and in 1864. After the war of 1864, further cuts were made in the defence budget and once again military music was badly affected, in that in 1867 the number of hands were halved. The five brigade hands disappeared completely and the Royal Lifeguards remained as theonly wind band. Many of the battalion bands were axed and of the remainder these were reduced to nine musicians. Permission was granted though that two bands could play together ‘on special occasions’.

Changes were also made in 1880. The Royal Lifeguards were retained but the remaining bands were re-organized into ten regimental bands of twenty musicians, apart from the Artillery and the Mounted Bands that only received a quota of ten. Once again apart from the Lifeguards, these were all brass.

Less than 30 years later, in 1909, everything went completely wrong. The Parliament decided that all Danish military music was to be disbanded and that as from 1st April 1911 all Danish military musicians were to be given their discharge.

It was not particularly wise that more than a year was to pass before this was implemented, as this time was naturally used in protesting against the decision. These protests came not only from the military musicians themselves but also by prominent people from all walks of life. Military music was, for a lot of people, their first taste of ‘live’ music. Radio and records were still in its infancy and most people could not afford to go to Symphonic Concerts and to the Opera but the march through the town by a military bend, followed by concerts in the market place or the local park could be enjoyed by everyone and were extremely popular and fulfilled the musical requirements of the population; and they were free!

The protests against the decision by the Government culminated in January 1911 in a huge demonstration through the streets of Copenhagen to the Parliament at Christiansborg

he Government refused to bow to the wishes of the demonstraters and protestations. Military music was to be abolished and in March 1911 the regimental bands gave farewell concerts throughout the land. Amazingly, when the dismissals had already come into effect, telegrams were sent out from the Ministry of War on the 1st April to all military musicians saying that their discharge had been cancelled. Military music in Denmark had been reprieved.

Reductions though, were inevitable and the regimental bands were reduced to nine musicians and three in reserve (either conscripts or musicians on contract). The Mounted Band and the Artillery had to make do with just nine permanent musicians. This situation was to continue for some ten years and caused a number of problems. Notwithstanding the individual musicians prowess, how could 10 – 13 band members produce a sound that really carried -a forceful sound? This was felt in particular during the celebrations of the re-unification of the South of Jutland with Denmark in 1920. The local population had been used to the big German military wind bonds numbering over fifty and these were now being replaced by a Danish military hand, all brass, of only thirteen musicians! An agreement was reached that resulted in two regimental bends playing together to form a more acceptable 25 – 26 piece band. During 1922 conditions improved a little in that the number of musicians were increased to fifteen. This meant that some hands could expand with a couple of clarinets and a flute.

Then in 1932, the situation from 1909 was finally realised and this time there was no reprieve. One hundred and seventy-four musicians lost their jobs, only the Lifeguards Band were allowed to continue as before. This period was to last for ten years and both the population and the National Defence Forces sorely missed their military music. This was a time when one could meet a company of soldiers marching behind a loudspeaker van playing marches, an undignif ied sight and a parody of military pride.

1941 brought the re-introduction of military music in Denmark, possibly as a counter balance to the presence of the big, well playing bands of the occupying German Forces, Four regimental bands were formed, each of fifteen musicians. During the last Sunday in April 1941, a concert was held in a park in Copenhagen to celebrate the return of military music and was seen by over fifty thousand people. on the 1st May, the bands were re-united with the Garrisons and they were welcomed wholeheartedly.

During the period from the 29th August to Liberation in 1945, these bands continued to function but as ‘Civilian’ hands.In 1953 one more hand was re-established, hut in 1973 another one was disbanded. The tradition from 1842 of all brass hands have been kept, apart from the Royal Lifeguards, which has survived all these crises.

The situation today is that Danish military music consists of The Royal Danish Lifeguards Band in Copenhagen, the hand of The Life Regiment of Zealand in Ringsted, the band of the Life Regiment of Funen in Odense, the band of the Slesvig Regiment of Foot in fladerslev and the band of The Princes Life Regiment in Viborg.

Apart from this, the Navy has a Fanfare Band, which in spite of its name is in fact a complete all-brass hand. These musicians are either conscripts or on short-term contracts. This also applies to the Fifes and Drums of the Royal Danish Lifeguards.

Since its formation in 1949, the Territorial Army or Home Guard have formed a number of ‘Musikkorps’, some as wind bands and others as afl brass. Many have a high musical standard and often fill the gap left by decades of reductions of the professional hands and it is not unusual to see a military parade being led musically by a Territorial Army Band. It should also be noted here that the only hand associated with the Danish Air Force is in fact a Territorial Band as is the Womens Naval Service Band and also the Womens Army Corps, who have their own Fife and Drum Band.

Finally it should be mentioned that many amateur orchestras, company bands, Boys and Girls Guard Bands, Boys Brigade and Scout Bands often play military music, though of varying quality. One of the most distinguished, is of course, the Boys Band of the Tivoli Guards, with a very high musical standard.

(13) An Outline of the Evolution of Military bands in France

In common with military bands generally those of France have their origins in the music of War, and beginning with a romantic example, we mention the sound of Roland’s horn at Roncevalles, in AD 778. This French soldier, killed by the Basques during Charlemagne’s invasion of Spain, subsequently became the hero of the 11th century Chanson de Roland. At Hastings (1066) a Norman warrior, Taillefer, rode out from the ranks and entertained his comrades with some of its verses, dispatching two foes apparently not appreciative of music, before being slain himself. It was a Norman custom to sound trumpets if they triumphed in battle, or at a siege, and we may conclude that the practice was not confined to Norman France alone. However, this feudal custom was the prerogative of royalty and nobility. In France, as elsewhere, trumpeters were members of royal household and usually exempt from the normal military service. Their training and employment was often regulated by the trade guilds. As a rule trumpeters headed any royal procession or progress, even by water as on one historic occasion. On Nay 18 1588 when England was threatened by the Spanish Armada, Queen Elizabeth decided to visit her troops assembled at Tilbury. Both London and Tilbury being on the River Thames, the Queen’s Majesty entered her royal barge, hard by St James’s Palace, preceded by her musicians blowing loudly on silver trumpets, and the procession of barges proceeded down river on the ebb tide, cheered by the citizens who lined the foreshore, this stretch of the river being tidal.

For use in battle the primary instruments ware the horn or bugle ( the Roman bucan) and the drum, made of wood or metal with skin or parchment strained and tightened by crossover cords. Their function was to sound calls sod rallying signals; to frighten or annoy the enemy; to encourage troops on the march, and to set the pace. Relieving Orleans in 1429, Joan of Arc made a triumphal entry to music, probably played on tambeurs (drums) and trumpets or bugles. We know that the tune was a Scottish air, which France had adopted and called La Marche de Robert Bruce. In the medieval wars Scotland and France usually united against their hereditary foe, England. This tune is more wide known as Scots Wha Hae Wi’ Wallace Bled, from verses written after a lapse of about four centuries by the poet Robert Burns (1759-96). Sir William Wallace, a Scottish patriot who had been executed in 1305, was a staunch henchman of Robert the Bruce, who is said to have used the tune at Bannockburn (1314). Le Marche de Robert Bruce is still played by French Service bends and it has been recorded by La Musique Principale des Thoupes de Marine, in tones more dulcet than Joan of Arc and the Orleans populace would have heard.

The passage of time saw the development and growth of regiments and armies in Europe and, with these, the introduction of core varied instruments that emanated chiefly from Asia, via those countries of Eastern Europe exposed to the depredations and invasions of the Ottoman Empire. The first example to arrive in France is believed to be a kettledrum from Turkey, presented to the Court of France by an embassy from Hungary, in 1471. It was described as a ‘tambeur des Perses’, but the Persian name was ‘timbale’ and by that name the instrument has been known in France ever since. Another Turkish innovation, the fife, was first seen in the hands of Swiss Mercenaries in France towards the end of the 15th century. Fifes came into use fairly quickly, but they were not used for drill purposes but as ‘instruments of pleasure’. Poring the reign of Francis I (king from 1519-1547) the large bends of trumpets sod kettledrums were favored, but by 1588 there had had been a marked change. On Nay 12 1588 a later king, Henry III, gave the people of Paris the opportunity of indulging in what was to become one of the capital’s most popular pastimes in the ensuing centuries – the erection of barricades. The king had ordered his Swiss and French Guards to take up positions at vantagepoints in the city.

The outcome was a disaster that sent the king scurrying off to Chartres, but an account of the day’s events includes a reference to the Guards marching along the Rue St Honore to ‘the rolling thunder of 20 tambours and the shrill squealing of a score of fifes’. Another very important introduction was the oboe, derived from the Turkish zurna. In archaic English this double wood reed woodwind instrument was called the hautboy (pronounced 0 Boy!), from the French hauthois, which I shall not presume to translate.

Coming to the 17th century we find further innovation and development. Louis Quatorze (1638-1715) is justly praised for the enhancement of military music but he was only five when he became king and there had been noteworthy progress during the reign of his father, Louis Treize, who had assumed the royal power in 1617. The infantry fife and drum bands had remained but the trumpet and drum were of prime importance to the cavalry. The King’s Trumpeters only numbered four, plus a kettle drummer but, in addition, there were the musicians of the Garde du Corps, amounting to 28 trumpeters and four kettle drummers. Of far greater musical importance was the King’s Hauthois Band, of eight hautbois (2 treble, 2 alto, 2 tenor and 2 bass), two cornettes and two trombones. It seems that the idea came from the shawm, zurna and drum bends of the Turkish Janissaries. Before the end of the reign several regiments had hautbois bands, and this may be regarded as a turning point for the military band as we know it. Nevertheless, the trumpet retained its prominence and before leaving Louis Treize we refer to two trumpet fanfares of this period -La Guet (a watch or look-out) and La Cavalquet (a mounted scout).

During the infancy of Louis Quatorze the country was ruled by Cardinal Mazarin, as France had been ruled in the previous reign by another cardinal, Richelieu. After Mazarin’s death, in 1661, Louis never appointed another first minister but took full control himself, in concert with his own saying, “L’e’tat c1est moi’. He took great interest in the music of his regiments and saw the bands were organised to his liking. He engaged the celebrated Jean-Baptiste Lully to supervise the army bands and to compose suitable music. The King’s Musketeers were allowed three hautbois and five drums per company, and by 1672 the Dragoons were similarly equipped. The Garde du Corps had its bands playing in choirs, viz. using music written in four parts. Among the military music written by Lully (1639-87) was La Marche des Mousquetaires du Roy which has been recorded by La Musique da la Garde Republicaine. There is also a fanfare version and this can be heard on record by the Fanfare Trumpets of the French Air Force.

Louis Quatorze was succeeded by his great-grandson, Louis Quinze, whose indolence and frivolity were coupled with misgovernment and unsuccessful wars, leading to increasing discontent and laying the foundations for the French Revolution, which finally erupted in 1789. By then military music had reached a low ebb in France, but it was to have a phenomenal revival during and after the Revolution, when the pre-eminence of French bands caused astonishment and admiration in the rest of Europe. The Revolutionary leaders seem to have had little to learn as regards the value of audio-visual instruction in educating the new citizenry and consolidating the revolution. The process often took the form of great national fetes, such as the Fête Funbrés for Mirabeau and Voltaire, or such philosophical and doctrinal events as the Fête de la Federation and the Fête de la Raison. Held in the open air, with monster bands and choirs, they were spectacular. An outstanding feature at these fetes was the band of the National Guard, massed with other bands. This band had been raised in 1789 by Bernard Sarrette, with 45 performers and in the following year was taken over by the Paris Municipality. The massed bands for the fetes were enormous. At one there were 10 flutes, 30 clarinets, 18 bassoons, 4 trumpets, 2 tubae curvae, 2 buccins (bass trombones 12 horns, 3 trombones, 8 serpents, 10 percussion, bass, side and kettle drums; cymbalists and triangle beaters. 300 drummers could be added for the more prodigious occasions. The National Guard and their band also attended the numerous ceremonial plantings of ‘Trees of Liberty’ by the mayors of the various communes and we read of the accompanying brilliant ceremonial music’. The National Guard was not a police force but it had obligations to help maintain public order. In Paris it was commanded by one not unknown in America, Marie Joseph Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, until his hurried departure for Austria in 1792 after his attempt to restore the monarchy.

Returning essentially to the military music scene, the regiments of the Revolution soon discarded much of the music of the old regiments, whose fine uniforms gave way to the blue great-coats of the new demi-brigades. The popular revolutionary songs were played by the bands and we can have a taste of them by listening to some verses of La Garmagnole, then to be combined instrumentally with the rabble-rousing Ca Ira and to be followed by the emotive La Marseillaise, which Rouget de Lisre (1760-1836) wrote for France’s Rhine Army but was adopted by all revolutionary France. Two years after the Paris Municipality had taken over the band of the National Guard they decided to disband it, to economise. Fortunately, Sarrette was able to create from it the Ecole Gratuite de Musique de la Garde Nationale Parisienne, which in 1795 was amalgamated with the old Ecole Royale, at the Conservatoire de Musique. Both the Ecole and the Conservatoire were the mainstay of military music in those stirring times and supplied all the French armies with their bandsmen. As recommended by the Conservatoire at this time a military band comprised one flute, six clarinets, 3 bassoons, one trumpet, two horns, one serpent sod bass drum and cymbals. There had been a temporary eclipse of the oboe by the clarinet, because the latter instrument, played with the reed uppermost and open embouchure (as in jazz bands today), produced a clarino high trumpet tone. The trombone and serpent gave greater weight to fundamentals. In spite of the various forms of administration which succeeded each other in the unsettled final decade of the 18th century in France – the National Assembly, National Convention, Committee of Public Safety, Directory and Consulate -military music never flagged and the emergence of Napoleon Bonaparte was to ensure even greater vigour. Much had been owed to such composers as Gossec and Nehul. The latter, in collaboration with the poet Marie-Joseph Chenier, had written the famous Chant du De-part to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Fall of the Bastille. It rivaled La Marseillaise in popularity.

(14) Part 2
An Outline of the evolution of the Military band in France

If the turning point in the development of the modern military band was the hautbois hand, then the turning point in the career of General Bonaparte was the French Revolution: a lesser upheaval would not have provided him with the impetus he required to gain a crown. His great opponent and ultimate vanquisher, the Duke of Wellington, had learnt to play the violin as a youth but he appears to have left decisions on Army music and bands to his subordinates – although a request to be included in the Line at Waterloo, from an untried battalion of the 14th Regiment of Foot, was granted only after the Duke had observed them parade to the beating of The Grenadiers March. The Corsican had very firm views on army bands and their function and his interest in military music is reflected not only in the splendid formal marches written whilst he was First Consul and then Emperor, but in orders that he issued, tastes he expressed and even jokes he cracked with his veterans – his ‘Grognards’ – about their songs. Before he left on the Egyptian expedition he gave special attention to the formation of good bands. In Cairo he ordered noonday concerts by regimental bends, stationed in public places near the hospitals, where they were to play 1various airs which will cheer the sick and recall to their minds the finest hours of past campaigns’. Sometimes he could demand the near impossible, as when he asked Lebrun and Rouget de Lisle ‘to compose a hymn based on a familiar tune like LA MARSEILLAISE or ~ DU DEPART to be used in combat and contain sentiments for any and all circumstances of war’. Some marches had been composed for use in battle. LA MARCHE DE LA GARDE GDNSULAIRE has had several arrangers but original composer is never indicated. The march is said to have bean performed at the Battle of Marengo (1800), the ‘Pas de Charge’ being in the trio. The outcome was an important victory for France hut it is ironical that the dispositions he had made caused Bonaparte to he surprised by the Austrians and he was saved only by the staunchness of the Guard and the brilliant action of a subordinate. Characteristically, Napoleon took full credit and named his celebrated charger after the battle. Furgeot’ a arrangement of the march has often been recorded by leading French bands.

The Consulate had come into being in 1799 and as First Consul and General, Bonaparte suppressed the cavalry bends for a time, saying that by discharging the cavalry bandsmen the saving of horses would enable him to raise four extra regiments of horse. During the five years of the Consulate the Band of the Consular Guard, led by Gebeuer and Blasius established a high reputation. In the meantime, the high clarinet in F had been introduced and the oboe restored. In 1802 the Gendarmerie de Paris was formed, a military body which carried out certain internal duties of a police nature. Its title underwent such changes as La Garde Municipale and La Garde Royale, until its suppression by the Provisional Governaent after the February Revolution of 1848. It had a Batterie-Fanfare (drums, bugles and/or trumpets) dating from 2 October 1802, and in 1804 a Fanfare de Cavalerie (mounted trumpet corps) was formed. In the same year Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French. A larger bend for the Grenadiers of the Guard comprised twelve clarinets, two clarinets in F, two piccolos, four oboes, four bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, two serpents, one bass drum and two pairs of cymbels. It was headed on the march by drums and fifes. Cavalry bands were re-established and handsomely furnished with sixteen trumpets, six horns and three trombones, to which in the cases of cuirassiers and caribiniers, kettle drums were added.

The years of the First Empire, and the decade before, were a golden age for the military bend in Prance. Indeed, one questions whether any other country has ever enjoyed such a stimulating period. The bands lacked virtually nothing materially and the important factor of morale must have been braced by the fact that they were a necessity to the military and social structure. Even so, the claim that it was a golden age for bands cannot be sustained without the recognition that the cardinal requirement had been present — worthy music. This need was met in abundance by a group of fine composers such as Gossec, Catel, Mehul, Gebauer, Charubini and others. Their output was enormous. Quick steps and other items for military evolutions and arrangements of patriotic songs were to be expected bat there were also suites, overtures and symphonies of the first rank composed especially for the military bend. Francois Joseph Gossec (1734-1829) was already a pioneer before the Revolution and had been the first to regard the military band orchestrally; also to demonstrate the benefits of the clarinet and trombone in the orchestra. Mozart referred to him as ‘his very good friend and a dry man’ and he has been called the ‘founder of symphonic music in France’; he might equally be called the founder of French chamber music, as he wrote eighteen string quartets. With its positive cleavage from the past, the Revolution gave him his opportunity. Very active in composing in his early days, he made his first authentic instrumental arrangement of LA MARSEILLAISE. In terms of symphonic form, those of Gossec take first place, but Catel is more original and Louis Jardin bolder and more advanced in conception. Regret tably, little of their music, and music for bend by Mehul and Charubini (whom Napoleon disliked, as being too independent!) is ever played. The bend music of these ‘composers of the Revolution’ deserved a better fate at the hands of the later conductors of bends, whose prograemes suggest a preference for transcriptions from the popular classics, opera, the theatre and the dance. Perhaps one day a musician with a sense of history will be inspired to revive some of this unique music written for the bends of the Revolution and the First Empire.

From the time the first Napoleon left the stage at Waterloo (1815) until the end of the Second Empire (whose fall was caused by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71), military bends remained very much a part of the French scene, reflecting the country’s martial ardour and desire to re-capture ‘La gloire’, as well as her colonial aspirations. As the years progressed a greater diversity developed amongst the Army bends and the heavy stateliness of the earlier marches no longer predominated. A regiment or battalion had its military bend (L’Harmonie) bat it also had a separate musical unit known as a ‘clique’. With Infantry regiments the clique comprised drums and fifes, bat in the Light Infantry and Chasseur (rifle) regiments the clique used a bugle termed a cornet’ (not to be confused with the present day cornet in bends) which was a small bugle shaped like a hunting horn. In the days of the First Empire these bugles had only been used for field calls in battle or on manoeuvres bat, through ~ de corps’, they became the chosen marching instruments of such regiments: such was the origin of their use as we know it today. In 1830 France began her protracted conquest of Algeria, involving thousands of troops for many years and these campaigns speeded the official adoption of bugle bands. A company of the 8th Chasseurs distinguished itself at SIDI BRAHIM in 1845 and the march named after it by an anonymous composer and played by a Chasseurs clique is typical of the style. In the same year France appointed a special commission to enquire into the modernising of its bends and its members included Auber, Carrefois, Onslow, Spontini and Adam. As a result the Infantry were allowed fifty-four players per bend and the Cavalry and Chasseurs thirty-six. It involved the introduction of the new instruments of Adolphe Sax, who was strongly supported by King Louis-Philippe. The change was short lived as with the 1848 Revolution the king abdicated and the bends were ordered to return to the old instrumentation.

However, Hector Berlioz blazed away furiously at what he regarded as the inferiority of the former French band instrumentation and, with the assumption of power by Louis Napoleon, Sax was entirely beck in favour again. In fact his prestige was such that he brought about the closing of the Military School of Music, which he regarded as reactionary. It was replaced by special music classes at the Conservatoire.

Mention has been made of the disbandment of the Fanfares of La Garde Royale in 1848, but a few months later it was re-formed as La Garde de Paris and included twelve trumpeters under Trurpet-Major Jean Paulus, who composed a special fanfare for the presentation of Colours on the Champ de Mars, Paris in May 1852, by which time the Second Empire had been proclaimed by the new Emperor Napoleon III. The Military Governor of Paris, Marshal Magnan, publicly congratulated Paulus. Within two years the fanfare was enlarged to a full bend and given the title of La Musique de la Garde de Paris. In 1871 it was changed to La Musique de La Garde Republicaine.

France maintained her bends during the Crimean War (1854-56) and many went to the Front, to gain high praise from her Allies whose own bands were organised far less effectively than the French. They continued to receive strong support, as a Decree of 1854 allowed a bend of fifty-five for the Imperial Guard and bands of thirty-five for the Cavalry, with commissioned bandmasters. It was said that the music of the French bends at Inkerman did as much to drive beck the Russians as the bayonet. Yet after the war in Italy (1859) there were drastic cuts and in 1867 the cavalry bends were abolished. Even so, in that same year a Military Band Congress was staged at the Paris Exhibition. The following countries competed and received awards in the order given: Prussia, France, Austria, Bavaria, Russia, Holland, Baden, Belgium and Spain. The smallest bend was Bavaria’s – fifty-one. Austria had seventy-six, but Prussian combined two bends to make eighty-seven players. The judges were Ambroise Thomas, Leo Delibes, Fe icien Cesar David, Franz von Bulow, Hansluck and Kastner.

France’s agonising period from 19 July 1870 until 1 March 1871, from her declaration of war on Prussia until her acceptance of peace terms, has little relevance to this inquiry, except to observe that the country returned to its peacetime life rapidly. Even during the quickly ensuing blood-thirsty suppression of the Commune of Paris (when the barricades went u a am) theatre and café life in the capital was hardly affected. The bends settled down again, the leaders being the Garde Republicaine under Paulus and the Mounted Guides under Cressinois. In 1872 the former represented France at the Boston Peace Festival. Sellenick took over from Paulus in 1873, to be succeeded by Wettge(1884), Pares (1893) Balay (1911), Dupont (1927), Brun (1945), Richard (1969) and Boutry (1973~ – and names as famous in French military music as Sousa, Santelmann, Schoepper, Benter, Whiting and Gabriel in America, and Godfrey, Williams, Rogan, O’Donnell, Ricketta, Miller, Jaeger and Dunn in England. An American bandmaster named Cappa who visited Paris in 1889 described the ensemble of the Garde Republicaine as almost perfect. For well over a century it has been regarded as the premier bend of France and it remains one of the great bands of the world.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that today in France there are others deserving of equal approbation, such as the major staff bands of the French Navy, Army and Air Force, and Las Gardiens de la Paix de Paris and La Police Nationale. These high standards of rendition arise from the meticulous organisation of military music in France and the methods of personnel selection. With growing record production this is being increasingly appreciated outside France. Yet coverage on French radio and television is surprisingly limited.

(15) The 24th Regiment band

The earliest reference to a 24th regimental band appears in ‘Records of the 24th Regiment’ and reads: “Dublin, 16th May 1771 – the regiment has a band of music”, but how effective this was may be open to doubt when one sees in a Return of Musicians for 1801 (Appendix A) by Mr. Hugh McBride, Master of the Band, that the Band consisted of 11 bandsmen, 2 fifers and a drummers, the youngest being 11 years old with four years’ service and the oldest 50 with 36 years’ service!! In another List of Bandsmen dated 1812 (Appendix C) there are interesting features in the remarks column alongside the musicians’ names one reads “Very lame and not likely to be much better” and another “not likely to play”!! Perhaps one should say “from little acorns big oak trees grow”.

In 1840 the bend are described as being dressed in white double breasted coatees, collar cuffs and turn backs of green, large epaulettes of green worsted, white stripes on trousers and shako ornamented with a red bell. In about 1873 white clothing for the hand was discontinued.

Prior to 1881 when the Regiment first became associated with Wales, the Regimental march was The Warwickahire Lads after its connection with that county in earlier years. This march was composed by Charles Dibdin about the year 1768. From 1881, the quickstep of the Regiment was The March of the Men of Harlech, an old tune which appeared as a Welsh Harp Air in the 1794 edition of Edward Jones’s ‘Relics of the Welsh Bards

On 16th March, 1878, the band of the 1/24th was left at King William’s Town to be drilled in artillery and left that station with two seven-pounder muzzle loading guns for Itelezi and Mount Kempt where they did good service with the newly arrived 2nd Battalion of the Regiment. An extract from a letter from Horse Guards dated 5/6/78 and signed by R.C.H. Taylour, O.A.G., reads:

“H. R. H. has specially noted that two guns were manned by the bend of the 1st /24th Regiment during the action on April 30th , and he considers that the cheerful spirit thus evinced for the general good and benefit of the public service is must creditable”.

In the Zulu War of 1879 the band of the 1st Battalion was in the camp at Isandhlwana which was annihilated, one of the six soldiers of the 24th who survived the battle being Bandsman E. Wilson (a copy of his personal account of the action and subsequent escape from the field of battle is held in the Regimental Museum). Prior to the Zulu attack the bandsmen had been detailed as ammunition carriers, cooks and stretcher bearers, and Wilson was one of the latter. The 2nd Battalion also lost members of their bend on that fatal day including their Bandmaster, Harry T. Builard.

A rather interesting point is brought to light concerning the Bandmaster of the 1st Battalion, who, as a result of his status, and unlike his counterpart Bandmaster Bullard of the 2nd Battalion, was not present at the battle of Isandhlwana. This man, C. G. Burck, became Bandmaster in 1871 and served with the 1st /24th in various stations prior to accompanying the Battalion to South Africa. The reason why Burck failed to accompany his Battalion on active service remained obscure until research indicated that he may well have been a civilian and not a member of the Regiment. It had long been the practice of certain regiments to engage civilian Bandmasters, usually German or French nationals as they were often considered to be better musicians, the payment for these men being borne by the Officers’ Mess funds. An Army Order of 1814 prohibited foreigners employed as Bandmasters from taking part in military

operations, and in the case of Burck this may have been a lifesaver. Following the Army Reform Act of 1881 and the possible rescinding of the order of 1814, or perhaps as the result of being granted British nationality, C. G. Burck was appointed to the rank of Warrant Officer on 5th September, 1882, and continued to serve as such until 4th September, 1889.

An old Sergeant-Bandmaster of the 1st Battalion from 1869 to 1878, Harry Rattray, became the oldest Chelsea Pensioner of the Regiment. He was killed through enemy action on 16th April, 1941, when Chelsea Hospital was damaged in the London Blitz. He was in his 102nd year. At the age of ninety he composed a march entitled The March of the Clansmen of the Braemar Gathering which was inspired from a photograph of three veteran members of the Braemar Gathering in 1929.

In 1914 the 1st Battalion Band want to France with the Regiment and during the retreat from Mons cane under heavy shell fire which caused many casualties in the Band.

A unique distinction to the Regiment is that the Bandmaster of the 2nd Battalion, Mr. P. O’Donnell (1882) had three sons who all joined the Regiment and want on to become Directors of Music. At one time the three brothers, P.S.G. O’Donnell, R. P. O’Donnell and B. Walton O’Donnell were simultaneously Directors of Music Royal Marines; one at Chatham, one at Portsmouth and one at Plymouth and all three brothers received the M.V.O.

Kneller Hall has on two occasions been commanded by officers of the Regiment. Colonel Farquhar Glennie in 1893 and Colonel Campbell-Miles 1951-1955.

Four of the most outstanding of the Regiment’s Bandmasters over the years have been Charles Ancliffe (1st Bn. 1900-18) whose Nights of Gladness waltz is world famous; D. J. Plater (2nd Bn. 1923-26) who was renowned for his march compositions. He became Director of Music Royal Tank Regiment in 1926 where he stayed until 1947 when he became the first Director of Music R.E.M.E.; Major W.G. (Polly) Willoocks (2nd Bn. 1926-37) who became Director of Music Irish Guards. During Polly Willcocks period with the 2nd Battalion this bend was without doubt one of the most outstanding hands in the whole of the British Army. In successive years 1932, 1934 and 1935 they had a Kneller Hall Inspection Report of Outstanding, a feat believed to be unsurpassed; and Lieutenant Colonel S.V. Hays who went on to become Director of Music in 1978, Director of Music Honourable Artillery Company.

On the outbreak of the war in 1939 Bandmaster Hays and the Band Boys of the 2nd Battalion, stationed at Londonderry at the time, were sent to Brecon and immediately set about forming a new bend known as the Infantry Training Centre Band, which became a first-class band and toured extensively in Wales and England and visited the 2nd Battalion in the front line in Holland. In 1947 the 2nd Battalion went into suspended animation and the War Office directed that this band should join the 1st Battalion, the 1st Battalion Band having become defunct over the war years. In November 1947 Bandmaster Hickaan, a few bandsmen and a number of hand boys set sail for Cyprus to form the 1st Battalion Band. In 1955 Mr. Hicknan was succeeded by Bandmaster Ollie Whiting who was to be the last Bandmaster of the 24th Foot for in June 1969 the 24th amalgamated with the 41st Foot to form The Royal Regiment of Wales.

Bandsmen have always been known as the “Gentlemen of the Regiment”. The following appears in the 1905 edition of 2nd Battalion Standing Orders: “Bandsmen being better educated, and in a position superior to the rank and file, must remember that more is expected of them. Their conduct should be beyond reproach and in their dress and bearing they should be the smartest men in the Battalion. A bandsman who was awarded a Regimental entry will be struck off the establishment of the Band for at least three months.”

LIST OF BANDMASTERS

1st Battalion 2nd Battalion

Mr J NoBride 1793-1802 Mr P Waters 1865-1878

Mr J Clarke 1863-1869 Mr H Bullard 1878-1879

Mr H A Rattray 1869-1878 Mr R Goodings 1879-1884

Mr G Tamplini 1878-1882 Mr A Preece 1884

Mr G C Burck 1882-1889 Mr P O’Donnell 1884-1905

Mr J A Caborn 1889-1890 Mr F Ripp 1905-1906

Mr C W Ancliffe 1900-1918 Mr J C Roberts 1906-1915

Mr T Taylor 1918-1922 Mr H Fenner 1915-1923

Mr J L Gecks 1922-1934 Mr D J Plater 1923-1926

Mr C Eldicott 1934-1941 Mr G H Willcocks 1926-1937

Mr W J Hickman 1946-1955 Mr S V Hays 1937-1946

Mr 0 R Whiting 1955-1969

List of Bandsmen 1/24th – 1812
Sgt Crofswell 1st Clarinitt & Bassoon occasionally
Jms Brett 1st Clarinitt & Flute occasionally
Jms McGuire 1st Clarinitt
Henry Herold 1st Clarinitt
Edward Worrall 2nd Clarinitt
Jumps Smith 2nd Clarinitt (very lame and not likely to be much better)
James Butler 1st Bassoon (on leave at present)
Michael McGuire 2nd Bassoon (likely to be a good hand)
James Love learning the Bassoon
M. Hinton Bass Horn (likely to be a good one)
W Routh 1st Flute
W Patten learning the Flute
Jms Herold 1st Horn
W Harrison 2nd Horn
Samuel Miller learning the 2nd Horn – not likely to play
Wm Collins Trumpet & Bugle (failing)
Jms Johnson Tambourine
Paul Maurice Bass Drum
Danl Frederick Cymbals

(16) The Black Musicians of the British Army

Perhaps the Crusades had given Negroes and other foreign percussionists a place in Western music. A 14th century British Museum manuscript snows a Negro as a cymbalist who, at the same time, carried a pair of kettledrums on his back for the drummer standing behind. At the College of Arms is the Westminster Tournament Roll (February 1509/10) which shows six mounted trumpeters, one of them wearing a green turban (the only one wearing headgear) being a coloured man.

Two hundred years ago it was the fashion amongst many regiments to employ drummers from Africa and the West Indies. From reports of Generals visiting garrisons at various times, one learns that they were rattling good drummers too. The verdict of Major-General Sir William Howe, when inspecting the old 29th Foot at Dover in 1774, reported the fact that the drummers and fifes “beat and play well.” One may well believe that, in the carrying out of their strenuous duties, these drummers made their presence felt , since there were no less than ten of them. Seventeen years later, another General put the same regiment through its paces at Windsor, bluntly remarking in his report that “The drummers black, beat and play well.”

The 1st Bn The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment, to give the 29th its present day designation, had always made a speciality of its black drummers, an innovation which originated in rather curious circumstances. Admiral Boscawen happened to he the brother of its Commanding Officer in 1759, and at the surrender of Guadaloupe, siezedon the happy idea of securing ten boys, all of whom were eventually enrolled as drummers in his brother’s regiment. Some sixteen years later, a few survivors of this original group still remained with the regiment and in the estimation of a certain Colonel, they were all remarkably good drummers, a fact which probably stood as much to the credit of the British Drum-Major as to his pupils. Neither patience nor wisdom need be brought to bear in the tuition of drum “banging”, but in the “playing” of that primitive instrument a fair amount of both is necessary. When stationed at Tralee in 1824, the 29th had eleven boys specially brought over from Africa to fill the vacancies of its band. For over eighty years this regiment adhered to the custom of retaining black drummers, the last of whom passed away in the early 1840’s.

Africa was not the only land to which the military authorities looked for likely candidates for bands. The West Indies was also a good source of drummers as well.It was from this archipelago that the old 38th, now theStaffordshire Regiment, obtained most of its drummers, not altogether a matter for surprise considering the regiment was quartered there for almost sixty years. When its turn for departure came in 1765, it retained a squad of three black boys, but whether all the chosen ones relished the idea of leaving their native soil is nor recorded. Since the archives of certain regiments reveal the fact that at various times a “slave’ was posted to the drums, one may infer that the transfer in many cases was a hlessing in disguise for individual concerned. The Royal Fusillers was another marching regiment in which the foreign element was rather prevalent, all its drummers being blacks during the last nine years of the last century.

The cymbals and triangles had their place with “the drums and fifes,,’ and these members of the percussion family of musical instruments were sometimes played by quite juvenile black muscians. The bass drummer was invariably a burly black gentleman of imposing physique. In E Hull’s well known lithograph of the big drummer of the Grenadier Guards in 1829, one has a representation of a typical specimen of his type just in the act of producing his best from his instrument, and attired in white trousers, scarlet tunic, and a tall, gaily bedecked turban, the head-dress worn by most of his profession. The retention of the tiger and leopard skin aprons of the big drummers is a survival of the era when some of the drummers from Africa took the skins of wild beasts with them when they joined the British Army. jeined the British Army. Their fantastic uniforms were brought into greater prominence their outlandish evolutions when marching at the head of their regiments. Unfortunately, very little is known of any of the particular Black musicians of that era. However a man known as John Baptist is said to be the last of his fraternity in the Scots Guards. As a mark of distinction, a silver collar was worn by the last black drummer of the Grenadier Guards. Francis by name. This worthy drummer joined the great majority in 1838, the following year the Coldstream Guards dispensed with black musicians.These black Guardsmen were familiarfigures to the Londoners of those days, since their presence was necessary in the Court of St James’s at the daily ceremony of the Changing of the Guard.

Lest it might be supposed that the black musicians were all drummers and only to be found in infantry regiments, attention is called to the fact that the Royal Artillery at one time had black tambourine and cymbal players, the Turkish “Jingling Johnie” being also left to the tender mercies of a dark-skinned minstrel, whilst among the last of their kind in the service of the Crown were three black trombone players of the 2nd Life Guards, a circumstance which shows that the brethren of the redoubtable Francis were not unrepresented in the saddle, since the Household Cavalry had their African trumpeters as early as 1742, and in some of the old London prints a black kettle-drummer is depicted at the head of the band. His uniform was not unlike that still worn on ceremonial occasions by the bandsmen and trumpeters of these regiments, a three-cornered hat, however, taking the place of the blue velvet “jockey” cap now in vogue. Among the many fine military paintings hanging in Windsor Castle is an equestrian study of a black trumpeter in this very showy attire.

An Army Inspection Return of 1776, shows that a black kettle-drummer was employed by the 3rd Hussars at that period. “Bush” Johnstone of the 4th Hussars, was well respected and like the kettle-drummer and the trumpeters of the same regiment, he was an Indian, and, during the regiment’s twenty-year stay in the “Shiny East”, he held a proud position immortalized by Thomas Hardy, the Trumpet-Major. ‘Bush’ paraded for the last time with the old 4th Light Dragoons in 1842, when it is fairly safe to assume that the coloured element in our cavalry had disappeared.

Rumour has it that a few Militia units could boast of one or two black mulatto musicians as late as the Crimean War, but in confining this survey of the innovation as practised in the Regular Army, one is met with all manner of conflicting statements concerning the identity of the last black drummer, the manner of his exit, and the year in which he made his last bow to an admiring world. The early 1840’s could only muster a handful of these gentlemen, and the death in India on 15 July 1843, of George Carvell, the last black drummer of the “Ever-sworded Twenty-ninth”, removed one of the very last of this unique section of British Army musicians.

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The Valiant Musicians

THE VALIANT MUSICIANS

Wallace Hartley and the Titanic Ship‘s Orchestra

Jack Kopstein*

 

“You gentlemen of England

Who sit at home at ease

How little do you think

Of the danger of the sea”

- -Martin Parker 1656

 

 

Introduction

 

Countless books and  articles have been written about one of the greatest maritime disasters in world history, the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic on the evening of 15 April 1912. The White Star Liner struck an iceberg and sank on it’s maiden voyage from Southampton to New York with a loss of two-thirds of the more than 2,200 people aboard, claiming aristocrats, and immigrants alike. It also claimed the lives of the eight piece Titanic orchestra including its leader Wallace Hartley.

 

Full studies by eminent musicologists have considered the several probabilities of the music that was played as the ship crossed the threshold into its last moments to sink forever to the bottom of the sea. The following is an effort in deductive reasoning to determine the state of mind of the shipboard musicians whom decided to stay the course and give the passengers a solemn sendoff. In gathering information, much use was made of the news reports of the day, later reconstructions in movies, first person reports, Internet studies, books and articles. Regarding the music performed on the ship it is fair to say that based on the time frame and the music published as well as the knowledge of salon repertoire, a musical blueprint will emerge.

 

In developing the outline for this article it was necessary to review numerous photographs of military bands to determine if any of the band members were former military musicians. This was a almost a fruitless task, but in a photograph of pianist Theodore Brailey he is seen in the dress uniform of the Royal Artillery band which had one of the finest orchestras in Britain at the time and spawned several significant musicians. Also in a photograph of the Royal Irish Rifles band dated 1909, which included the string section a striking resemblance to J.W. Woodward, is seen. 

 

Being a musician on a cruise ship in today‘s world is not unlike the musician employed in similar work in the past. It is by  nature incredibly hard work, you are on call for every conceivable shipboard event and the pay is deplorable. But in every instance the standard of musicianship is essentially star quality in comparison to the salary. The repertoire at the turn of the last century was extensive. The musicians were not employees of the White Star Line, but employees of Black Brothers in Liverpool. The Black Brothers were artistic agents with several maritime companies. Blacks had a bevy of musicians under contract and as a result could provide the musicians at a lower price. This caused a good deal of antagonism with the Musicians Trade Union-The Amalgamated Musicians Union. On the other hand musicians needed to work and salary with free room and board appeared a good inducement. Their salaries were about $30.00-40.00US per month with Hartley probably getting ten dollars more.  The maiden voyage of the Titanic prompted the White Star Line to seek out the best musicians available and as a result Hartley was extracted from his job with Cunard and off the Mauritania to take over the leadership of the Titanic orchestra. Prior to 1912 the musicians of the transatlantic liners were an integral part of the crew. They received monthly wages of $50.00 US and a uniform allowance of about $7.00US. At the end of 1911 Black Brothers offered musicians at the lower pay scale and no uniform allowance and the musicians were now under contract to Black Brothers. The musicians were also assigned

 Ticket    number 250654 which covered their passage as a group in second class. The fact that they were considered passengers would later work against their families

 MUSIC STYLES 1900-1912

  At the turn of the last century salon music, a genre ranging from original compositions to arrangements of orchestral works, operas or operatic extracts, was a phenomenon found all over Europe. A growing market, in which direct means of musical production was in it’s infancy, had to be supplied with compositions which were easy on the ear

 By the time of the sailing Salon(dinner) music was at its pinnacle. In the diary of   saxophonist Albert A Knecht of the Sousa band he remarks that the 5-piece salon orchestra on the White Star liner Baltic was excellent during the John Philip Sousa World cruise of 1910. He said they played in every corner of the ship.

 

 Similarly The Titanic orchestra performed nightly for the diners in or near the first class dining saloon. They also played regularly at the Veranda and Palm Court next to the First class smoking room. Dining in First Class was a formal occasion every night including the night to be remembered. The A la Carte dining room and the Parisien restaurants which were in close proximity also had musical entertainment on a daily and nightly occasion. The Grand Staircase was the focal point of the Titanic and behind the staircase was a spacious Reception room, where guests would arrive before dinner to discuss the day’s activities. The eight players usually separated into two groups. A trio played mostly in the lounge of the ala Carte reception room and the second-class dining room.

 

The other group members including Wallace Hartley remained in the first class lounge or in the dining saloon or the first class entrance to the boat deck. The portable string players would often venture into the midst of diners to provide music as strolling strings, where they would serenade the patrons with requests. A diverse and extensive repertoire was necessary. Mostly the orchestra kept to the ship policy of being heard but not seen, setting up behind palms and outside doorways. The policy of performing without being conspicuous was what the White Star Line referred to as their “seamless” crew and employees.   The orchestra was in attendance for Sunday services, which were usually conducted by the Captain, and the orchestra led the congregation in the hymn sing.

 

Since there was limited rehearsal space the orchestra met each morning in the instrument storage room on Deck E near the laundry locker located in the adjacent passageway. This deck was also to house the cramped quarters of the musicians and was in close proximity to the stern of the ship. The musicians room is shown on a cutaway drawing of the Titanic with the notation “musicians 5”. Deck E or Upper Deck in the ship configuration. It was 3^rd class accommodation but the ship’s band all appear on the “did not survive” listing as Second Class passengers. Since there was not an indication of where the remaining three musicians were quartered they may have been in the printer’s cabin, which held sixteen in bunk beds and was located next to the musician’s cabin. Their accommodation has been described as very cramped, and diagrams showing the interior of crew cabins do indicate bunk beds

 

Bandmaster Hartley would provide a schedule of the day’s activities, meals. . Rehearsals were brief, almost certainly for starts and stops, or musical marks to be observed.  Orchestra musicians were all members of the Amalgamated British Musician’s Union and had been hand picked by bandmaster Hartley through the musicians agency CW and FW Black of Liverpool Most of the musicians had vast experience on other ships of the line as well as the Cunard Ship Lines. Their professionalism is unquestionable based on their backgrounds, training and musicianship. Musician’s work to clock and the following is a frequently used method of scheduling performance routine on a daily basis.

 

Date	Undertakings	Time	Location
11 April 1912	Breakfast	0800-0900 hrs	2nd dining room
	Rehearse and Advise	0915-10:30	Storage cabin E deck
	Free Time	10:30-11:50
	Luncheon music	12:00-13:30	5 piece to Dining saloon D deck, Trio to A la Carte Restaurant/reception room or trio to second class dining room
	Free time	1330-1500
	Tea Time	1500-1600	5 pc Dining Room Trio A la Carte/reception room
	Early Dinner -for orchestra	1700-1750	2nd class
	Dinner	1800-1930	5 pc to First class dining and trio to A la Carte
	After dinner concert (*dancing?)	2030-?	As arranged*

  *It has been recounted that dancing was discouraged on the Titanic, and it not alluded to in the enormous volumes of material available to the author.

 

 

  The popularity of small ensemble music was due for the most part to the rise of young virtuoso violinist Fritz Kreisler. By 1910 the Austrian prodigy enjoyed enormous success and recognition, as a performer, which was reinforced by his numerous short tuneful compositions many of which by the time of the sailing of the Titanic had made their way into the small ensemble music list. Schon Rosmarin and Liebeslied are but two pieces that had gained universal appeal.

 

INSTRUMENTATION

  In examination of several books and articles, which refer to the Titanic “band”, it would appear that for all intents and purposes that it was a string orchestra.   Orchestra members were pre-selected by Hartley in conjunction with Black Brothers and some had experience on other White Star and Cunard ensembles. Others may have worked with on the RMS Mauritania and RMS Baltic.  The pianist Ted Brailey was very experienced, particularly because he had to fill in instrumental holes. What that means can be explained by outlining the instrumentation of a Ragtime band orchestration by Scott Joplin. The Maple Leaf Rag written by Joplin in 1898 and it was scored for piccolo, Bb clarinet Alto sax, trumpet Trombone, Violins 1 and 2, viola, cello, Bass, Piano and drums. Brailey certainly had numerous cues to play within the music.

 

Fixed instruments included five grand pianos and an Aeolian electric organ were stationed at various locations throughout the ship. As well two upright pianos (for steerage class sing- a -longs) were to be found on the ship. A set of bagpipes also was sent to the ocean floor when the ship sunk. They were owned by passenger Eugene Daly, and were Uillean Pipes. Two of the numbers he was known to play were Erin’s Lament and A Nation Once Again

 

Some of the items discovered by Dr Robert Ballard in July 1986 and 1987 during the search and salvaging of the Titanic were viewed by the author in Victoria BC at the Titanic artifacts display in 2007. It was disclosed that paper products did not survive with the exception of a piano/conductor part for a turn of the century number titled “Pleasant Memories”. Also discovered was a Db piccolo and a music holder or lyre. The instrument as shown in the display was very good quality despite the ravages of the sea, and one could determine that this was a professional type instrument.  The lyre was for a clarinet as it can be distinguished from other instrumental music holders by the fact that there is a place for a screw nut on it’s underside (screw missing).  The following is a chart showing the musician and instrument(s) played by the orchestra with remarks

 

 

Name	Instrument	Secondary	Remarks
Brailey,W Theodore	Piano	Cello?
Bricoux ,Roger	Cello		Trio
Clarke, John Frederick	Viola	String Bass?
Hartley, Wallace, Henry	Bandmaster-Violin
Hume, John, Law (Jock)	Violin
Krins,Georges	Violin		Trio
*Taylor, Percy Cornelius	Cello	Piano	Trio
Woodward, John Wesley	Cello

 

 

  *Taylor was listed as cellist but it is unlikely that Hartley would select three cellists for an eight-piece group. A balanced instrumental ensemble would see the scenario of Bandmaster (violin) Hartley, Hume (violin), Brailey (piano), Clarke (string Bass-Viola), Woodward (cello), in the five piece group and Krins (violin), Taylor (piano) and Bricoux (cello) in the trio.

  The fact that within the full ensemble that groups would break up and move individually or in pairs from room to room or to the tables for tips lends more credence to there being string players whom could play in a continental style.

The White Star Line was very interested in having the presence of continental musicians near both the Parisien and A la Carte dining rooms. Both Belgian musician Georges Krins and French Cellist Roger Bricoux fitted that scenario. Violinist “Jock” Hume also had the ability as a busker and there is no doubt that he delighted passengers with his artistry in other locations including  the veranda.

  A subject that needs to be scrutinized is the issue of both the White Star music book and the notion that the musicians would be required to memorize all of the music contained in the book. In one account it is stated emphatically that there was a “standard 352 piece repertory”, and this was reiterated in Ian Whitcomb’s   Titanic Songbook where he states that there was a 352-piece songbook, which had to be learned, by name and number.  The music played will be discussed later but generally the Titanic ”book” consisted of light music, waltzes, romances, serenades, excerpts from opera, period pieces, polkas, marches, show tunes and the newest sensation, ragtime. Whitcomb also refers to 114 in the White Star music book as “Songe d’Automne” being played on the Boat Deck by the strings as the passengers tried to escape the frenzy of the sinking ship.

 

Since this chronicle relies on research and some supposition, it is hoped that a little common sense musical logic can be applied.  The musicians selected for the cruise ship industry were schooled musicians with both orchestral and small ensemble experience. Thus, despite the fact that they may have had the ability to ad-lib or perform as buskers, they were professional musicians who took their craft seriously and they must have strived for musical accuracy. A posed photograph of an orchestra purported to be on the Titanic but is probably from the Olympic clearly shows music on the piano rack. In addition Walter Lord in his book “The Night Lives On” categorically states that both groups had separate libraries of music. The library meaning is music at hand.

 

 The best example of music that needs distinctive nuance is the “Blue Danube Waltz” by Johannes Strauss (Junior 1825-1899). The melodic line for this waltz certainly is not difficult to place in the memory bank. All that one can do however is to scrutinize the accompaniment which is the rhythmic essential in all waltzes, there are bars and bars of after beats, often shifting rapidly with chord changes.  This was the job of the 2^nd violin, cellist and string bass to provide a solid musical background.  Just imagine having 352 pieces of music, some 3 and 4 pages long, with several bars and memorizing the cello parts. This is an improbable scenario for any ensemble or musician. Most string ensembles seen by the author on present day cruise ships have 40-50 tunes memorized, which they play over and over again during a seven-day voyage.

The outpouring of sympathy by musicians all over England when they went down and the solidarity of the major London orchestras attested to Titanic’ band’s classical training and ability.

 

In the end the fact that the music was numbered in the White Star book is the universal method for calling out dance sets.  This is certainly very strong evidence that music existed and was performed.

 

The Titanic Musicians

 

Wallace Henry Hartley-Bandmaster -Violin He was born in the small community of Colne, Lancashire near and the sea port town of Harwich England. He was born in 1878 and studied under his father who was choirmaster of the local Bethel Methodist church. He began the study of the violin at an early age and reached a high level of proficiency by the time he was 15. He was a fleeting member of the Huddersfield Philharmonic orchestra in 1898, but he was sent a letter asking him “if they (the HPO) can rely on your attendance for rehearsals and concerts“. It was a reminder that they needed his services in the orchestra. It appears that he returned the next season as he is shown as a member in 1899.Later he was first violin of orchestras in Bridlington and Harrogate. In 1909 he decided to become a cruise musician. He was hired by the music-booking agency CW and FW Black out of Liverpool and assigned to various cruise ships in the White Star and Cunard registries. He appeared as a musician on the Liners Arabic, and Baltic In 1910 he was offered the leadership of the band on the Cunard Liner Mauritania. Before leaving to take up a position of bandmaster on the Titanic. He was credited with having   made 80 voyages. He joined the Titanic at age 33 and was a fully professional all-around-musician. The lure of being leader of the biggest and most decadent ship in the world helped to convince him to take the position plus the increase in pay. He was a very skilled violinist and leader. It was said he had very nimble fingers for jigs, reels and ragtime. Hartley was selected for leadership of the orchestra, because of his reputation as a highly trained arranger, composer and player and a man with the common touch. After the band stopped playing he was not seen again and his body was recovered by the Cable Steamer MacKay -Bennet. He was dressed in his uniform, which had green facings, a brown overcoat and black boots.  Some of his effects included a gold fountain pen, solitaire ring, silver cigarette case, and silver matchbox marked W.H.H.  As well as a nickel watch. His music case was also found strapped to his body (see note 1)

 

 

John Frederick Preston (NobbY) Clarke. -Bass Violin -Viola  John Clarke’s home residence was listed as Smithdown-road Liverpool and he was the string bass player with the Ship’s orchestra. He was a member of the Amalgamated Musician’s Union. Prior to joining the Titanic he had been a member of the Argyle Theatre of Varieties. He was well known in the Birkenhead, which is a town on the Wirral Peninsula on the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. The town was famous as a seaport and as a centre for shipbuilding as it was close to the maritime activity of Liverpool. His proximity to Liverpool presented him an opportunity to obtain employment in the cruise industry with the White Star Line. He was 35 when   he perished and was wearing a grey overcoat and uniform with green facing. His effects included a diamond pin, gold watch, and a memo book. Although the contents of the memo book were never divulged it may have been used to help maintain his work schedule. The Steam Ship Mackay – Bennett, recovered his body and he was buried at the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Halifax Nova Scotia Canada.  He was 30 years old at the time of his death.

 

W.Theodore Ronald Brailey- Piano He was a resident of London and had previously served on the Cunard Steamer Carpathia before join the White Star Line. As noted previously Brailey was part of a gifted group of pianists who could condense music score for a small group and provide numerous instrumental cues. He was a resident of London England. Prior to joining the band of the Titanic he was on the Cunard Steamer Carpathia. Brailey was an airman having been associated with the Freshfield Aerodrome. He was a member of the Southport Pier Pavilion band before taking employment in the cruise industry.  His body was not recovered.

 

Roger  Bricoux-Cello. Roger Bricoux was a permanent resident of 5 Place du Lion d/Or in Lille, France prior to sailing with the Cunard Line on the Carpathia. Lille is located in the  historical region of Flanders, a few kilometers from border with Belgium.

 He was born in France (place not known). Lille was an industrial city in the early 1900’s but there were a number of orchestra venues, particularly in the variety theatres, which were popular in France. Prior to joining the Carpathia and Titanic he was known to live in Monaco, France. His body if recovered was never identified.

  John (Jock) Law Hume-Violin John Hume was 28 years old when the Titanic went down. He was a professional violinist from Dumfires Scotland, which is located in the south west of Scotland. Dumfiries is the birthplace of Robbie Burns. The town is home to the Dumfiries Academy, which has had music as part of the curriculum since 1889. It is possible that Hume attended the school and began the study of violin as they produced a musical play every year beginning in the 1890’s. Hume must have made application to Black Brothers and since he was a well-known talented violinist the music contractor for service on the Titanic hired him. An interesting sidelight to his membership in the orchestra was the incident of Black’s notice regarding the uniform, which Hume was forced to purchase as a member of the Titanic band. The letter which post dated his drowning on the Titanic by over two weeks stated:

C.W.& F.N Black

30 April 1912

We shall be obliged if  you will remit us the sum of 5s. 4d, which is owing us as per the enclosed statement. We will also be obliged if you will settle the enclosed uniform account.  

  The uniform account was for 14 shillings and 7 pence. It appeared that to Black Brothers nothing was sacred. Hume was a very gifted busker and was adept in flushing out tips from the Titanic passengers in the first class areas of the ship. When his body was recovered by the Mackay-Bennett he was dressed in his uniform, a light raincoat and a purple muffler. His effects included a cigarette case, a silver watch, and a knife with a carved pearl handle. John Hume was buried in the Fairlawn Cemetery in Halifax Nova Scotia on May 8^th 1912

 

Georges Aleandre Krins-Violin Georges Krins was born in Paris on March 18^th; 1889.He was accepted for violin study at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liege Belgium on October 30^thand studied there until 1908. The College, which Krins attended, is one of the most prestigious music schools in Europe, even by today’s standards. He seemingly had a desire to seek a career as a military musician, but his parents persuaded him to remain a civilian violinist. He worked for his father and also played in La Grande Symphonie of Spa, Belgium that had become his family’s home. In 1910 he performed as first violin at Le Trianon Lyrique in Paris. He eventually moved to London and played for two years at the Ritz Hotel which was a perfect fit as the Hotel had a Parisian flavor and “tea at the Ritz|” was the favorite pastime by London’s elite. In April 1912 he was recruited by Black Brothers of Liverpool to play on the RMS Titanic. He was the leader of the trio which played near the A la Carte restaurant. His last known address was in Brixton.  He was the most well skilled and educated musician among the professional musicians on board the ship. There is a good possibility that Krins was seeking to immigrate to the United States where good orchestral playing positions were in abundance.  Krins died in the disaster. His body if recovered was never identified.

 

Percy Cornelius Taylor-Cello-Piano Percy Taylor was a resident of London and was part of the London musical community and a well-trained professional musician with the ability to play both cello and piano. After scouring numerous photographs of military bands in Britain, a photograph, which is believed to be Taylor as cellist with the Irish Rifles band in 1909, is shown in figure 4.

  John Wesley Woodward-Cello John Woodward was born in West Bromwich England on September 11^th 1879. West Bromwich is in the heart of the West Midlands and is known, as “Black Country” The city is not far from the soccer Mecca of Wolver Hampton. He grew up in a family of six brothers and two sisters. He later moved to Oxford where they lived in the community of Headington.It was discovered at an early age that he had musical talent and he was trained on the cello and grew up playing in a number of string quartets (2 violins, viola, and cello). He left Oxford to join the Duke of Devonshire band in Eastborne, but he found he was not cut out to be a serviceman. In 1909 he joined the White Star Line, initially cruising to Jamaica in the Caribbean. He made several Trans-Atlantic sailings and at least three across the Mediterranean. He was on board the Olympia when she collided with the HMS Hawke and he narrowly escaped injury. He had taken his prized best cello for employment on the Titanic and he was scheduled to play at the May dinner of Magdelen College, Oxford. His brother Thomas Woodward became a well-known tenor vocalist with the Magdalen choir. Taylor perished in the disaster. His body if recovered, was never identified.

 

 The Music the Titanic Orchestra Played

  The Romantic period in music began in 1815 and ended in 1900. The 1890’was described as a gilded age, an era of supreme elegance and it carried on until the First World War in 1914, when there was a dramatic shift to military music and songs of war. The elements of music from the 1890’s were particularly romantic in light music. There was an abundance of love songs, waltzes with romantic titles such as Love’s Dream and Somebody’s Sweetheart I want to Be.The melody and harmony of the music remained consistently traditional. The timbre of the romantic period was of large orchestras, choirs, bands and most prominently small ensembles. In the early period of the twentieth Century a large volume of printed music was available. There was vast array of selections from shows, Fantasies, Serenades, Airs from opera, potpourri of classical nuggets, and medleys of music by popular composers and collections of songs. The music libraries of small ensembles were filled with the overtures of Jacques Offenbach, Waltzes by the Strauss family and music hall medleys. American music had just begun to become a craze in Britain and the continent and it was led by the new and exciting Ragtime music. The compositions of the American composer Irving Berlin had made it’s way across the Atlantic and British composer Lionel Monckton”s smash hitThe Acadians was making it’s first appearance on Broadway at the Liberty theatre in 1910. The following is a sampling of the music, which would have appeared in the White Star songbook.

 

 

 

 

 

Music Title	Composer
Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1911)-ragtime	Irving Berlin
The Merry Widow (1903)-operetta	Franz Lehar
Lilly of Laguna -Barn Dance and Cake walk -1909	Leslie Stuart
Somewhere a Voice is Calling-1911	Arthur Tate
Destiny -Slow Waltz-1905	Sydney Baines
Mon Coeur s’ouvre a at voix-from Sampson and Delilah -1877	Camille-Saint Saens
Music Hall Medley-I Do Like to be by the Seas side-1907, Fall in a Follow Me-1910, and Ship Ahoy-1909.	John Glover-Kind, Bennett Scott,
The Glow-Worm-1908	Paul Lincke
The Shop Girl Musical-1898	Lionel Monckton
The Chocolate Soldier- Operetta 1899	Franz Lehar
Frankie and Johnny-1912	The Leighton Brothers
It’s a Long Way to Tipperary 1912	Harry Williams
The Maple Leaf Rag-1899	Scott Joplin
Melody Rag-1911	Charles L Johnson
Music from Carmen-1875	George Bizet
A Little Night Music-1725	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Una Furtiva Lagrima from L’Elisir D’Amore	Gaetano Donizetti
Mary’s a Grand Old Name-1904	George  Michael Cohan
Caprice Viennois , Op 2 1905	Fritz Kreisler
Rondo from Serenade- 1907	Fritz Kreisler
Slavonic dance in E minor	Antonin Dvorak
Black and White Rag-1909	George Botsford
The Gypsy Baron-1885-Operetta	Johannes Strauss (the Junior)
Shine on Harvest Moon-1908	Nora Baye-Norworth
The Yeoman of the Guard-1888	Gilbert and Sullivan
Waiting for the Robert E Lee-1912	Lewis F Muir
The White Star March-Polka-circa 1900	J.T. Gardner
Songe D’Automne waltz-1908	Archibald Joyce
Oh You Beautiful Doll-1889	Nat Ayer
Good-Bye Dolly Gray-1900	Paul Barnes
By the Light of the Silvery Moon-1909	Gus Edwards
Give My Regards to Broadway-1903	George M Cohan
Melody Rag-1911	Charles L Johnson
In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree-1905	Egbert Van Alstyne
Melodie in F-1875	Anton Rubenstein
The Skaters Waltz-1900	Emil Waldteufel
Il Baccio-1891	Luigi Arditi

 

  The Fateful Night -April 15^th 1912

  “It was an event that made the world awake and rub its eyes”. Said surviving passenger Lawrence Beesley. The greatest most majestic ship in the world struck an iceberg in the north Atlantic and sank within hours. This was the biggest event of the Twentieth Century. The heaven on earth ship had given way to the dangers that lurk in the sea, an iceberg the size of a 10-story building and the watertight compartments were overwhelmed because of a huge gash in the forward bulkhead. The collision had taken place at 11:40 on the 14^the and within minutes water had started to rush into the boiler rooms. Thus began the slow and painful demise of one the world’s crowning achievements. It was the beginning of the end for the Titanic, the death of a dream.

 

Hartley very quickly realized that he and the band must play to calm the passengers by playing up tempo ragtime and waltzes. It was probably the only time that the two groups had joined together during the short voyage. The orchestra members were roused and dressed in their green uniforms and wearing overcoats they moved with the throngs that were shuffling about, unaware that the ship had received mortal damage

  Many of the first class passengers had made their way to the lounge and the orchestra had struck up a variety of waltzes, polkas, and ragtime tunes and as one passenger expressed “there was a feeling of gaiety“. They were able to play in this location because one of the small upright pianos was located in the lounge near the first class staircase, which entered onto the boat deck. As the passengers made their way from their cabins out to the lifeboats they continued to provide entertainment.

  As the first class area of the lounge emptied  they moved out on the deck near the doorway to the lounge and the grand staircase. From here they continued without the piano, and with a reduced group of 5-6 players with the remote possibility that one of the musicians added another voice on piccolo. The others stood by in hope they could at least help passengers and one passenger recalls seeing a musician helping a woman on with her life jacket and into one of the lifeboats.

  The ship had begun to take on masses of water and it began to list, which caused consternation among the passengers, Hartley urged his musicians on, playing waltzes and other well known brisk tunes. Passengers who were now  lowered to the sea in lifeboats were rowed by crew to some distance from the ship. They could still hear above the din, the orchestra playing lively tunes.

 

One has to wonder now at the character of the musicians. When all around them there was panic and trauma they kept playing. They stayed their post through all of the agony that now had filtered through to the passengers  It had become common knowledge there was not enough lifeboats and many would perish. The ship was now commencing its final death clatter. It was at this time that they began to play what has been described as a hymn of sacrifice.  A lasting musical memento for many of the passengers who were never to see the light of day again and for those that survived.

 

There is also much mystification on what was their last song. From the lifeboats, a number of different songs were heard. Among them is “Nearer, My God to Thee”. Both the American and British survivors recall hearing it. This hymn is ordinarily played to entirely different music on both sides of the Atlantic. 

 Survivors recall hearing three different tunes in all! I find it very unlikely they played all of them unless the trio played in a different location. Also in the running are the hymn “Autumn” and the slow waltz “Songe d’Automne”. It is important to note that there were two separate bands on the Titanic and they had two totally different playing styles. None of the band members survived.

 

A book which was published in 1912 by a firm in Philadelphia titled “On Board the Titanic” has a illustrated page showing the hymn as played by the Titanic band called autumn. This is the hymn that was suggested in a statement by Harold Bride the surviving wireless operator when he said, “From Aft came the tunes of the band. it was a ragtime tune , I don’t know what . Then there was autumn” He may have been referring to the slow waltz Songe d’Automne, which had become very popular.

 

Following the catastrophe music was published to commemorate the sinking and Nearer to My God to Thee became a hit sensation along with tunes called Be British, The Ship will Never Sink andThe Wreck of the Titanic.

 

With the end being very close, Wallace Hartley called to his comrades that they may try and save themselves. None chose to do so and they remained together on the boat deck until the slope of the ship did not enable them to continue playing. Inevitably they stopped playing, as it was impossible to remain upright. Surviving passenger Colonel Gracie mentioned in a speech he made in November 1912 that he remembers the band stopped playing and laid   down their instruments about a half hour before the ship sunk. Gracie had been aboard almost to the end and recalls that he was there when they ceased performing.  A member of the orchestra was seen by a surviving passenger dragging his cello with the spike still intact, to some other location.

 

The final moments come at 2:18 am as all of the lifeboats have gone; no ship has been able to reach the Titanic in time. The crowd of people including orchestra members are on the stern and there is no hope of rescue.  As the bow sinks further and further the stern is lifted out of the water and a huge roar is heard as the ship breaks in two and within moments the lights go out. The stern will raise completely upright, then slide out of sight into the icy water of the Atlantic.

 

Aftermath and Memorial

  The heroism of the musicians was immortalized in the words of 2^nd class passenger Lawrence Beesley when he said” Much of the acts of courage achieved themselves this night, but none equalized the notch of those men who continued to play minute after minute while the ship was inserted more and more towards the place where they played-the music which they performed serving as a requiem.” and he went on to by saying ”they had the right to be engraved forever on the shelves of eternal glory.”  

 

Later it was learned through the secretary of the Trade Union of Musicians of Britain that the band had received an order to play in  order to avoid panic. It was also disclosed that none of them were wearing life jackets. First class passenger Pierre Marechal wrote later that he was convinced that in they’re both receiving the orders and responding, that they had sacrificed their lives in order to avoid disorder on board.

  Katherine Gold another survivor said that when she left the ship, she saw men on the boat deck smoking cigarettes and taping their feet to the sound of the lively and cheerful music of the orchestra. She said” I as particularly struck by seeing a violinist playing with a large life jacket in front of him. At that moment, the music was ragtime”.

 

  As the word filtered out that the great liner Titanic had hit an iceberg and sunk with the loss of several lives, the tales of survivors became front-page news in world newspapers. Headlines in Britain’s Daily Sketch screamed Orchestra Played On, and in New York the Times said Band Played Solemn Hymn As Great Ship Sunk. Eventually the name of the bandmaster Wallace Hartley surfaced as the central figure on the ship when it went down. The ensemble had achieved immortality. The bravery of the leader and band members in their effort to convey hope and comfort to others without any consideration of their own safety created a outpouring of sympathy around the world.

  Wallace Hartley was laid to rest in a ceremony befitting a monarch. The newspaper account describes the solemn occasion as “pageantry beyond Belief”. Over forty thousand people attended the funeral on May 18^th 1912. Seven bands led the possession.  Bass Violinist John Clarke was buried in Halifax Nova Scotia and the funeral was held on May 3^rd 1912. Violinist John Hume was interred in Fairview Cemetery on May 8^th 1912.  The Royal Canadian Regiment band under Captain Michael Ryan played these funerals and those of other passengers whose bodies were recovered.

  In 1915 a statue of Wallace Hartley w was erected in Colne to commemorate his heroism. In November 1912 a plaque was placed at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, The hall was destroyed by fire in 1933 and also sustained damage during the war, but the plaque survived. The All Saints church in Headington near Oxford, England has an unadorned Brass Plaque in dedication to cellist John Woodward. A memorial was unveiled in Southampton in 1913, but was destroyed during the war. A replica was unveiled in 1990. Violinist Georges Krins was finally remembered in 2002 with a plaque, which was placed on the Hotel Cardinal in Spa Belgium. His parents had lived at this location in 1910 and 1911.

 

  Royal Albert Hall was the setting for an remarkable concert On May 24, 1912 in the city of London.  Several orchestras combined to number more than 500 performers for a once-in-a-lifetime performance for The Titanic Band Memorial Concert conducted by Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Henry Wood, Percy Pitt, Landon Ronald Thomas Beecham and the Dutch conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Willem Mengelberg. The orchestra played several commemorative pieces including Arthur Sullivan’s In Memorium Overture, and Chopin’s Funeral March. Henry Wood also provided an orchestration of the Hymn Nearer my God to Thee. The solemnity of the occasion was heightened by the voices of many of the audience. A rare photograph of the concert survives and the massed orchestras clearly reflect the respect and admiration the British musicians had for Hartley and the ship’s banded. 

 

The decision by the White Star line to carry the musicians as 2nd passengers in order to avoid paying them the shilling that was paid to personnel to make them official members of the crew would come back to haunt the families of the orchestra members. They were unable to claim for financial benefits under the Workman’s Compensation Act. White Star insisted that they were 2^nd class passengers and not covered by the act.  As well Black Brothers in Liverpool completely abdicated their responsibility to the musicians and declared that the  families should seek redress from the insurer. But the insurer claimed they were passengers working as independent contractors and were using Blacks as there booking company. The families finally went to court and the decision rendered was they were passengers working as independent contractors not employees. Even when the Musicians Union made an appeal to the White Star Line saying the men had performed an act of heroism, the Shipping Line did not relent. In the end the Titanic Relief Fund saved the families, which was an umbrella organization for worldwide charities.   The White Star Line   had demonstrated an appalling lack of gratitude to the musicians.

 

 

REQUIEM FOR THE MUSICIANS

 

The military refrain “Ours is not to question why, ours is to but to do or die” echoes throughout the disaster of the Titanic and the response made by Wallace Hartley and the orchestra. Conventional wisdom would tell us it was plain suicide to stand on the boat deck playing while others sought to save themselves. In discussing what took place at the turn of the last century it  is a far cry from today‘s world. Gallantry was not always the domain of the soldier. The official gallantry award system for acts of heroism at sea has evolved since 1854. Noble acts of heroism at sea often took place and were rewarded with a civilian Gallantry medal. The orchestra members were performing in an atmosphere of chaos, well above the call of duty.

 

The idea of playing music to calm fears and for people to move in an orderly fashion in the face of danger was recognized long before the Titanic disaster. John Philip Sousa the American bandmaster was called upon at various times with his band to quiet down unruly crowds during his outdoor concerts by playing one of his dazzling marches. Bands and orchestras playing for dancing would often break up drunken brawls by breaking into national anthems.  The idea that the passengers on the Titanic were lulled into a false sense of security by the band playing ragtime and that more of   them might have been rescued as has been recently presented may have some merit. We must  however, draw our own conclusions from  the turmoil that took place during the last terrible moments of the demise of the Titanic. The legend of the Titanic band continues to this day. Their devotion to duty has made them immortal.

 

No one will ever know what was in Wallace Hartley’s mind or that of his musicians.  Earlier in his  career  he told a friend what he might play   if a ship he was on was sinking but he never alluded to the fact that he would remain until the bitter end. The course he took cannot be measured in words; it is the deed that really counts, purely and simply an act of valor. A newspaper at the time of the catastrophe reported “the part played by the orchestra on board the Titanic in her last dreadful moment will rank among the noblest in the annuls of heroism at sea.”

  *Although this piece is not strictly a military band article per se it is in the editors opinion a story worth telling. I welcome your opinion on it’s relevance Thanks to Andrew Clarkson  edior and webmaster of the marvelous web site TITANIC-TITANIC this article is now been published. Please go to ARTICLES on the site for a more detailed review. -editor

Bibliography: There are several works from which information was reviewed; this list is by no means the complete list.

Books:

Titanic and Illustrated History – Don Lynch

Unsinkable-The Full Story -Daniel Allen Butler   Stackplole Books-1998

A Night to Remember-Walter Lord -Hold, Rinehart and Winston-1955

The Night Lives On-Walter Lord -Charnwood -1999

Titanic Halifax-A Guide to Sites -Alan Jeffers and Rob Gordon 1998

The \Titanic Song Book-Mel Bay Presents-Collection by Ian Whitcomb 1997

The Sinking of the Titanic Eyewitness Accounts-Edited Jay Henry Mowbray-Dover Publications -1998

Titanic-Simon Adams–Eyewitness Books -1999

Building the Titanic-Rod Green -Readers Digest Books 2005

The Birth of the Titanic -Michael McCaugan-1998

Story of the Titanic-Illustrations by Steve Noon-Written by Dr Dr Eric Kentley-DK Publishing 2001

Titanic Conspiracy-Robin Gardiner and Dan Van Der Vat-Citadel Press 1995

The Story of the Titanic as told by Survivors -edited by Jack Winocour -Dover Publications reprint 1960

On Board the Titanic Edited by Logan Marshall-Dover Publivcations-2006

The Incredible Band of John Philip Sousa -Paul Bierley University of Illinois Press-2006

Video

The Titanic Videos 1 and 2 A and E Television Network 1994

 

Newspaper Accounts:

The London Sketch

The New York Times

The London Daily Mail

Toronto Globe

 

Internet

Titanica -The Encyclopedia of the Titanic

Tags: maritime disasters, military musicians, royal artillery, titanic ship, wallace hartley
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