More Famous Marches March 12 2014, 0 Comments

Marches are the foundation of wind band music everywhere. From its humble military beginnings, marches proliferated into a variety of musical genres, and into the musical stylings of many different countries. Marches are very recognizable, and at their core, fairly simple, but continue to be the heart and soul of bands everywhere.

One of militarymusic.com/blog’s most viewed posts, Jack’s Musings: Famous Marches, provides a lengthy list of famous marches, a list that could be potentially endless. From Kenneth J. Alford all the way to Wilhelm Zehle, there are so many marches out there it would be impossible to compile them into one enormous list. At the very least, it would be very difficult. Instead, here is a much shorter list of some of my favorite marches.

This list contains a few well-known favorites, like Sousa’s The Black Horse Troop, and Henry Fillmore’s Rolling Thunder, but there are also a few that I am very fond of that do not get performed as often as they should. For example, Sousa’s Nobles of the Mystic Shrine is one of the few of the “March King’s” works that starts in a really visceral minor key, which makes it particularly special, especially when it moves into the trio, which pretends that the start of the march never really happened. Charles Ives’ Country Band March is actually a transcription from his orchestral suite Three Places in New England. It features a large number of recognizable folk tunes all cobbled together into a chaotic mass. The idea behind it was to replicate the sounds of several bands playing at once, like a parade.

Since it is the month of March, we here at Altissimo! Recordings are offering a great deal to its loyal customers! Our best-selling album 100 Famous Marches, a 5-disc set of all of the greatest marches you know and love, is now being offered on iTunes at a reduced price! Click on the link below to check it out, and don’t forget to write a review so that we may continue to introduce people to the timeless soundings of the United States military bands.

-Brian Denu

brian@militarymusic.com