Track Listing

1. Freischutz Quick Step, for band
2. Empress Quick Step, for band
3. Nabucca Quick Step, for band
4. Friendship Quick Step, for band
5. George Hart's Quick Step, for band
6. Ben Bolt Quick Step, for band
7. Quick March Criterion, for band
8. Grafulla's Favorite Waltz, for band
9. The Sulatan, grand march for band
10. Washington Grays, march for band
11. Delavau's Quick Step, for band
12. Captain Shepherd's Quick Step, for band
13. Un Ballo in Maschera Quick Step, for band
14. Hurrah Storm Galop, for band (after B�la K�ler)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #435037 in Music
• Released on: 1999-07-06
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

History come alive
As always with a New World recording, the scholarly notes and bibliography that accompany the CD are worth the purchase price alone. Therefore their brand new (80556-2) is no exception. Having so many band concerts in my collection, I was afraid this would be superfluous; but thanks to the authenticity of the recreation by the Dodworth Saxhorn Band (even the name conjures up the middle of the 19th century) conducted by Paul Eachus, I found this program to be a complete delight. As an opera-lover, I found the arrangements from "Der Freischutz," "Ballo in Maschera" and "Nabucca" [as it is misspelled on the manuscripts New World used to prepare its notes] especially welcome. So is the Stephen Foster tune that provides another excellent example of how all sorts of music was grist for the brass band mill. The other selections are perhaps less melodic and from the same mold, but it is all a welcome relief from the supercharged recordings of Sousa that are so common (in both senses of the adjective). Claudio Grafulla, you see, was not just a hack arranger. He led the 7th Regiment Band of New York for 27 years and conducted his own arrangements of both classical and popular music. Lovers of the march will love this CD. And as always I urge teachers of history to play selections from it (and most of the other New World recordings) when they want to give their students the feel for what life was like during all those dates and events they are forced to memorize for quizzes. And I am not forgetting the gym teachers who are always looking for new music to exercise by!

Antique Civil War era instruments sparkle in this recording.
I have listened to this CD and love it. Yes, I got my copy as a birthday present from my brother who plays bass in the Dodworth Saxhorn Band. But don't think that colored my impressions of it. I knew they were playing antique instruments from the Civil War era so I was not expecting the intonation and accuracy of modern brass instruments. I was stunned by the richness of the sound and the precision of the playing. That they could produce such a delightful recording is a testimony to the quality of musicians who performed as well as the painstaking attention to detail of their director. Very well done!

Great Historic Recording
20th century march composers all owe a debt of gratitude to Claudio Grafulla, whose outstanding composing, arranging and directing helped to bring bands into the modern era. He not only transformed "quicksteps" into modern marches, but also was one of the first to include woodwinds in brass bands. And the selections on this album are an outstanding example of Civil War music, in general.
The Dodworth Saxhorn Band is named for the outstanding band of the same name, which was the premier brass band in the United States from the 1840s to the 1880s, and which featured saxhorns, which were a variety of brass instrument with a backward-facing bell which produces a very mellow sound. Of course, the modern Dodworth Band uses authentic recreations of these instruments, expertly played.
One of the cornet soloists in the original Dodworth band during the Civil War was David Wallis Reeves, composer of the popular early march "2nd Regiment Connecticut National Guard", and whom Sousa called "The father of band music in America".
The notes accompanying this CD are very extensive and make this worth getting by themselves.