Brass, Reeds, and Percussion

Born in Ukraine in 1887, Sophie Tucker moved to the United States in approximately 1906.  She began her musical career around 10 years old by singing for tips in her parents restaurant in Ukraine. She was known as the last of the red hot mamas. In 1911, she had her first big hit:  "Some of These Days" with music and lyrics by Shelton Brooks.  Brooks was born in 1886 in Ontario, Canada.  He and his family moved to Detroit in 1901.  His first big hit, as a singer-songwriter, was also "Some of These Days."

Klezmer is Jewish folk music, mostly Eastern European in origin. In Ukraine during the 1700s, Jews were forbidden from playing loud musical instruments. So Klezmer was originally played on stringed instruments, such as the violin and cymbalom. But in 1827, the Czar began to conscript Jews for the Russian military. And they were included in military bands. Thus, Klezmer ensembles began to include the instruments typical of the Russian military wind band. So that’s how, today, much Klezmer is wind music.

A cortege is actually a procession.  Hence, it’s not really redundant to speak of a funeral cortege, but there can all sorts of other corteges as well.  For example, the students at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweeden, hold the Chalmers Cortege on April 30 every year.  Another cortege honoring Our Lady of Tear occurs in Kalfort, Belgium, in August every year.  This is a religious cortege than began around 1600 to honor a saint said to have the ability to cure eye diseases.

Today’s show is a gallimaufry, perhaps a pastiche, maybe a melange of music, mostly from German sources, but all wind music—because this is today’s edition of Brass, Reeds, and Percussion, a program devoted to the music of the wind band.  Today’s edition has music from an opera, music from a film, German polkas, marches for military units, and 1970s European disco hits.  We’ll begin with the "Telefunken March" probably composed in 1924 by Johannes Evert (or Everst).

In 1853, Richard Wagner used a solo anvil in Das Rheingold. Apparently, this inspired a German military musician in his 20s to write a polka for solo anvil: “The Amboss Polka.” The musician was Albert Parlow, who lived from 1824 to 1888. Parlow was the first German Navy bandmaster and composed the first German Navy march “With Full Sail.” Eventually, he became the director of music for the Prussian Army as well. He made the acquaintance of Johannes Brahmas and arranged some of Brahams Hungarian dances for wind band.

Born a year after Handel’s death and dying 4 years after Beethoven’s death, Franz Krommer is a Czech composer most famous for his wind-band compositions.  These were composed for the harmoniemusik, the classical wind band typically consisting of two oboes, two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons.  Today’s edition features Krommer’s Octet Partita in F Major, Op. 57.  But wind-band music is not restricted to the classical period, of course.  So there will be a wide variety of other musical selections as well.

Brass, Reeds, and Percussion is a program about music written for wind instruments and percussion. The only uniting theme of the program is that the music almost never involves any fiddle playing, although a little bit of fiddle sneaks in every once in a while.

In Prague, 134 years ago today, Julius Fucik was born. He graduated from the Prague Conservatory at age 19 after studying under Anton Dvorak. He became a member of the 49th Infantry Regiment Band of the Austro-Hungarian Army, conducted by Josef Franz Wagner and became a featured bassoon soloist for the band.

The “Star Spangled Banner” has not always been our national anthem.  Indeed, “Hail Columbia” was in the running for quite a while as the the favorite patriotic air of the United States.  Furthermore, the tune we know as the “Star Spangled Banner” is really a British drinking song entitled “Anacreon in Heaven.”  Francis Scott Key’s words were set to that tune.  And it only became the national anthem in 1931.

Hear blasmusik from Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, including a marsh by Julius Fucik, the Bohemian Sousa.