German Military Music
Joachim Toeche-Mittler (An IMMS Reprint)
The period around 1800 was a turning point in military music. Hitherto, for foot troops there had been only the slow march of 75-80 paces per minute. This was not intended for marching but for the attack. At this pace the closed battalion squares moved towards the enemy, halting briefly to load and fire, then they moved forward again. The same pace was employed on parade but the ranks were wider than the closed square, and the effect was solemn and ceremonious. Opposite those on parade stood the six hautboyists (Oboes), playing, supplemented by the entire corps of drums
It was not intended that the new quick march, 108 paces per minute, should be used for the attack, but for marching on roads at a uniform pace. Regiments acquired ‘music groups’ (Musikchoere) of thirty or so men; Janissary percussion for the necessary rhythm and a bandmaster to conduct than. These had been raised primarily to play the slow march on parade, but now they were needed for both the slow and quick marches. The bands therefore needed music urgently.
For quick marches there was nothing, and what slow marches had existed earlier, had been lost during the seven year French occupation and the subsequent three year War of Liberation. The outlook was gloomy. Therefore when the King of Prussia Friedrich-Wilhelm III handed over to his Regiments, by means of Cabinet Order no. 10 of February 1817, the scores of 36 slow and 36 quick marches it was quite astounding. The slow marches were numbered consecutively in Collection No. I, and the quick marches in Collection No. II. They were assigned to the Army and entitled ‘Armeemarsche’ (AM) – Army Marches. But from where did 72 marches appear so suddenly?
They came directly from Russia! Moscow not only (sic) had had to live through Napoleon’s victorious campaign of 1812, but the capital of the country St Petersburg (now Leningrad) had stayed untouched. Here in St Petersburg there was a young German from Bohemia. Since 1809, at the age of 28, he had been the Imperial Russian Director of Music at the School of Military Music, as well as the conductor of the guards’ bands in the city. His name was Anton Doerfeldt. He had composed marches as part of his duties and had collected others, including Austrian and Prussian, which he had arranged into the Imperial Russian Army March Collection, which in 1815 contained about 70 slow and 70 quick marches.
The King of Prussia first heard of this collection probably at the end of October 1815, when the Russian Emperor Alexander I visited his friend and comrade in arms in Berlin. It was agreed that the King of Prussia should receive a copy of the Russian Army March Collection. A commission was set up in Berlin, to which both bandmasters of the Guards, Weller, of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards, and Krause, of the 2nd Regiment of Foot Guards, belonged, who now selected 36 slow and 36 quick marches for the Prussian Army. The music was printed by the Berlin music publisher Adolf Martin Schlesinger.
In 1817, these 72 marches were the beginning of the ‘Koenigliche Preussiache Armeemarsch Sannilung’ (the Royal Prussian Army March Collection), which during the next hundred years grew to contain 101 marches in Collection No. I and 244 in Collection No. II, which has now became a German Army March Collection. It is a cultural asset which today is still in one piece and still played!
Chapter 2
At the start of the Royal Prussian Army March Collection in the year of 1817, the scores of 36 slow marches (Collection No I) and 36 quick marches (Collection No II) were handed over to the forces. These pieces, all marches numbered 1 to 36 came from imperial Russian Army March Collection, from which they had been chosen the year before. Many of them were of Russian origin, 23 were composed by Anton Doerfeldt (1781-1829), the Bandmaster of the Russian Guards in the capital of St Petersburg (now Leningrad).
The instrumentation used in 1816 was obviously different to that of today. The clarinets played the melody together with the oboes which had led earlier and were supplemented most beautifully by three or four flutes. The bass part was played by the bassoons, strengthened occasionally by the deep trombones. The few trumpets and hunting horns played natural notes, calls and supported the rhythm; valves had yet to be invented. This may help to give an insight and perhaps understanding of the march music of that time. (1)
At the time when the first scores were being delivered to the bands of course the first valved trumpets were coming on to the market. Finally, their strong tone took over the melody, which was just what was needed for the outdoor performances and marching. But they drowned out the woodwind and unbalanced the tone pattern. Additional valved instruments were sometimes in one key and sometimes in another. The supply was in confusion and new instruments expensive. Poverty was widespread in Prussia after nine years of occupation and war. Scores for valve instruments were non-existent and so were the bandsmen to play them. Existing scores had to be transposed into other keys. The young bandmasters were overworked.
Moreover, the commanders of the thirty eight infantry regiments and the six Jeager and sharpshooter battalions, who alone bore the complete responsibility for their bands, got no help either. They were busy with the demobilization of their volunteers and reservists as well as the reorganization of their units, particularly the re-armament and re-training necessary after the recent combat experiences. Consultation with their bandmasters revealed that most bands were not at all competent, that they lacked enough musicians or that they were in need of better musicians – that was when they actually had a bandmaster to ask! But the instrument makers continued to produce new instruments, even before the manpower problem had been resolved. Then relationship between woodwind and brass was disrupted. Were the instrumentation and parts for the existing marches out of date? Whatever the answer, they still had to be played on parade and on the march.
To all this confusion, one man brought some order: Georg Abraham Schneider. He played in a quartet with one of the Aides-de Camp, Colonel von Witzleben, the future Prussian Minister of War, who brought this man to his sovereign’s attention.
Georg Abraham Schneider (1770-1839), a musician who at one time worked at Rheinsberg for Frederick the Great’s brother Prince Heinrich until his death in 1802, after which he and his family had lived from hand to mouth during the fifteen hard years of Napoleon’s domination of Central Europe. In the mean-time, he had been highly regarded as the indispensable court composer and solo French horn player at the Royal Opera House in Berlin, as well as a renowned conductor, administrator, music teacher and tutor. His impartial and well balanced personality and his sound judgment won him many friends everywhere.
Thus, on 8th July 1819, the King awarded him the office of Director of Music of the Guards and Grenadier Corps in Berlin. And so, as whatever knowledge came available, or decisions were taken in Berlin also spread outwards into the provinces, the tireless Schneider became the organizer of military music.
Later Schneider wrote of this activity: ‘I had hoped to achieve a certain uniformity in the output of military bands by central management. With this in mind, at the start I attended all the rehearsals of the individual bends but I soon realized that all bandmasters were competent, worthy and well trained musicians who only needed guidance to obtain the best results by their own efforts.’
He continued: ‘Instead of the direct supervision, which I realized was unnecessary and superfluous, due to the competence of our bandmasters, I found another area of activity which was even more pleasing to me because it fitted in very well with my work in the theatre. On the personal command of His Majesty, I worked for a year almost exclusively on the arrangement of army marches and had them circulated officially: examined by order the newly appointed bandmasters for the entire army; reported on and appraised every matter referred to me by the War Office; submitted for approval, music, instruments and inventions.’
Schneider ends with this remark: ‘…without any compensation for such work, other than the remuneration already referred to.
The mounted troops, the cavalry, were unaffected by the introduction of the Army March Collection in 1817. They had signaling trumpets on which the marches received from Russia could not be played. It was not until 1824 that a royal command from King Friedrich Wilhelm ordered Collection No. III -Marches, Fanfares etc of Trumpet Music for the Use of the Prussian Cavalry. Due to the widely available brass instruments with valves, the mounted troops were freed from the limitations of fanfare music.
In the selection and arrangement of the items for AM III, twenty of them had already been prepared by the young trombonist in the Royal Orchestra, Wilhelm Wieprecht (1802-1872), another admirer of military music, technically brilliant and gifted, who became Schneider’s successor in 1838.
- The Germany Army March Collection Part 3 will deal with the musical form and instrumentation of the early marches.
- Wilhelm Wieprecht became a bandmaster and played a very important part in the evolution of Germany Army Bands and music. He is discussed in Chapter 1 under “History”
Chapter 3 by Gustav Fischer
The musical setting of early German Army Marches
The early marches form Parts I and II of the Prussian-German Army March Collection are formal compositions in 2/4, and common cut time for full wind ensembles. They have two or more parts each of eight, sixteen or more bars. Like folk music, the melody is easily recognized. The harmonization is stressed simply, but the progress of the music is often enlivened by surprising modulations. The rhythms are diverse and expressive. Any opportunities for dynamic and instrumental shading are used to the fullest extent.
The instrumentation is transparent – four flutes, of which two or three are piccolos; two oboes; one F flat (or F) and two B flat (or C) clarinets; two bassett horns; two bassoon; a double bassoon; four horns (bugles?); two trumpets; one or three trombones; a tuba and ‘Turkish music’ (side and bass drum, cymbals and triangle) – and the character of the music was derived from chamber music. Certain parts, notably the woodwind, were often very difficult to perform, demanding the skill of virtuosi.
Following the trend set by minuets written after 1750, some marches had melodious and tranquil trios added to them which were played by fewer instruments and usually in the same key, not in the subdominant which later became the convention (bear in mind that valve trumpets had not been invented at the time in question). This gave a rest to the trumpets, percussion and some of the woodwind. However, the trio did not become an established feature of every march until later. In some marches there is a rondo form with a transition to Part A. Codas were rare. The technical potential of woodwind instruments was exploited fully as the range of the open (non-valved) horns and trumpets was still limited. Percussion was arranged as for chamber music – even with solo parts – but in no way was it used to accentuate the rhythm’
The classical triumvirate of Hayden, Mozart and Beethoven often exerted their unmistakable influence on other, unknown composers, but there were also other styles to round off the musical spectrum, such as the Italian (Rossini), Slavonic, folk music and more interestingly, the minor keys of gipsy music. The shape and the structure of marches had not only to achieve their adoption for military use, they also needed to be played for entertainment par excellence . On the other side of the coin, the marches in Part III (of the Amy March Collection), the cavalry marches, served an exclusively military purpose. They were intended to be played by brass instruments of the” band” trumpet family. Predominantly in 6/8 time, they stand apart from those in 4/4 time Collection), the cavalry marches, served an exclusively military purpose
They were intended to be played by brass instruments of the “band” trumpet family. Predominantly in 6/8 time, they stand apart from those in 4/4 time. The arrangements call for six to eight trumpets of different pitches and positions, mainly E flat, one or two cornets in E flat or B flat, two so-called ‘Kent horns’ (named after the Duke of Kent, these bugles, originally with five valves, were used by the British Army for sounding calls), “corni tenore bassi” (tenor and bass horns), basses The arrangements of these marches need extensive adaptation to suit the range of brass instruments available today if the original sound pattern is to preserved.
In these marches, in both the flow of the melody and in the rhythms, triplet predominates; the first voices are written fairly high, requiring high quality musicianship and stamina. The length of many items is remarkable exceeding normal limits. The added trios are particularly melodious. Generally, apart from the necessary transpositions and the elimination of previous printing errors, the re-arrangements of these marches have been confined to correction of the rhythms and the restoration of dynamics.