Band Music from the Civil War Era now available on American Memory

[Danna Bell-Russel]

Good morning all,

As you can see it has been a very busy summer for the staff working with
the American Memory online collections. Here is our latest collection
release. As usual it is being widely posted. Please accept our apologies
for any duplicate postings.


On September 27, 1974, the Music Division of the Library of Congress
re-created a typical concert of brass band and vocal music from
mid-nineteenth-century America. That concert has become the
starting-point for Band Music from the Civil War Era
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwmhtml/cwmhome.html>, an online collection
that brings together musical scores, recordings, photographs, and essays
documenting an important but insufficiently explored part of the
American musical past. This collection features over 700 musical
compositions, as well as 8 full-score modern editions and 19 recorded
examples of brass band music in performance.

The cornets and saxhorns that made up the all-brass bands of the 1850s
remained a popular, though decreasingly prominent, feature of American
wind bands through the nineteenth century. Bands of this kind served in
the armies of both the North and the South during the Civil War, in the
field as well as for the entertainment of the officers. Most of the
sheet music used by these brass bands, which typically existed only in
"part books" for individual instruments, has long been lost.  This
online collection presents several of the surviving examples of this
music (both printed and manuscript) from the collections of the Music
Division of the Library of Congress. Also included are the Manchester
Cornet Band Books from the Walter Dignam Collection of the Manchester
Historical Society (Manchester, New Hampshire). The part books are
presented both in their original order and are also grouped by song
title. Several of the compositions from these part books are also
presented in full-score modern editions created especially for this
online collection.

In addition to the musical scores and parts, Band Music from the Civil
War Era includes a gallery of photographs and drawings selected from
several Library of Congress collections. These illustrations capture the
nature of life in the Civil War's military bands and help explain the
variety of the band books in this collection.

Band Music from the Civil War Era also presents the original recordings
and notes from the 1974 concert at the Library.  In addition, Music
Division chief Jon Newsom's essay "The American Brass Band Movement: A
Historical Overview," which synthesizes two works Mr. Newsom wrote in
1974 in conjunction with the Library's concert, details the rise of
marching and concert bands during the Civil War era. "About the
Instruments" complements the essay with a discussion of the band
instrumentation used in the re-creation concert.

Band Music from the Civil War Era is an unusual Music Division online
collection in that it is not based on a permanent collection within the
division but has instead been created solely for presentation online.
The Music Division is pleased to present such a wealth of material
delving into a little-known, yet fascinating period of American musical
history.

Please direct any questions about this collection to ndlpcoll at loc.gov