“OUR NATION’S GUEST” MUSIC FOR THE VISIT OF MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE TO THE UNITED STATES 1824-25
Arranged by Jari Villanueva for small wind band.
This selection represents but a few of the many dozens of compositions and arrangements written to honor General Lafayette on his visit to the United States in 1824-25. At every stop, in every city, bands welcomed Lafayette, grand balls were held, and ceremony after ceremony commemorated his visit and his service to our new nation. Most of this music is unfortunately lost to us today. What remains is generally in the form of piano sheet music, but it is clearly evident from the inscriptions that these pieces were originally performed by military brass bands. This arrangement was carefully done in the style of the period with no modern harmonization or alteration to the original and represents, as closely as possible, the sound of the bands that Lafayette heard.
LA FAYETTE’S WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES IN 1824
A Grand March and Quick Step Performed by the Military Bands
Composed at the Request of the Committee of Arrangement for the City of Baltimore and Dedicated with Profound Veneration to That Distinguished Friend of America
Arthur Clifton (1784-1832)
Composer Philip Antony Corri was born in Edinburgh in 1784. He was a son of the Italian-born composer Domenico Corri, and brother-in-law to Bohemian pianist and composer Jan Ladislav Dussek. Moving with the family to London in 1789, Philip Antony was composing vocal works by 1802, piano music by 1805, and chamber music (mostly for piano, harp, and flute) by 1808. During the years to follow, he was an active a composer for these mediums, producing over forty works; his piano works were published both in Britain and on the continent.
In 1813, Corri, along with Clementi and the Cramers, founded the London Philharmonic Society and participated in the formative meetings for the Royal Academy of Music.
Corri moved to the United States in 1817 living in New York and Philadelphia before settling in Baltimore. He was baptized there by the end of the year under the pseudonym of Arthur Clifton, and immediately married a second wife.
During the 1820s, Clifton was well established in Baltimore as a composer, pedagogue, church organist, performer, music publisher, and dry-goods merchant. He was organist for the First Presbyterian and First Independent Churches during this time, director of the Anacreontic Society, and maintained an active involvement with the Baltimore Theater. Two new teaching methods (one each for piano and voice) would appear, as well as a psalm book, and a steady stream of songs for voice and piano. His largest American work, the opera The Enterprise, was produced at the theater in May of 1822. Several solo piano works were also published during these years, although considerably fewer in number and smaller in scale than those from his London years. Clifton wrote this march to honor Lafayette on his visit to Baltimore in October 1824.
“The Nation’s Guest” came to Baltimore on October 7, 1824, and remained for five days, being showered with honors and festivities the entire time. From Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825, “Every instant of our stay in Baltimore was marked by the most brilliant festival and the most delicate attentions. It is difficult to give a just idea of the elegance and delicacy of manners of the inhabitants of this city, in which we find the amiable union of American frankness and French ease. The ball given by the city was everything that was perfect of the kind; it was prepared in the theater and disposed with inimitable taste. All the boxes were occupied by ladies and the carpet was entirely vacant. We were introduced from the stage, only accompanied by some members of the committee. At the moment the general appeared, he was announced by an invisible music, and the gas blazing abundantly from numerous pipes, and throwing floods of dazzling light over the hall, discovered to our delighted eyes the most ravishing picture I ever beheld.”
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23 авг 2024
