Beethoven's Funeral March

[Cindy]

On the return of ten fallen British servicemen to the UK:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2897739.stm

the March was played. TV commentary said it was by Handel.

From looking at my Thayer I see that the march played at Beethoven's
funeral was based on the op 26 sonata - but I don't think that this is
the same as was played today, and also at the Cenotaph on Nov 11th for
example.

Does anyone know the origin of the famous march?
--
Cindy
www.stopwar.org.uk

[Thomas Wood]

Cindy <ci...@cryptomail.org> wrote in message
news:b64pq0$1nahb$1...@ID-90714.news.dfncis.de...

The music at the beginning of the video clip was a band arrangement of the
aria "Ombra mai fu" from Handel's opera "Serse," better known as "Handel's
Largo."

Later in the clip I heard "Nimrod" from Elgar's "Enigma Variations."

Tom Wood

[Mike Smith]

Cindy raises a very interesting point concerning the Funeral March
attributed to Beethoven which was played by the Royal Marine bands at
Brize Norton and is also familiar from the Cenotaph ceremony.

When I tried to look up details of this piece in Grove, and on the
web, I ran into difficulties. It seems possible that the attribution
is incorrect.

I once read that not one of the familiar 'state funeral' marches was
written as a stand-alone composition and I think that must be right.
Three movements from works by Beethoven, all deliberately written in
the style of funeral marches have frequently been used as such. They
are the Allegro assai from the Third Symphony, the Allegretto from
the Seventh Symphony, and the Marcia funebre from the A-flat Major
Sonata, Op. 26 , subsequently fully orchestrated by Beethoven as
incidental music to the play Leonore Prohaska.

The piece known by the Army as ‘Funeral March No.1' is a quite
different composition.

Further confusion is caused by the fact that on a 1966 LP of Cenotaph
music recorded by the Band of the Irish Guards under the direction of
Major C.H. Jaeger this march is attributed to Chopin, arranged by
Hartmann. Chopin wrote several ‘funeral marches' for piano and the
march from the Sonata No2 Op. 35, arranged for band, is one of the
best known of all funeral marches. However, Chopin does not appear to
have composed ‘Funeral March No.1'

On a website dedicated to obscure and spurious Beethoven compositions
I found the following

‘Funeral March WoO Anh. 13 was composed by Johann Heinrich Walch. An
arrangement of it for windband by a certain Hartmann was released on
CD, EMI CZS 5.68696-2, played by the Central Band of the RAF,
conducted by Wing Cdr R.E.C. Davies. The recording dates from 1971.'

I don't have this recording but as it was late re-released on ‘The
official British Legion Classical Album' I think we must be talking
about ‘Funeral March No.1', which is closely associated with the
Cenotaph Ceremony and, of course, was arranged for military band by
Hartmann.

Several musicians named Hartmann served with the British Army, but
this particular Hartmann is most likely to be John (Johann), who was
born in Aulelen , Prussia, in 1830, served as a cornettist in a
Prussian cuirassier regiment, and spent the rest of his military life
directing British Army and Militia bands. He died in Liverpool in 1897

Hartmann was a prolific arranger, and in the latter half of the
nineteenth century British his orchestrations of light music and
marches found favour throughout the British Army.

Johann Heinrich Walch (1776 - 1855) was Kapellmeister at Gotha. He is
still remembered for the Pariser Einzugmarch, played as the victorious
Allies entered Paris in 1814. After Waterloo a British band is said to
have saluted their Prussian allies with this tune which some –
paradoxically enough - have ascribed to Beethoven.

A once extremely popular 'British' air, ‘Prince Albert's March', was
apparently a plagiarised composition of Walch. Two of his
compositions, apparently, are still used by the Swedish Army in
traditional ceremonies.

Perhaps some other contributor will be able to add to this incomplete
research

I did not catch all the music played by the bands at Brize Norton, but
recognised the following:

Lascia Ch'io Pianga (Rinaldo –Handel)

Ombre mai fu (Serse –Handel)

Solemn (Walford Davies)

Nimrod (Enigma Valiations – Elgar)

When I am laid in Earth (Dido & Aeneas - Purcell)

[Mike Smith]

At least a couple of typos in the above

Walch's famous composition was the 'Pariser *Einzugsmarsch*', later
listed as AM II, 38 in the Royal Prussian March Collection.

The composition by Walford Davies is 'Solemn *Melody*', another
regular at the Cenotaph ceremony.

[sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il]

In article <d8c381ac.03041...@posting.google.com>, Mike Smith <mi...@xxxx25.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

: . . . the Marcia funebre from the A-flat Major

: Sonata, Op. 26 , subsequently fully orchestrated by Beethoven as
: incidental music to the play Leonore Prohaska.

Actually, the orchestration leaves out four bars from the version in the
sonata, which I find intensely irritating. If I were a conductor, I'd
reinstate those four bars, not least because most people wouldn't know
that I had done so. . .

-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"You go on playing Bach your way, and I'll go on playing him *his* way."
-- Wanda Landowska