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The Victory Bands 1928 - 31

Includes an 8-page booklet with details of the origins of 'Victory' records and the circumstances which led to such an unusual collection of music being published on a mass-market label.

Altogether 7 different bands have been identified as "The Victory Band':

George Cathie, probably with a section of the North Pier Blackpool orchestra and/or the Spa Pavillion Buxton orchestra
Anunzio Mantovani
The Band of H.M. Irish guards
Petersen's Band
Jay Wilbur and his Band
The Harry Maquilty Band
Simon Wurm and his Orchestra

 

The music ranges from well known light classics and light orchestral arrangements of popular themes from more serious works through folk tunes to 'lollipops' - the jolly pieces often played as encores at the end of a concert. Many of these lighter pieces have never appeared on any other records and , in some cases, the composer is unknown and the sheet music may not have survived. These include:

Paprika -origins unknown
Tarantella - origins unknown
Il Corricolo - origins unknown
My Little Caravan - (could this have been composed by Cathie himself?)
Cuckoo Galop - origins unknown
Vivette - origins unknown
Real O'wd Lancashire Clog Dance - almost certainly overheard in Blackpool and scored by Cathie. One of the themes has appeared in an 18th century compendium of folk dance tunes, the rest have not yet been traced.
Snap Shots - origins unknown

Bajaderentanz is the only known recording of any music from the opera 'Feramors' (1863) by Rubenstein. The work would have fallen into total obscurity by the 20th century and it is interesting to speculate whether the conductor, Simon (or Stanislav) Wurm may have remembered it from his childhood.

 

 

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