National Emblem

Edwin Eugene Bagley (1857-1922) was born in Craftsbury, Vermont, and started his music career at the age of nine as a vocalist and bellringer. In spite of never having had formal music lessons he became a successful cornet player, trombonist and composer. He moved to Boston in 1880, became solo cornet player in the Boston Theater, and traveled with the Bostonians, an opera company, for nine years, and later played with the Germania Band. He eventually settled in New Hampshire, where he directed several city bands. It is believed Bagley started composing the National Emblem in 1902 while on a train tour with his band, but was dissatisfied with its ending and threw the score out. Fortunately, some members of his band (the Keene, New Hampshire, City Band) retrieved it and secretly rehearsed the score in the baggage car, surprising him with a performance of the work in their next concert. Bagley later revised the work and it was first published in 1906. The first recording of it was made in 1908 by the band of Arthur Pryor, on the Victor Talking Machine Company label. It has since appeared in more than one dozen published editions. National Emblem, which features an excerpt of The Star Spangled Banner, deservedly became the most famous of Bagley's marches, and a standard of the American march repertoire. It is widely played in Independence Day celebrations, and is used by the US military for presenting and retiring the colors. John Philip Sousa, when asked to name the three most effective street marches ever written named two of his own works as the first two, and National Emblem as the third. This new edition by Richard W. Sargeant Jr. remains true to the composer's original orchestration, omitting the bloated extra instrumentation which was inserted by publishers over the years. As with the others in this series, it is designed to offer band directors and others interested in this genre newly engraved authoritative editions prepared from the primary sources using the composer's original instrumentaion, which is sometimes markedly different from that found in bands today.

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