Customer Reviews

Greatest Hits Marches

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Knowing very little about classical music, I bought several march compilations a few years back, in hopes that I could develop at least a fanboy level of appreciation. Of the compilations I picked up, this is the one that showed me the most diverse sampling of marches. If you want to become familiar with the march genre, this collection runs away with the blue ribbon, with no contendors close behind. The other compilations I came across focused strictly on the American military marches; they were all very good, but this compilation dishes up a diverse menu, from Ludwig Von Beethoven to John Williams.

This CD has a special place in my collection since it turned me on to John Philip Sousa, who has become one of my favorite composers ever. The Sousa selections on this CD are performed by The Incredible Columbia All-Star Band. I enjoyed these tunes immensely enough to buy some Sousa compilations, and found that while the All-Star Band's take on Sousa tunes is very good, I greatly prefer the releases by The United States Marine Band. The Sousa tunes on this CD are a bit rushed for my taste, while The United States Marine Band's delivery seems more pronounced and evenly paced.

My personal favorite track is Kenneth Alford's "Colonel Bogey" performed by John Williams and The Boston Pops Orchestra. They take Alford's memorable placid march, and shape it into a powerful storm-of-an-orchestral march. Absent are the keyboards prevalent in many renditions of Colonel Bogey, but beautifully replaced with a dynamic orchestra.

It's the variety of marches, however, that steal the show, especially if you are a novice like I am, and want to find out which era of marches is your cup of tea. You get a wide range, from Hector Berlioz's Racoczy March from "Damnation of Faust," to Edwin Bagley's "National Emblem March," to Victor Herbert's "March of the Toys," all the way up to the present day with John William's "The Raider's March" from "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

I am still getting my feet wet learning about marches, and this compilation has given me a great head start. No doubt I'll cringe one day if I read this clumsy description of Sousa and Alford tunes, but for the time being, I am having great fun discovering a whole new school of music. This CD is a great starting point if you want to become familiar with marches.

Just one other comment that will only further display my amateur level of classical music appreciation, but I've just got to say it: JOHN PHILIP SOUSA ROCKS!!! There are very few pieces that sound as happy and uplifting as a Sousa march. I proudly salute Mr. Sousa!

This CD took me back many years. It has great music that will get your blood pumping. It is a great selection of music and should be in anyones CD collection!!

The music has no snap to it and tends to blend together, unlike a real marching band. Of course many of these are done by classical orchestras with their own renditions and not marching renditions and they don't have as heavy the impact of the bass drum and cymbals compared to a symphony hall. To anyone who has experienced marching in a military parade - 6,000 men in dress uniform carrying rifles on a parade field being led by a large marching band as I have (Marine Corps), they don't know what a real marching band sounds like and therefore have nothing to compare it to. The other thing that I don't like is the Colonel Bogey march - whistled, instead of the snappy marching music. I have marched to this several times in the Corps where it was played the way a march should be played. (The British had their own words to this march that couldn't be reproduced in the movie without R rating so they had them whistle it. The Marines also had a set of different verses. With those rattling in your head as you march it kicks it up a couple of notches and doesn't even begin to compare to the whistling version.) I have found that Stars and "Stripes Forever and the Greatest Marches" gets that snap going to many of the same marches so it is probably in the lack of audio quality in this one, though it too has the whistle version of Bogey.

This CD is a great CD. It includes some the worlds most famous marches with a great recording. I grew up in marching bands in East Texas and loved marches, and this CD gets my blood pumping and takes me back to the old days. If you love great music and marches, this is a sure buy!!!!

I provide music for water aerobics classes. The class members are typically retirees, and like Classical music, yet until this CD the only Classical music with a beat distinctive and steady enough for water aerobics that I'd found was on the "Hooked on Classics" series. Thus, for water aerobics, this is a find.

Also contributing to this CD's popularity for water aerobics are that: (1) many of the songs are upbeat, and (2) "new stereo" recordings (in contrast to my recordings of Sousa marches that were played by Sousa himself; he died in the 1930s.)

In Summary, were you to buy just ten CDs for water aerobics classes, this would be one of them.

I don't have a trained ear for classical music, but I do enjoy listening to the "greatest hits", and this compilation of marches is pretty solid. I thought it would be more diverse than the Arthur Fiedler/Boston Pops CD:Stars And Stripes Forever & The Greatest Marches. I actually plan on getting both CDs to complement one another, as they feature different selections of tunes (with some overlap) and are both reasonably priced (hovering in the eight-dollar range).

The selections on this CD speak for themselves. Many pieces are familiar from TV commercials, movies, etc., even if the names don't jump out at the casual listener. Just listen through the MP3 samples. The CD brings together classical marches from Old Europe, mixes in a healthy dose of late 19th-century John Philip Sousa, and even adds some 20th-century film score music (John Williams's compositions for "1941" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark"). The composers represented include big names like Beethoven, Bach, Sousa, Verdi, and Holst. The music is lively and will have you bouncing in your chair.

What I did not realize when purchasing this CD was that it was a CD-R, burn-on-demand disc. I had added it to my Wish List a long time ago, when it was still, I assume, a 1994 Sony Classical release. Now it seems the only available physical version is the CD-R. The tell-tale difference is that the original cover art features a blue border, which is the bland aesthetic theme for the whole packaging.

I purchased the physical CD, rather than the MP3 album, because I thought the booklet might offer some insight or at least a reliable listing of the composers and performing orchestras. No such luck with the burn-on-demand CD-R, which seems to attribute every track to "The Philadelphia Orchestra, Philharmonia Virtuosi". And no information on composers. To organize my iTunes library, I had to reference other websites. In fact, the MP3 tracks available here on Amazon seem to have the correct artist data. I wonder if these CD-R's are just made from those MP3 files. If that is the case, it might be more worthwhile to buy the digital album (complete with artist/composer data) and burn your own CD if necessary.

I wish I'd ordered the CD while it was still the original package. The booklet might have been helpful. This (cost-effective?) re-release looks so gereric and boring. And the format may be incompatible with some players. (I know some people have trouble with burn-on-demand DVD-R's.)

So I give a thumbs up to the wonderful music, but be wary of what you're purchasing.

My wife likes marches and she loves this CD. I can handle a couple at a time but nonetheless I must admit the diversity on this CD is very impressive. We recommend it if march music is something you enjoy.

This is the best march music CD I have in my collection. It covers a range from Beethoven's "Turkish March" (track 5 and my favorite of the CD) to Sousa. The weakness of the CD comes from the Incredible Columbia All-Star Band tracks. They do a few Sousa marches and the difference between them and the Boston Pops is very noticable. But that's just a minor complaint and certainly nothing to keep you from buying and enjoying this CD.