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166 MILITARY MUSIC AND ITS STORY.
mental bands were properly speaking under the patronage of the officers, and their excellence or otherwise simply depended on the length of the latter's purses and their musical tastes.
Among the best known of our " line" bandmasters
of the period were: Frost (1781-----); Blizzard, Duke
of York's School; King (? 1809-88), Fifth Lancers;
Owen (-----1867), Scots Greys; Cavallini (1807-73),
Fifty-fifth and Eightieth Regiments—"the Paganini of the clarinet"; Longhi, Second Dragoon Guards; Ruddland, First Dragoons; Oliver (? 1810-92),Twentieth Regiment; Devine, Fourth Hussars; Emanuel, A.R.A.M., (1819-—), King's Royal Rifles; Hay,
F.R.A.M. (1828-----); Eckersberg, Fourth Dragoon
Guards, composer of "Battle of Waterloo" fantasia; Koenig, Eighth Hussars.
I have said that uniform organisation in our bands was not thought of. The instrumental combination and even the pitch, was a question which the officers or bandmasters settled. It was therefore impossible to combine several bands to a massed performance. A similar state of affairs existed with continental bands. In Germany, the first to clearly perceive the want of a complete reconstruction was G. A. Schneider (1770-1839), the Director-General of Prussian military music, who worked at reform, according to the plan of one Sundelin.8 Then came Wilhelm Wieprecht (a civilian), |
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'Sundelin, "Die Instrumentirung fur sammtliche Militar musikchore," etc., 1828. |
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