Conducted by CHARLES LEGGETT
RAIE DA COSTA (Pianoforte)
THE Military Band is more accurately a Wind
Band, that is to say, it is composed almost entirely of wind instruments, the violins and other stringed instruments being excluded. The wind band in a primitive form dates from mediaeval times in England, and as a combination has always been popular with the people. The Tudor sovereigns had wind bands of their own for performance on State occasions, but it was not till the seventeenth century that the military band as an integral part of the army was inaugurated by Louis XIV, who entrusted Lully to organize a number of regimental bands. In the early days brass instruments alone were used in army bands, and it was only with the invention of the clarinet that wind bands began the era of popularity they now enjoy And that era is giving place to another, for the old idea that the full concert orchestra appealed to a different and more cultivated class than did the military band is now being discredited by the fact that concerts like that of tonight are not only possible, but increasingly frequent.