Famous Marches (Incls 'Marche miliitaire', 'Radetzky-Marsch' & 'La damnation de Faust')

The march itself, as a means, through regular rhythm, of ensuring that the marchers proceed in step, may combine the exhortatory and the deterrent, but can be used to express solemnity in a slow march, light-heartedness in a quick march or triumph in a march of victory, even if, with the poet, we believe there is no hope for those that march in step.

The present collection of marches opens with the famous Grand March from Verdi's opera Aida. The opera itself was written to mark not the opening of the Suez Canal, which had taken place a year before, but the opening of the Cairo Opera House in 1871. It celebrates the triumphant return of the Egyptian general Radames, bringing with him the signs of victory, a lavish procession of soldiers, animals and captives, a spectacle that has provided opportunities for directorial extravagance in more ostentatious productions of the work.