About the Album
Sing to my soul — renew its languishing faith and hope…. Give me, for once, its prophecy and joy. O glad, exulting, culminating song!
-Walt Whitman
The year 2019 marks two centuries since the birth of the great American poet, author, and patriot Walt Whitman. The heart of much of Whitman’s work may be captured within the word “anthem.” His language was one of praise; whether praise for music, for heroism, or for nature, Whitman observed common happenings around him as defining elements of the American experience and celebrated them as virtues in his remarkable prose. The essence of the anthem runs through the diverse collection of works on this recording. Beginning with the most familiar musical association with the word represented in Morton Gould’s creative homage to our own national anthem, the thread then diverges to a celebration of American anthems in written word by Whitman and Langston Hughes and the revolutionary and patriotic fervor in major works of Dmitri Shostakovich and Hector Berlioz. The Marine Band has proudly partnered with The Choral Arts Society of Washington on this special recording that aims to highlight the inimitable power that music holds to praise the human spirit.
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Tracks
1. Morton Gould (trans. James C. Ripley): Star-Spangled Overture from American Ballads
2. William Schumann: American Hymn
3. Dominick DiOrio (text by Walt Whitman): Silent Moves the Symphony True
MGySgt. Matthew Harding, trumpet
The Choral Arts Society of Washington
4. Dimitri Shostakovich (trans. MSgt. Preston Mitchell*): October, Opus 131
5-7. Hector Berlioz (ed. Jonathan Elkus): Symphonie funebre et triomphale, Opus 15
5. Marche funebre
6. Oraison funebre
GySgt. Samuel Barlow, trombone
7. Apotheose
The Choral Arts Society of Washington
*Member, U.S. Marine Band