Famous Marches, an entry in EMI's super-budget "Encore" product line, is not a disc of military-style marches. Rather, it consists of orchestral marches, mostly drawn from larger works and, in some cases, taken from recordings that are available elsewhere in EMI's vast catalog. The recordings date anywhere from 1955 to 1980, and as the front cover reminds us, this compilation includes the conducting of such famous personalities as Leonard Bernstein, John Barbirolli, Herbert von Karajan, Thomas Beecham, and André Previn, ...
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Famous Marches, an entry in EMI's super-budget "Encore" product line, is not a disc of military-style marches. Rather, it consists of orchestral marches, mostly drawn from larger works and, in some cases, taken from recordings that are available elsewhere in EMI's vast catalog. The recordings date anywhere from 1955 to 1980, and as the front cover reminds us, this compilation includes the conducting of such famous personalities as Leonard Bernstein, John Barbirolli, Herbert von Karajan, Thomas Beecham, and André Previn, among others. Bear in mind, however, that the longest track by far is Adrian Boult's recording of Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave at 9:56. Most of the others are quite short, with not-so-well-known conductor Paul Strauss' rendering of the Turkish March from "The Ruins of Athens" being the shortest at only 1:49. Compilations of orchestral marches aren't generally the best way to experience the virtues of conductors or the sound of their orchestras. If the march is an excerpt derived from a...
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