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Good morning all, As you can see it has been a very busy summer for the staff working with the American Memory online collections. Here is our latest collection release. As usual it is being widely posted. Please accept our apologies for any duplicate postings. On September 27, 1974, the Music Division of the Library of Congress re-created a typical concert of brass band and vocal music from mid-nineteenth-century America. That concert has become the starting-point for Band Music from the Civil War Era <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwmhtml/cwmhome.html>, an online collection that brings together musical scores, recordings, photographs, and essays documenting an important but insufficiently explored part of the American musical past. This collection features over 700 musical compositions, as well as 8 full-score modern editions and 19 recorded examples of brass band music in performance. The cornets and saxhorns that made up the all-brass bands of the 1850s remained a popular, though decreasingly prominent, feature of American wind bands through the nineteenth century. Bands of this kind served in the armies of both the North and the South during the Civil War, in the field as well as for the entertainment of the officers. Most of the sheet music used by these brass bands, which typically existed only in "part books" for individual instruments, has long been lost. This online collection presents several of the surviving examples of this music (both printed and manuscript) from the collections of the Music Division of the Library of Congress. Also included are the Manchester Cornet Band Books from the Walter Dignam Collection of the Manchester Historical Society (Manchester, New Hampshire). The part books are presented both in their original order and are also grouped by song title. Several of the compositions from these part books are also presented in full-score modern editions created especially for this online collection. In addition to the musical scores and parts, Band Music from the Civil War Era includes a gallery of photographs and drawings selected from several Library of Congress collections. These illustrations capture the nature of life in the Civil War's military bands and help explain the variety of the band books in this collection. Band Music from the Civil War Era also presents the original recordings and notes from the 1974 concert at the Library. In addition, Music Division chief Jon Newsom's essay "The American Brass Band Movement: A Historical Overview," which synthesizes two works Mr. Newsom wrote in 1974 in conjunction with the Library's concert, details the rise of marching and concert bands during the Civil War era. "About the Instruments" complements the essay with a discussion of the band instrumentation used in the re-creation concert. Band Music from the Civil War Era is an unusual Music Division online collection in that it is not based on a permanent collection within the division but has instead been created solely for presentation online. The Music Division is pleased to present such a wealth of material delving into a little-known, yet fascinating period of American musical history. Please direct any questions about this collection to ndlpcoll@loc.gov =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-= All postings to LM_NET are protected under copyright law. To quit LM_NET (or set-reset NOMAIL or DIGEST), send email to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST 4) SET LM_NET MAIL * Please allow for confirmation from Listserv. For LM_NET Help see: http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/ Archives: http://askeric.org/Virtual/Listserv_Archives/LM_NET.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=