God Save the Tsar: Military Band Music of Imperial Russia in Archival Recordings, 1900-1912

This landmark CD presents period Russian military music from the era of Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918), recorded between 1900 and 1912 by actual bands of the Russian Imperial Army, as well as other musicians of the late imperial era.

Compiled from ancient and ultra-rare recordings held in private collections in Russia and the USA, the twenty-five tracks on this CD present an eclectic collection of marches, soldiers' songs and concert band pieces that capture the atmosphere of the empire that was ruled from Peter's city on the Neva, while simultaneously chronicling the military history of Russia and the development of its military music.

Assembled in this compilation are rare period performances by leading Russian military bands of the era, including the:

Life-Guard Horse Regiment Band, St. Petersburg
Imperial Court Wind Orchestra, St. Petersburg
1st Sumskii Hussar Regiment Band, Moscow
1st Life-Guard Artillery Brigade Band, Moscow
Life-Guard Volynskii Regiment Band, Warsaw
Life-Guard Litovskii Regiment Band, Warsaw
106th Ufimskii Infantry Regiment Band, Vilna
108th Saratovskii Infantry Regiment Band, Vilna
Imperial Mariinskii Opera Chorus and Orchestra, St. Petersburg
and many other artists of the period.

Selections of particular interest include both instrumental- and vocal renditions of the iconic Russian Imperial Anthem God Save the Tsar; a textbook performance of the famous Preobrazhenskii March, named for the premier formation of the Russian Imperial Guard; descriptive scenes depicting the Imperial Army in battle and on the march; and a driving parade piece (with a heavy bass section featured prominently in its trio) written in 1892 in honor of the twenty-fourth birthday of the Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrov (the future Tsar).

Also featured are several historic Russian soldiers' songs, including a nineteenth-century choral piece recollecting Tsar Peter I (The Great) and his exploits at the 1709 Battle of Poltava; a 1901 performance of the jaunty cavalry song named for the Battle of Kushka, which was fought on the remote Afghan frontier of the Russian Empire in 1885; and a rare march composed in honor of the warships Varyag and Koreets whose crews distinguished themselves at the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.

Also presented is a rare and nearly forgotten 'Pan-Slavic' march composed to spur the recruitment of Russian volunteers for the Serbo-Turkish War of 1876; a parade-tempo instrumental version of the chorale Glory to our Russian Tsar (from Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka's 1836 opera A Life for the Tsar), which served until 1917 as the de facto second national anthem of Imperial Russia; and the 'March of the Guard Équipage,' the naval component of the Russian Imperial Guard that provided the crews of the Imperial Family's Yachts Standart and Polar Star.

All of these selections have been painstakingly restored for maximum audio fidelity, while scrupulously preserving their original character and unique period ambiance.

God Save the Tsar, released in honor of the four-hundredth anniversary of the coronation of the first Romanov Tsar in 1613, is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated thirty-six page booklet, which presents a comprehensive history of Russian military music and its place in the military traditions of the Empire; extensive notes on the featured musical selections; and a discussion of the last Tsar Nicholas II, whose reign was destined to end in tragedy at the Ipatiev House at Yekaterinberg in 1918, but which nevertheless saw the Russian Empire reach the apogee of its power, splendor and glory.