march
(1945)
Pierre Leemans, composer
Charles A. Wiley, arranger
As the original title, Marche des Parachutistes Belges, indicates,
the listener expects to hear a march with a European flavor.
The thin scoring and folk song idiom of the first strain soon confirm the
European origin.
At the trio the same tune reappears as a counter-melody to a smooth-flowing
melody.
Leemans wrote the march in 1945 after a dinner with a group of Belgian
paratroopers.
As their commander, Major Timmerman, drove him home later that night, the
march melody came to mind and he finished the other parts after reaching his
home.
As Leemans explained, "Like all successful music, this tune from my pen as
water out of a fountain."
Band Music Notes, Norman Smith and Albert Stoutamire
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