Light Guard Ball

Event Information

Venue(s):
Academy of Music

Price: $2 (a gentleman and ladies)

Event Type:
Band

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
2 September 2010

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

12 Feb 1863, Evening

Program Details

R: NYP 02/13/63, p.2 says there were two bands, one for dancing and a brass band for the promenade.

There are several interesting elements to this program. Two pieces are based on minstrel works (“Raw recruits” and “Black brigade”). Several pieces are related to the war. And there are ten pieces by Dodworth or Downing.

Fourteen pieces in all are performed for the “first time.” They include:
Kochkeller: March, “Academy” (1st time)
Bilse: March, “Grand Triumph” (1st time)
Downing: March, “71st Regiment Quickstep” (1st time)
Dodworth: March, “Central Park” (1st time)
Downing: March “McClellan's Quickstep” (1st time)
Verdi: March, “Un Ballo Maschera” (1st time)
Downing: March, “General Burnside” (1st time)
D. Lorenz: March, “Irish Brigade” (1st time)
Donizetti: March, “Vivandiere Quick Step” (1st time)
Foster: March, “Gay and Happy” (1st time)
Downing: March, “The Adieu” (1st time)
Emmett: March, “Black Brigade” (1st time)
[Henry] Russell: March, “Cheer, Boys, Cheer” (1st time)
Downing: March, “La Skedaddle” (1st time)

Program as advertised:
Opening, “National Melodies”
Overture, Herzog: Hamburg Wallhalle
Kochkeller: March, “Academy” (1st time)
1. Bosisio: Quadrille, “Il Giuramento” (Mercadante)
Verdi: March, Sicilian Vespers
2. Unknown: “American” Lancers
Bartholomews: March, “Prussian”
3.[Labitzky] Labitsky: Polka and Galop, “Juliet”
[Albert, Charles Louis Napoléon d'] D'Albert: March, “War Galop”
4. Johann Strauss I: Quadrille, “Mode”
Bilse: March, “Grand Triumph” (1st time)
5. Kuhner: Redowa, “Spring Song”
Downing: March, “71st Regiment Quickstep” (1st time)
6. Dodworth: Quadrille: “Arline”
Dodworth: March, “Central Park” (1st time)
7. Ascher: Polka, Redowa, and Schottische, “Merry Sleigh Bells”
G.W. Morgan: March, “Light Guard”
8. Weingarten: Lancers, “Union”
Downing: March “McClellan's Quickstep” (1st time)
9. [Peter] Hertel: Galop, “Flick Flock”
Verdi: March, “Un Ballo Maschera” (1st time)
10. Dodworth: Quadrille, “Gems from the German”
C. Wels: March: “Josephine Galop”
11. [Weissenborn] Weisenborn: Redowa and Polka, “Parting”
Downing: March, “General Burnside” (1st time)
12. Meyerbeer: Quadrille, “Dinorah”
Mercadante: March, “Il Guiramento”
13. [Christian] Koppitz: Polka Redowa, “Tiger Leap”
D. Lorenz: March, “Irish Brigade” (1st time)
14. Lancers, “The Irving”
Strauss: March, “The Coronation”
15. Dodworth: Quadrille, “Raw Recruits”
Donizetti: March, “Vivandiere Quick Step” (1st time)
16. Pilodu: Varsovienne and Esmeralda, “L'Elite”
[Composer] Foster: March, “Gay and Happy” (1st time)
17. Weingarten: Lancers, “Clarendon”
Downing: March, “The Adieu” (1st time)
18. H. Sanderson: Schottische and Galop
Emmett: March, “Black Brigade” (1st time)
19. Strauss: Quadrille, “Satanella”
[Henry] Russell: March, “Cheer, Boys, Cheer” (1st time)
20. Lanner: Redowa, “Romantic”
Herzog: March, “Louis d'Or” (polka)
21. [Philippe] Musard: Quadrille, “Genevieve d'Brabant”
Donizetti: March, “Il Poliuto”
22. Weingarten: Lancers “Saratoga”
Strauss: March, “Liberty”
23. [Grisar] Geissar: Polka Redowa, “Les Porcherons”
Strauss: March, “Camp Quickstep”
24. Weingarten: Polka and Galop, “Monitor”
Downing: March, “La Skedaddle” (1st time)
25. Dodworth: Quadrille: “Stag Set”

Performers and/or Works Performed

2)
aka National melodies; National medley; national songs; National airs
3)
Composer(s): Herzog
4)
aka Academy march; Academy promenade
Composer(s): Kochkeller
5)
aka Giuramento quadrille
Composer(s): Bosisio [composer]
6)
aka Vepres; I Vespri siciliani; Sicilian vespers, The
Composer(s): Verdi
7)
Composer(s): Freeman
8)
Composer(s): Bartholomäus
9)
Composer(s): Labitzky
10)
Composer(s): Albert [composer]
11)
aka "La mode" quadrille; La mode
Composer(s): Strauss
12)
aka Victory; March of victory; Friedrich Carl Siegesmarsch; Grand triumph
Composer(s): Bilse
13)
aka Spring song; Fruhlingsklange; Fruhlingslieder
Composer(s): Kühner
14)
aka 71st regiment promenade; Seventy-first regiment quickstep
Composer(s): Downing
15)
Composer(s): Dodworth
16)
aka Park march, The; Central Park; Central Park music; Salutory park march; Salutary park march; Concert-Signal March; Proem; Attention; Introductory march
Composer(s): Dodworth
17)
aka Merry sleigh bells; Sleigh bells
Composer(s): Ascher [comp.]
18)
Composer(s): Morgan
19)
Composer(s): Weingarten
20)
Composer(s): Downing
21)
aka Feuerwehr-Galopp; Flick flock; Flick and flock; Flick et flock; Au feu!
Composer(s): Hertel
22)
Composer(s): Verdi
23)
aka Gems of German song
Composer(s): Dodworth
24)
Composer(s): Wels
25)
aka Redowa and polka, "Parting"; Scheiden (Parting) waltz
Composer(s): Weissenborn
26)
Composer(s): Downing
27)
Composer(s): Strauss
28)
aka Quickstep
Composer(s): Mercadante
30)
Composer(s): Lorenz
31)
Composer(s): Dodworth
32)
aka Coronation March; Kronungs-Marsch
Composer(s): Strauss
34)
aka Vivandiere promenade; Daughter of the Regiment, The ; Figlia del reggimento, La; Child of the Regiment, The; Regimentstochter, Die
Composer(s): Donizetti
36)
Composer(s): Dodworth
37)
Composer(s): Weingarten
38)
aka Adieu; Adieu march; Adieu promenade
Composer(s): Downing
39)
Composer(s): Sanderson
40)
aka Black brigade march
Composer(s): Emmett
41)
Composer(s): Strauss
42)
aka Southern cheer boys; Southern boys, The
Composer(s): Russell
Text Author: Mackay
43)
Composer(s): Lanner
44)
Composer(s): Herzog
45)
aka Genevieve d'Brabant
Composer(s): Musard
46)
Composer(s): Donizetti
47)
Composer(s): Weingarten
48)
aka Liberty march
Composer(s): Strauss
50)
aka Camp quickstep; Camp quick step
Composer(s): Strauss
51)
aka Monitor; Monitor polka and galop
Composer(s): Weingarten
52)
Composer(s): Downing
53)
Composer(s): Dodworth

Citations

1)
Announcement: New York Herald, 01 February 1863, 8.
2)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 10 February 1863, 7.
Several small ads. “Dodworth’s mammoth Bands.”
3)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 10 February 1863, 7.
“Dodworth’s Mammoth Bands.”
4)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 11 February 1863, 7.
Full program.
5)
Announcement: New-York Times, 11 February 1863, 5.
“[T]he Light Guard Ball – familiarly known as the Tiger Ball . . . That it will be the most brilliant affair of the season; that women who are all fair, and men who are all brave, will mingle as in poetry, and make the hours extatic [sic]; that the music will drop like blessed balsam on the stiffened limbs of aged beaux, compelling them to dance again . . . that the Ball, in a word, will be up to the standard of past years, and perhaps taller, is beyond reasonable doubt, or rational peradventure.”
6)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 12 February 1863, 7.

7)
Announcement: New-York Daily Tribune, 12 February 1863, 2.
“The Academy has been newly and handsomely decorated, and orchestras of extra magnitude have been engaged.”
8)
Review: New-York Times, 13 February 1863, 8.

“The Light Guard Ball.

            In spite of the unfavorable weather of yesterday, the Light Guard Ball, which was held last night at the Academy of Music, was attended by a very large number of ladies and gentlemen. The decorations of the room were chaste and elegant. At the east end, suspended from an American shield, were the colors of the company, entwined with the war-flag of the Seventy-first Regiment. Below, in gas-jets, occupying the centre [sic] of the stage, was an uplifted arm wielding a battle-axe, and beneath this a scroll, with the words, ‘Light Guard;’ and again another, containing the figures 1827. Under this design was placed a brass field piece, with pyramids of shot on either side, and stacks of muskets, surmounted with the bear-skin cap of the ‘Tigers.’ Suspended from the first tier were light wire cages with canary birds, who chattered away at each other like as many well-behaved idiots. Reaching to the dome from all parts of the ceiling were red, white and blue streamers. The order of dancing comprised twenty-five selections, and an equal number of marches, the music being performed by Dodworth’s Brass Band.”

9)
Review: New York Post, 13 February 1863, 2.
“The Academy of Music was never more completely filled than last night on the occasion of the annual ball given by the members of the Light Guard (Seventy-first regiment); and never did the admirers of the ‘light fantastic’ (although usually not ever-fond of a crush), enjoy themselves more thoroughly. The music of the cotillion band (for dancing), which was stationed at the left of the first tier, and that of the regimental brass band (for promenade), on the right of the second tier in the galleries, was excellent and inspiring. . . . . . . The numerous canary birds in cages hung around the balcony lent their piping songs to the music of the bands.”
10)
Review: New-York Daily Tribune, 14 February 1863, 3.
“The ball was a complete success.”