Artists
Album Info
Release Date: 1967Label: WFB Productions
EP Edition - Selections "C"WFB Productions, Inc. Souderton, Pennsylvania.
The Allentown Band: The oldest and "probably the best band in the nation," -- Lucien Cailliet, Symphony. No professional organization this in the sense that music is the sole livelihood of its members: the membership follows many and various vocations with music its avocation and first great love.
During the heyday of the renowned Sousa Band, the Allentown Band supplied more musicians to that famous organization than any other band in the country and continues today to number in its personnel some of the men who played with the great March King. Many others have played with Pryor and Conway.
In the prosperous Pennsylvania-German community, next door to Bethlehem and its glorious Bach Choir, Allentown's Band has been functioning since 1828 without interruption. And that makes it, it is believed, the oldest band in the nation!
The written history of the band dates from July 3, 1828, when a newspaper of that date announced that the Allentown Military Music Band was to participate in the Independence Day celebration on the following day. Four years later, when again a July Fourth celebration was announced in the public press, the words "Military Music" had been dropped from the band's name. In 1836, General William Henry Harrison, candidate for President, visited Allentown and was greeted by the Allentown Band. In 1839, President Martin Van Buren came to town and was met by the Band.
Under the leadership of Martin Klinger, who was conductor for 40 years prior to 1925, and since then, under the leadership of Albertus L. Meyers, the band's fame has spread and its name has been acclaimed by practically all of the great bandmasters of this and former generations. Its concerts draw admiring members and conductors of contemporary organizations from wide areas. As the band was making this recording, discussions were under way on both sides of the Pacific for the band to tour Japan!
Mere longevity may not always be a sign of greatness but it is a very real test in the case of a musical organization like the Allentown Band. When such an organization remains in continuous existence for more than a century and a quarter there can be but one reason -- the ardor and love of its members for music. Its personnel is limited to sixty-five players and there is a waiting list of twice that number. The loyalty and enthusiasm of the entire organization is remarkable. Their winter concert series are subscribed to in advance, patrons come from as far as one hundred miles away, and the auditorium is always filled to capacity. During the summer the band plays regularly in the beautiful city park to audiences numbering ten thousand, and in scores of other concerts throughout Eastern Pennsylvania. The number of appearances is limited only by the fact that, after all, these engagements, though paid for, are but extra curricular to earning a living.
This is the great and wonderful thing about the Allentown Band. Its members, professional and non-professional, all possessing in bountiful measure the top standards of musicianship required for membership, play for the sheer love of playing with "the best band in the land."