Anthem: Requiem: A Song History

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"Anthem: Requiem" is a two-part piece in Butch Ross’s A Long Way From Shady Grove, a Fingers Of Steel book that transcribes his CD of the same name; both parts are tabbed in DAD tuning, and the listing credits Part 2 to Al d’Ossché while naming no composer for Part 1.[1] Ross’s Bandcamp page gives the album a release date of May 9, 2009, with the medley as its thirteenth track.[2]

Etching of a crowded church interior with a draped catafalque under a canopy of candles and mourners in the nave

Jacques Callot, The Catafalque of the Emperor Matthias, etching and engraving, 1619. Shown for its requiem setting; it has no connection to the piece.

In his own note on the track, Ross says the opening Requiem is "pretty much lifted wholesale" from "Jewels," a tune on Tony Levin’s album World Diary; he liked its chord progression but not Bill Bruford’s percussion sound on the original.[3] Papa Bear Records’ page for the album describes "Jewels" as a ballad on which Levin had Bruford take the lead on electronic percussion while he accompanied him with chords on the Stick.[4] Ross also writes that he regrets having learned d’Ossché’s Anthem faithfully, believing his misremembered version would have made a more interesting arrangement and that reworking a tune into something new is closer to what d’Ossché would have wanted.[3]

Albert d’Ossché, a historian by training, met dulcimer player Robert Force at the Union Grove fiddlers’ convention in North Carolina in 1971, and the two went on to work together for some twenty years.[5] According to the Peninsula Daily News, Force recorded six albums with d’Ossché between 1978 and 1988, and the pair published two dulcimer instruction books.[6] By Force’s account, d’Ossché wrote Anthem as his own contender while the Australian government was surveying opinion on a new national anthem in 1974, setting it as a second movement after the chorus of "Waltzing Matilda"; the duo’s 1981 recording first appeared on The Art of Dulcimer.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Anthem: Requiem"

Sources

  1. Fingers Of Steel: "Butch Ross, A Long Way From Shady Grove".
  2. Butch Ross (Bandcamp): "A Long Way From Shady Grove".
  3. Butch Ross (Bandcamp): "Anthem:Requiem".
  4. Papa Bear Records: "World Diary - Tony Levin".
  5. Robert Force: "In Search of the Wild Dulcimer".
  6. Peninsula Daily News: "A new stage of life: Port Townsend dulcimer virtuoso reissues classic recordings".
  7. Robert Force: "Waltzing Matilda / Anthem".
  8. Image: Jacques Callot, The Catafalque of the Emperor Matthias, etching and engraving, 1619. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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