Under The Double Eagle: A Song History
The Austrian military bandmaster Josef Franz Wagner (1856–1908), sometimes billed as "The Austrian March King," wrote Unter dem Doppeladler, his Op. 159, in 1893.[1][2] The double eagle of the title is the two-headed Habsburg emblem that flew on the Austro-Hungarian flag, and the march made its name as a brass band piece across Europe.[3] American publishers took it up quickly: Carl Fischer had a theatre-orchestra arrangement out by 1894 and Louis Philippe Laurendeau's military band setting by 1895, and McKinley Music of Chicago printed it for piano in 1897.[2]
Textile with crowned double headed eagles, lampas, silk, second half 16th century. A sixteenth-century silk woven with crowned double-headed eagles, the kind of emblem the march's title refers to; the textile has no connection to the music.
The march became a favorite of John Philip Sousa's band, which first cut it for Victor in Philadelphia on August 27, 1903, using Laurendeau's arrangement, and came back to it in 1904, 1908 and 1923, the last time in New York under Nathaniel Shilkret.[1][4] Even earlier, the 71st Regiment Band had put it on an Edison cylinder in 1899.[3] Rural string musicians adopted it as well: fiddler George Walburn and guitarist Emmett Hethcox recorded it as a duet for OKeh in Atlanta on October 8, 1927, and the Red Fox Chasers (1928) and Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers (1929) followed.[5][3] In January 1935 Bill Boyd and his Cowboy Ramblers recorded it for Bluebird, which issued the side that May.[6]
The tune was especially well liked in Texas during the 1930s and 1940s, where German or Austrian immigrants may have introduced it, and most rural versions keep only two of the march's parts.[3] Herbert Halpert recorded the Houston Bald Knob String Band playing it in Franklin County, Virginia, for the Library of Congress in 1939, and in the 1960s a guitar recording of it by Doc Watson became well known.[3] In West Virginia, the Louis Watson Chappell collection holds a recording of it by John F. "Johnny" Johnson of Strange Creek, Braxton County.[7] Dana Gruber gives dulcimer players both an easy and a full arrangement in DAD tuning in The Pickin' Porch, a Fingers Of Steel book of standard notation and tablature with guitar chords, whose download also splits each tune into its own PDF.[8]
Sources
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Josef Franz Wagner".
- IMSLP: "Unter dem Doppeladler, Op.159 (Wagner, Josef Franz)".
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Under the Double Eagle".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix B-355. Under the Double Eagle (march) / Sousa's Band".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "OKeh matrix W81723. Under the Double Eagle / Emmett Hethcox ; George Walburn".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Bluebird B-5945".
- West Virginia & Regional History Center: "Under The Double Eagle" (Louis Watson Chappell Collection).
- Fingers Of Steel: "Dana Gruber, The Pickin' Porch".
- Image: Textile with crowned double headed eagles, lampas, silk, second half 16th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.