Product Review

This TWENTY-FIVE-TRACK CD-Compilation presents the marches, anthems and "Vaterlandslieder" that animated the German Empire of the Hohenzollern Emperors from 1871 to 1918, with PERIOD performances by the bands of the élite guard regiments of the Prussian Army, German soldiers' choruses and leading classical artists of the Wilhelmian era. The ancient recordings assembled in this compilation date from 1903 to 1915 and have been painstakingly restored and reengineered to maximize the surprising degree of fidelity already inherent to them WITHOUT altering their "imperial" ambience in ANY way whatsoever. This album presents the sounds of the ACTUAL military bandsmen and vocalists of Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany and also features many long-forgotten treasures of German military music, all presented EXACTLY as recorded in the German Empire of NINETY- TO ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. As an added bonus the CD is accompanied by a lavish, twenty-page illustrated booklet that features a detailed discussion of German military bands, German martial music and the development of the German Empire after 1871.