Czardas

A "czardas" is a Hungarian dance in which the dancers start slowly and finish with a rapid whirl. Italian composer Vittorio Monti (1868-1922) composed his Czardas (his most famous composition) in 1904. It has been originally written for solo violin, but has been rewritten and transcribed for a variety of solo instruments and a variety of ensembles. In 1982 when I was with the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing Band in New Orleans, I was given TAD orders (temporary additional duties) to the Quantico Marine Band in Quantico, Virginia. I was to be playing bassoon in that concert band (and marching with a tenor saxophone) in the Band's participation in that year's Nova Scotia Tattoo in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. One of the concert band pieces was borrowed from the Library of the United States Marine Band: a band transcription of the Monti Czardas for solo xylophone. However, the Band Officer, Maj Sidney Snellings, was using a recording of an orchestral transcription that did not coincide with the band transcription. When he learned of my talents as an arranger, he first asked me to transcribe the introduction of the orchestra piece for band. When that proved to be successful, he then asked me to transcribe the entire piece for the Band. It took one week for me to write the music, and it was performed for the first time at the end of the week, and again the following Monday. (Unfortunately, I did not make a copy of my transcription for my archives.) In 1992, I obtained my copy of MusicProse 2.3. I also purchased a fake book. That fake book happened to have a lead sheet to Czardas. I decided to try to recreate my transcription of 10 years earlier. I succeeded in the attempt, and have added a few of my touches to the piece. I still had it written for xylophone. In 2012, I decided to rewrite the entire piece and deem it as the "30th Anniversary Edition" to commemorate the premier performance of 1982 in Nova Scotia. It is still written for solo xylophone.