1.9 (above average)
Tune of the Day: Hohenfriedberger March
Did you know that King Frederick II of Prussia was a gifted musician who played the transverse flute? He composed 100 sonatas for the flute as well as four symphonies. His court musicians included C.P.E. Bach, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Franz Benda. It was a meeting with Johann Sebastian Bach in 1747 in Potsdam that led to Bach writing The Musical Offering.
And it was the “Old Fritz”, as the king was nicknamed, who wrote the “Hohenfriedberger”, one of the best known German military marches. It is named for the victory of the Prussians over the allied Austrians and Saxons in 1745 during the Second Silesian War in the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, near Striegau.
You may remember this march being used at the beginning of the film Stalingrad, or in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon depicting the Prussian army during the Seven Years War.