Music of the Swiss Guards

Pipes and drums have a long tradition in Switzerland. And it was the Swiss Guards who played the music of French composers Jean-Baptiste Lully, André Danican Philidor and Jean-Jacques Rousseau - to name but a few - at the court of Louis XIV and XV.

At the suggestion of the Swiss Drum and Pipe Players' Association (STPV), Thilo Hirsch has written this book, Music of the Gardes Suisses for Fifres & Tambours, was written. This specialist book was written in collaboration with Walter Büchler (Tambour), Danny Wehrmüller (Tambour/Basler Piccolo) and Sarah van Cornewal (Fifre/Basler Piccolo). It presents 15 compositions by French musicians from the 17th and 18th centuries.

In the introduction, Thilo Hirsch provides important information on the history and performance practice of baroque flute and drum music, and also mentions numerous entertaining anecdotes on the subject. Each piece of music is then presented with a brief explanation of the music-historical background and a facsimile of the original. The transcription of the facsimiles is in a two-part version based on historical models. However, the authors have also written a modern, three-part arrangement for pipes and drums for each of the 15 pieces. In order to gain the necessary range for the third flute part, they transposed the parts in these versions upwards. However, the auxiliary lines of the uppermost part occasionally come a little too close to each other. The tambourine part is notated in "Zündstoff-Trommelschrift". This is taken from the teaching material of the Swiss Tambourine Association Fuel for drummers, which was published in the mid-1980s and is now unfortunately out of print.

Written in German and French, the book Music of the Gardes Suisses for Fifres & Tambours offers a rich fund of material for concerts or special occasions of pipers' and drummers' associations. It impresses with its simple design and elegant musical notation. Further information on the texts can be found in the numerous references and literature recommendations.

Thilo Hirsch, Musik der Gardes Suisses für Fifres & Tambours, Verlag des Schweizerischen Tambouren- und Pfeiferverbands, Fr. 45.00, Stäfa 2015, ISBN 978-3-9524552-0-3