Public Domain Music
Music that was written prior to 1927 has, in most cases, entered the Public Domain. What does this mean for you, the band director looking for show ideas? It means that you can commission someone to arrange a marching band show for you that uses music from before 1927...without paying a dime in copyright fees. Typically, if the work is still under copyright law, you have to contact the copyright holder, secure permission to arrange (and in some rare cases, composers and publishers are not willing to give that permission), and pay a fee for the right to arrange. But that fee only pays for the right to arrange; if you should ever want to record your work, you would need a separate license fee. Not so with Public Domain music.
Some things that people consider to be in the Public Domain actually are not, for example, Orff's Carmina Burana and Bernstein's West Side Story are two works that are guarded stringently by the estates of their creators, and are most definitely NOT in the Public Domain. It is always a good idea to double check any music you wish to have arranged, because copyright infringements can be a very serious matter, with legal and financial repercussions. To that end, I have compiled a list of Public Domain music that would be suitable for a marching show. If you would like any of this music arranged for your marching band, don't hesitate to contact me. This list is by no means comprehensive, as there are literally hundreds of works that are in the Public Domain.
Popular music that is in the Public Domain:
† Indicates that I own the score already, meaning that the process of arranging would be immediate. All other scores would have to be purchased or secured, therefore taking a little longer to arrange.
In addition to this list, keep in mind that ALL the works of the following composers are in the Public Domain at this point:
Be careful: just because a work may be in the Public Domain does NOT mean you can arrange any published version of it. There may be newer editions, revisions, and other situations in which a certain version of a Public Domain work is indeed under copyright. In order to be safe, an arranger MUST work from a copy that is old enough to fall into Public Domain. For example, if I wanted to arrange Stravinsky's The Firebird, I would need to work from his original music (1909) or his first two suites (1909 and 1911) but NOT his "final" interpretation of the suite, written in 1945.
Music that was written prior to 1927 has, in most cases, entered the Public Domain. What does this mean for you, the band director looking for show ideas? It means that you can commission someone to arrange a marching band show for you that uses music from before 1927...without paying a dime in copyright fees. Typically, if the work is still under copyright law, you have to contact the copyright holder, secure permission to arrange (and in some rare cases, composers and publishers are not willing to give that permission), and pay a fee for the right to arrange. But that fee only pays for the right to arrange; if you should ever want to record your work, you would need a separate license fee. Not so with Public Domain music.
Some things that people consider to be in the Public Domain actually are not, for example, Orff's Carmina Burana and Bernstein's West Side Story are two works that are guarded stringently by the estates of their creators, and are most definitely NOT in the Public Domain. It is always a good idea to double check any music you wish to have arranged, because copyright infringements can be a very serious matter, with legal and financial repercussions. To that end, I have compiled a list of Public Domain music that would be suitable for a marching show. If you would like any of this music arranged for your marching band, don't hesitate to contact me. This list is by no means comprehensive, as there are literally hundreds of works that are in the Public Domain.
Popular music that is in the Public Domain:
† Indicates that I own the score already, meaning that the process of arranging would be immediate. All other scores would have to be purchased or secured, therefore taking a little longer to arrange.
- 1812 Overture (Pyotr Tchaikovsky)
- Academic Festival Overture (Johannes Brahms) †
- Bartered Bride (Bedrich Smetana)
- Cappricio Espagnol (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)
- Carmen (Georges Bizet)
- Danse Macabre (Camille Saint-Saens) †
- Enigma Variations (Sir Edward Elgar) †
- Finlandia (Jean Sibelius) †
- Firebird, The (Igor Stravinsky) †
- First Suite in E-Flat (Gustav Holst) †
- La Boheme (Giacomo Puccini)
- La Mer (Claude Debussy)
- L'Arlessiene Suite No. 2 (Georges Bizet) †
- Madame Butterfly (Giacomo Puccini)
- Marche Slav (Pyotr Tchaikovsky)
- Moldau, The (Bedrich Smetana) †
- Orpheus in the Underworld (Jacques Offenbach)
- Peer Gynt Suite (Edvard Grieg) †
- Peter and the Wolf (Sergei Prokofiev) †
- Pictures at an Exposition (Modeste Mussorgsky/orch. Ravel) †
- Planets, The (Gustav Holst) †
- Poet & Peasant Overture (Franz von Suppe)
- Polovetsian Dances (Alexander Borodin) †
- Prince Igor Overture (Alexander Borodin)
- Rite of Spring (Igor Stravinsky) †
- Romeo and Juliet (Pyotr Tchaikovsky) †
- Russian Sailor's Dance (Reinhold Gliere)
- Scheherazade (Nikola Rimsky-Korsakov) †
- Songs of a Wayfarer (Gustav Mahler) †
- Sorcerer's Apprentice, The (Paul Dukas)
- Symphonie Fantastique (Hector Berlioz) †
- Symphony No. 3 "Organ Symphony" (Camille Saint-Saens) †
- Symphony No. 4 (Gustav Mahler) †
- Symphony No. 5 (Pyotr Tchaikovsky)
- Symphony No. 6 (Pyotr Tchaikovsky)
- Symphony No. 8 (Antonin Dvorak)
- Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" (Antonin Dvorak) †
In addition to this list, keep in mind that ALL the works of the following composers are in the Public Domain at this point:
- Bach, Johann Sebastian
- Beethoven, Ludwig von
- Berlioz, Hector
- Bizet, Georges
- Brahms, Johannes
- Bruckner, Anton
- Liszt, Franz
- Mendelssohn, Felix
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
- Rossini, Gioacchino
- Schubert, Franz
- Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Illych
- Verdi, Guiseppe
- Wagner, Richard
Be careful: just because a work may be in the Public Domain does NOT mean you can arrange any published version of it. There may be newer editions, revisions, and other situations in which a certain version of a Public Domain work is indeed under copyright. In order to be safe, an arranger MUST work from a copy that is old enough to fall into Public Domain. For example, if I wanted to arrange Stravinsky's The Firebird, I would need to work from his original music (1909) or his first two suites (1909 and 1911) but NOT his "final" interpretation of the suite, written in 1945.