Slow March stands as the very last item in
114 Songs, signifying that it was the first to be composed—one of the very earliest pieces by Ives we possess. Written in 1887 or 1888, to words contributed by the Ives family and his uncle Lyman Brewster, it commemorates the burial of the family cat. Ives noted long after on the manuscript that Harmony found it in the cellar on 16 May 1921, to which fact it undoubtedly owed its publication the following year. The music is based on the ‘Dead March’ from Handel’s
Saul.
from notes by Calum MacDonald © 2008
