The prolific Herr Grobe of Wilmington, Delaware ...

Desktop clearing time. What to file and what to bin.   Some stuff has been sitting there way too long. Such as Herr Grobe ... I was lured into investigating him by a couple of very pretty music covers ...

It's getting into E T Paull country, where the rule is mostly 'the prettier the cover, the more trivial the music'. I like these covers very much better than the Paull ones ...

So I let myself be hooked into investigating. Well, Grobe came to America  from Saxony (born c 1815), 27 May 1839, described as a 'bookseller'. He got a teaching job in Wilmington and apparently ran a music shop. And he composed. Endlessly. He reminds me of Britain's Ezra Read, in his outpourings of sheet music, often tenuously linked to national events, such as  the two pieces above, patriotic moments,  buzzwords, or arrangements of other people's popular songs. At his death it was said he had published 2,000 pieces ... that was supposed to be to his credit. Quantity. I don't know about the quality, but I ha'e me doots.

Wikiplegia finds him, for heaven's sake, worthy of an entry. I wonder why. Anyway, I append an biographical note from the local press and leave it there

Oh dear, THREE thousand! Well, some of them have survived in collections and catalogues, mostly to my surprise, without illustrated covers ... I wonder how many copies they sold. It was an era where music of any kind sat on pianos alongside Mozart, Beethoven or ... Ezra Read. 

Does that say 38 cents with the coloured cover and 25 cents without?

Well, I leave it to Bryan Kesselman to try some Grobe (I can no longer play, with my few remaining live fingers) and tell me what it is like. Shall I get a pleasant surprise?  I doubt it, but who knows?

Oh, Charles died 20 October 1879 of a ruptured aorta.

PS Bryan has just pointed out that the Port Royal piece is numberd 'opus 1,385' .... omigrobe! And I have just unearthed tbis example of earlyish Grobiana ... 

I see he 'Saluted' a whole stack of places. With variations. 

Prolific ....

too good an event to miss!