A COPY OF ‘THE PERSIAN MARCH’ SHEET MUSIC FOLIO BY W. SMALLWOOD
London, England, late 19th century (1873 or later)

A COPY OF ‘THE PERSIAN MARCH’ SHEET MUSIC FOLIO BY W. SMALLWOOD
London, England, late 19th century (1873 or later)

Printed sheet music on paper, 4ff. including the coloured frontispiece, each folio with five staves, the frontispiece with a coloured portrait of Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848 - 1896) by H. C. Maguire, titled THE PERSIAN MARCH, COMPOSED IN HONOUR OF THE VISIT OF HIS MAJESTY NASR-ED-DEEN, ‘SHAH’ OF ‘PERSIA’, BY W. SMALLWOOD. LONDON; BREWER & CO. 23 BISHOPSGATE ST. WITHIN., 35cm x 25cm.

Marking the visit of the Persian king to the United Kingdom in 1873, Smallwood’s Persian March can be seen as an attempt to rival the better-known Strauss’ 1864 Persian March, which was played on Nasir al-Din Shah’s visit to the Vienna World Fair in 1873, when the military band could not locate the Persian national anthem. Bestowed the Order of the Garter by Queen Victoria on the 1873 trip, the king’s photograph does not, however, display the Garter medal along with his other European decorations, suggesting a pre-1873 dating.

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