ABSTRACT
The US Civil War contained Union and Confederate repertoires as well as music heard in both the North and South. After 1865, however, a repertoire of Civil War musical memorials emerged. Composers and performers have contributed to this repertoire for more than 150 years. While public statues and plaques have shaped American commemoration of the Civil War, this chapter argues that musical monuments provide a key aural contribution to what citizens remember (and forget) about the war. Moreover, Civil War memorial music is a rich and continuous soundtrack to American life that requires us to consider how it has shaped national identity. This chapter moves from a case study of Stuart Folse’s Sculpted Reminiscences, which demonstrates factors ripe for analysis in a memorial composition, through a series of observations in opera, musical theater, symphonies, art songs, popular songs, folk albums, and soundtracks, including the work of The Band, Richard Danielpour, Michael Daugherty, Electric Six, Bob Gibson, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Paul Hindemith, Charles Ives, Jay Unger, Jacob Weinberg, and others.
