In May 1866, the village of Waterloo, NY, nestled between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, began the tradition of lowering flags, hosting a parade, and decorating the graves of the community's Civil War dead. In 1873, New York became the first state to officially recognize what was then known as Decoration Day. In 1968, more than 100 years after that first solemn holiday, the last Monday in May was designated as Memorial Day by a joint act of Congress.
At the Philharmonic, we honor the heroism of our men and women in uniform, especially those who did not come home. On this Memorial Day, we offer our deep gratitude to those who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we might all live in freedom.
Please enjoy this historic 1970 recording of Fritz Wallenberg conducting the Binghamton Symphony in American composer Charles Ives's "Decoration Day," from our Wallenberg Legacy. Ives, whose father was the youngest bandleader in the Union Army, wrote of this piece, from his New England Holidays symphony:
In the early morning the gardens and woods around the village are the meeting places of those who, with tender memories and devoted hands, gather the flowers for the Day’s Memorial. During the forenoon as the people join each other on the Green there is felt, at times, a fervency and intensity—a shadow perhaps of the fanatical harshness—reflecting old Abolitionist days. It is a day as Thoreau suggests, when there is a pervading consciousness of “Nature’s kinship with the lower order—man.”
After the Town Hall is filled with the Spring’s harvest of lilacs, daisies, and peonies, the parade is slowly formed on Main Street. First come the three Marshals on plough horses (going sideways), then the Warden and Burgesses in carriages, the Village Cornet Band, the G.A.R., two by two, the Militia (Company G), while the volunteer Fire Brigade, drawing a decorated hose-cart, with its jangling bells, brings up the rear—the inevitable swarm of small boys following. The march to Wooster Cemetery is a thing a boy never forgets. The roll of the muffled drums and Adeste Fideles answer for the dirge. A little girl on a fencepost waves to her father and wonders if he looked like that at Gettysburg.
After the last grave is decorated, Taps sounds out through the pines and hickories, while a last hymn is sung. Then the ranks are formed again, and “we all march to town” to a Yankee stimulant—Reeves’ inspiring Second Regiment Quickstep—though, to many a soldier, the sombre thoughts of the day underlie the tunes of the band. The march stops—and in the silence of the shadow of the early morning flower-song rises over the Town, and the sunset behind the West Mountain breathes its benediction upon the Day.