Funeral March of a Marionette
Arranged by Dan Augustine
In 1872 Charles Gounod decided to write a piano suite of burlesque pieces, but this Funeral March is as far as he got; he had it published as a solitary piece and moved on. He could not have known what a huge popular audience it would reach one day, when it was chosen to introduce "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", which ran on American TV for many years in the 1950s and 60s. (Hitchcock had remembered the effect the music had had on him when it was used for a silent film in the 20s.) Thus a nursery piece became the signature tune of suspense!
Dan Augustine is a tuba player living in Austin, Texas. He has published a number of pieces for tuba, tuba ensemble, brass quintet, and brass band. In 1979 he received his Ph.D. in music theory from the University of Texas at Austin, and now plays in a brass band, concert band, two polka bands, three dixieland bands, a banjo club, and a brass quintet and substitutes for tuba players in symphony orchestras.