Dudley Buck’s Concert Variations on “The Star-Spangled Banner”: A Triumphant Showpiece for Organ
In 1814, after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor, Francis Scott Key penned the famous words that would become the American National Anthem. At the end of the battle, the 15 stars and stripes of the young nation’s flag continued to fly defiantly above the Fort, forming the poem’s defining image. Composed in 1866, a year after the end of the American Civil War, Dudley Buck’s Concert Variations …