This info came from the Oklahoma page & is moved here to keep - needs to be reformatted
Concert Band is playing a piece written by the great composer, Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Schumann was a composer during the time we call the Romantic Period. His wife, Clara Weick Schumann was also a tremendous composer and pianist and actually wrote some of the pieces that were published under Robert's name! (No, he wasn't cheating - they did it that way so that her works could get published. He thought she was truly great, but back then no one paid any attention to women composers. The Schumanns idea was that this way at least her music could be heard, even if no one knew that she wrote it.)
The Soldiers' March was originally written for piano, but we are playing a band transcription of the piece (a "transcription" is a new arrangement made for a different instrument or group of instruments). The Soldiers' March is pretty short, so the arranger added a middle section from another one of Schumann's easy piano pieces; this piece has a really original name: it is called, "Song". Piano players -- three points of enrichment if you will learn either one of these pieces on piano and play it for the band! I'd love to have everyone hear the original version.
All of his life, Robert Schumann fought with depression and mental instability; he died in an insane asylum. His wife, Clara, edited many of his pieces and saw that they were published after his death.
-------------------------------------
Here is a good jumping off point for web research on Schumann: http://www.ubl.com/ubl/cards/011/5/01.html
And here is a Robert Schumann homepage with lots of links to other places including some sound files: http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~jameson/schumann.html