Brass Band

Colditz March

by Robert Farnon

Grade 3 | 4 Mins

This powerful and elegant march is an extended concert version of the theme tune to the 1970s BBC TV drama ‘Colditz’. 

This grim and claustrophobic drama chronicles the lives of the prisoners in Colditz Castle, Germany, from the arrival of the first British prisoners after Dunkirk until the liberation of the castle by the US troops in 1945. Colditz was a ‘special’ camp, designed by the Nazis to hold high-risk and politically important prisoners. 

Composer Robert Farnon (1917–2005) was considered one of the greatest arrangers of his generation. Born in Toronto, he was commissioned as a captain in the Canadian Army and became the conductor/arranger of the Canadian Band of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force sent overseas during World War II, which was the Canadian equivalent of the American Band of the SHAEF led by Major Glenn Miller.