Robert Browne Hall

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For other persons named Robert Hall, see Robert Hall (disambiguation).

Robert Browne Hall (30 June 1858 – 8 June 1907) was a leading composer of marches and other music for brass bands. A principal American composer of marching music, he was born in Bowdoinham and seldom left his native state of Maine during his lifetime, dying in Portland. His music though has traveled around the world. He is particularly popular in the United Kingdom, so much so that many lovers of brass band music there mistakenly imagine that "R.B. Hall" is an English composer. His celebrated march "Death or Glory", written in 1895 and dedicated to the Tenth Regiment Band in Albany, New York, is a well-known staple of brass band concerts and competitions all over the UK.

Hall was famous during his lifetime as a particularly fine player on the cornet and served for a time as conductor of the Bangor Band. As soloist, conductor, composer and teacher, Hall is still remembered in the Pine Tree State. The last Saturday in June every year is officially Robert Browne Hall Day in the State of Maine.

Having suffered a stroke in 1902 from which he never recovered, he died in poverty as a result of nephritis five years later. His widow sold the manuscripts of many compositions. Unscrupulous publishers assembled and realized from fragments works they passed off as genuine Hall compositions. He left over a hundred marches and other compositions, including such classics as: