I want to get my hubby a CD featuring military symphonics, singing, and marches. He’s a WWII re-enactor, and frequents a site dealing with all aspects of that hobby where he found and downloaded the Soviet Union national anthem; he plays it several times in the evening really loud (and occasionally conducts the orchestra). Here’s the link, if you’d like to get an idea. Click on “English MP3” at the top of the lyrics (only the music is played).
http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/anthem.htm
The U.S. Marine Band has several (four, by now?) albums of J.P. Sousa music. Good stuff, if you’re so inclined.
I also have in my CD collection a Melodiya disc, "The Parade: Marches Performed by Brass Bands, which has 20 instrumental-only marches from the Soviet era. It doesn’t have an ISBN code anywhere on it, but the UPC numbers are 4 600317 005 192, and there’s also the code MEL CD 60 00519. Lots of stirring martial music on it.
I came in here to recommend these as well. Don’t tell my punk-rock friends, but I’m a sucker for a good Sousa march; these are pretty good recordings of them.
Skip the CD, get him one of those Brezhnev furry caps!
Rob Carriker’s Over There has some GREAT selections, from the Revolutionary War thru WWII. I particularly like The Battle Cry of Freedom.
The soundtrack to The Great War has a number of period recordings of WWI hits. (Like “It’s a Long Way to Tipparary,” “Pack up Your Troubles,” “Over There,” etc.)
I’d reccomend The Longest Day: Music from the Classic War Films, but there’s a good chance you already have it.
Sovmusic.ru has a LOT of commie songs, WWII vintage and otherwise, and says it offers a CD (well, CD-ROM with MP3s, at least) for sale. You can also just download the songs for free (heh. Gotta love Red economics.) I reccomend several of their tank songs, such as March of the Soviet Tankists, or my personal favorite, Across the Field Tanks Thundered
And I’m sure I could dig up a decent playlist of fascist WWII songs—Panzerlied, etc.—that he’d like, too, if you give me the time. (I’ve got the links saved around here, somewhere…)
Forgot to mention, the soundtrack album of Ken Burns’s PBS documentary The Civil War has a lot of great period music. I’m particularly fond of “Hail, Columbia,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag” and one simply called “Parade.”
The Marine Corps Band has at least one area where they permit you to copy recordings of their performances:
http://www.usmc.mil/band/m_bandcd.nsf/MorningColorsMusic?OpenView
The Marine Corps Band permits you to copy recordings of their performances:
http://www.usmc.mil/band/m_bandcd.nsf/
There are a number of marches by Sousa and others.