Kaiser Alexander Guard Grenadier Regt No.1 Gala Dinner Music Program 1909

This is an original printed music program issued for a formal Galadiner (gala dinner) of the Kaiser Alexander Garde-Grenadier Regiment Nr. 1 (Kaiser Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1), dated January 17, 1909. The document is printed on heavy cream stock and mounted on a gilt-bordered presentation card, measuring 6 by 9 inches (approximately 15 by 23 centimeters), with an outer border of gold-toned stock forming a frame. The printer's imprint at the foot reads C. Hacker, Königl. Hoflith. Berlin W. — identifying the production house as C. Hacker, Royal Court Lithographer, Berlin West, a firm holding an imperial warrant and responsible for producing high-quality official documents and printed materials for the Prussian royal court and its associated institutions.

The document is headed with a large decorative vignette engraved in the lithographic tradition: a crowned royal arms supported by figures, rendered in fine line work consistent with the luxury printed materials produced for Guard regimental functions. Below the vignette appears the heading Musik-Programm für das Galadiner am 17. Januar 1909 — "Music Program for the Gala Dinner on January 17, 1909." The program lists thirteen musical selections in period German script, identifying each piece and its composer. The sequence opens with Der Kronprinzessinnen Marsch ("The Crown Princess March"), followed by the overture to the opera Oberon by C. M. von Weber, two Russian regimental marches — including Armeemarsch No. 123, Marsch des Russischen Grenadier-Regts. König von Preußen ("Army March No. 123, March of the Russian Grenadier Regiment King of Prussia") and Marsch des Russischen Dragoner-Regts. — a selection by Rubinstein titled Hulvrin, Richard Wagner's Kaisermarsch ("Emperor March"), a Mozartiana fantasy on Mozartian themes by Kling, a Militärmarsch by Strauß, a Zigeunerbub im Norden (Gypsy Boy in the North) by Lopan, two Oranien marches — Oranien-Friesland and Oranien-Golderland — identified as Prussian Präsentiermarsche (presentation marches), an Erinnerungs-Walzer ("Remembrance Waltz") by Waldteufel, and the concluding Hohenfriedburgr Marsch, the celebrated march composed in honor of Frederick the Great's victory at Hohenfriedberg in 1745 and one of the defining pieces of Prussian military musical tradition.

The Kaiser Alexander Garde-Grenadier Regiment Nr. 1 occupied a singular place within the Prussian Guard establishment. Quartered in Berlin and forming part of the 1st Guard Division, the regiment traced its connection to Tsar Alexander I of Russia, whose name it bore as a mark of the close dynastic and military ties between the Hohenzollern and Romanov imperial houses. The regiment's honorary colonel-in-chief was, by tradition, the reigning Russian Emperor, which explains the presence of Russian regimental marches on this program — their inclusion was not ceremonial filler but a direct expression of the regimental identity and its institutional relationship with St. Petersburg. The date of January 17, 1909, falls on the eve of January 18, the anniversary of the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles in 1871 — one of the most significant dates in the Prussian and imperial calendar — and the gala dinner was almost certainly timed in connection with that observance and the broader winter season of formal regimental and court entertainments that surrounded it.

The document shows period handling consistent with 116 years of age. Scattered brown foxing spots are visible across the paper surface, concentrated in the upper and central field, with a horizontal fold line crossing the lower third of the document where it was at some point stored folded. The printed text throughout — both the decorative heading, the regimental identification, and the full music program — remains fully legible, and the lithographic vignette retains good definition. The gilt card mount is intact with no separation at the edges. No tears, losses, or repairs are evident.

Documents of this character — formal printed programs produced by an imperial court lithographer for a specific Guard regimental function — are inherently limited in number. They were produced for a single event, distributed to officers present, and the survival rate over more than a century is low. This example offers regimental historians, collectors of Prussian Guard material, and those drawn to the culture of the Wilhelmine officer corps a tangible record of the ceremonial life of one of the empire's most distinguished infantry regiments, in the final years before the world that produced it was destroyed.