Star Spangled Sousa! Pops Concert

Repertoire to be announced from the stage.

John Philip Sousa never spoke at his concerts, he let the music speak for its self. Nearly sixty years have passed since his death so a bit of explanation is in order.

During the 1976 bicentennial celebrations, America's musical history came of age. America has finally become at ease with composers such as Scott Joplin, Stephen Foster, Charles Ives and even brass bands. Once we believed that European culture was superior to our homegrown product. Our maturity allows us to look realistically at "the way we were." What we find is an exuberant, naive, athletic and uninhibited folk/art music, portraying a nation bursting with strength, humor, vitality and unabashed sentiment. The embodiment of these values is the music and extraordinary history of John Philip Sousa and his band.

Sousa was a superb musician, organizer, businessman, showman and writer. Known for his dry wit, he always had a twinkle in his eye, although he seldom smiled. In fact, his only documented laughter occurred at a band baseball game when one of the players bent over and split his pants.

Today we think of Sousa as a legendary composer of military marches, but in his own time he achieved renown as a composer of dance music. When the Washington Post March was written in 1889, the popularity of the waltz was already giving way to a new craze called the two-step. Dancing instructors discovered that the lilting strains of the Washington Post were perfect for this new dance. Sousa was catapulted to world-wide fame.

Beyond his popular success, Sousa's role as a performer of classical music is far less known. At the time he became conductor of the Marine Band in 1880, the only current symphony orchestra then existing was the Boston Symphony. To his musicians, a position with the Sousa Band was the pinnacle of their profession. Sousa often recruited the finest orchestral players from Europe. Judging from early recordings and contemporary accounts, the band was America's finest musical organization.

During his career, Sousa introduced millions of Americans to the "new" music of Wagner, Verdi, Richard Strauss, Resphigi and Tchaikovsky and relatively "older" masters like Rossini. Although he regarded himself as an entertainer, his influence as an educator of popular taste should not be underestimated. His career was a model and inspiration for Arthur Fiedler whose career with the Boston Pops began at the end of the Sousa era.

Sousa's compositional output was enormous -- 15 operettas, 136 marches, 11 suites, 77 songs and vocal works, 63 miscellaneous compositions, 322 known arrangements, 7 books and 132 articles. Two of his best operettas, EL CAPITAN and the FREE LANCE have enjoyed recent revivals.

The music to be performed on this evening's program is a retrospective of Sousa's 50 years of concerts, and features elements common to all of them: classical works by European composers, virtuoso instrumental solos, selections from his suites, operettas, and novelties, vocal arias sung by a lovely soprano, and of course the splendid Sousa marches.

Sousa's unprecedented success as a popular musical entertainer was based on three elements: his compositions, his musicianship and his showmanship. Through musical research and dramatic portrayal, these modern Sousa concerts seek to re-unite the man and his music. The program provides a glimpse of an age when Sousa's concerts exemplified the honest values, robust optimism and rollicking beat of a young and vital society. We hope you will enjoy it.