# Sousa: Threat or menace?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Do you like Sousa marches? Which ones? Which recordings?

Or do you detest this jingoistic trash? Expand, please!

Either way, let us know.


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Sousaphone is the best cell phone I ever used.

So a threat to Verizon as far as I heard in the grapevine.


----------



## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I wouldn't call them jingoistic trash, I just think they become tiresome after the first minute.

I do like Sousa's C-minor Mass. 

Edit: oh wait, that's Mozart.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GreenMamba said:


> I wouldn't call them jingoistic trash, I just think they become tiresome after the first minute.
> 
> I do like Sousa's C-minor Mass.
> 
> Edit: oh wait, that's Mozart.


No, you're thinking of the _Requiem_ completed by Sousamayr. It's an understandable mistake. Mozart died just before setting the Semper Fidelis Dei.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I've read that when Beethoven had to write a new finale to his Op. 130 quartet, he considered something based on "The High School Cadets." Unfortunately, he thought the better of it.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

They are OK here and there but as with Strauss waltzes their more formulaic aspects mitigate against my listening to them on anything more than a very occasional basis (i.e. hardly ever) - you dance to Strauss and march to Sousa and that's presumably what they were written for and how they are best appreciated.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> They are OK here and there but as with Strauss waltzes their more formulaic aspects mitigate against my listening to them on anything more than a very occasional basis (i.e. hardly ever) - you dance to Strauss and march to Sousa and that's presumably what they were written for and how they are best appreciated.


A sensible perspective, with which I concur.

I never waltz or march, but occasionally I find it pleasant to imagine myself among the graceful swirling gowns and glittering chandeliers of a Viennese ballroom and relax to some Strauss. Sousa is another matter; I haven't been able to imagine myself marching since the 1960s, when I was compelled to affix my chapped lips to a frozen trombone mouthpiece while goosestepping around a football field, trying to remember where to put the slide for the low f-sharp, and trying not to turn left while the rest of my high school band turned right in hopefully geometric formations almost certainly invisible from the bleachers where no one except band parents watched us anyway. I always hoped they weren't listening either.

I never seem to want to hear Sousa.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

An occasional, doubting Mahleresque march, or a Turkish one, implying palatial existence, colourful festivities plus a sunny climate, will do for me. 
No militaristic Sousa, Fucik or Strauss for me, please.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

joen_cph said:


> An occasional, doubting Mahleresque march, or a Turkish one, implying palatial existence, colourful festivities plus a sunny climate, will do for me.
> No militaristic Sousa, *Fucik* or Strauss for me, please.


Who the ... is that?


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

"The Bohemian Sousa", a Czech composer of marches & proud moustache-owner









http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Fučík_(composer)


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

You can talk about your Strauss, you can talk about your Fucik...but what about your Bagley?


----------



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

The oldest record I own... a pristine copy from 1903. I play it every 4th of July on my Victrola!
http://www.vintageip.com/xfers/libertybellmarch.mp3

Unfortunately, Sousa himself was never recorded. He considered phonograph records to be "canned music" and wrote scathing editorials in newspapers on the subject. Victor released records as being by "Sousa's Band" but the concert master was conducting in JPS's absence.


----------



## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Best remembered in the UK as the man who wrote the theme for Monty Python. also known as the Liberty Bell.


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Taggart said:


> Best remembered in the UK as the man who wrote the theme for Monty Python. also known as the Liberty Bell.


This is part of the reason why I've never seen these military marches as jingoistic.
I _should_: after all, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance is associated in my mind with the flag-waving at the Proms, which immediately brings out my inner (Irish) republican.
But Sousa makes me think of Monty Python, _Colonel Bogey_ makes me think of Hitler and his testicular issues, and the _Radetzky March_ conjures up the pleasing image of posh people with pokers up their behinds clapping along delightedly as if this is literally the most fun they've ever had.


----------



## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

I don't think its 'trash' but I would not be unhappy if I never heard any of them again. 

But, if some people like them (and don't impose them on my ears) then fair enough!


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

More menace than threat. Well, no threat at all to me. To bugs maybe, because the specified instruments include insectivores.


----------



## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

...prefer sousaphone speakers.


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Well, here you guys go.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Albert7 said:


> Well, here you guys go.


Looks like a young John Daly - no wonder he hit the sauce.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Washington Post Two-Step*



elgars ghost said:


> They are OK here and there but as with Strauss waltzes their more formulaic aspects mitigate against my listening to them on anything more than a very occasional basis (i.e. hardly ever) - you dance to Strauss and march to Sousa and that's presumably what they were written for and how they are best appreciated.


Actually people used to dance to Sousa marches and the band frequently performed at balls. The dance was called the Washington Post Two-Step:


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

He was a product of his time. Late 19th Century was filled with a sense of swelling pride and importance and strength, and also thought of themselves as a civilizing force (in the Phillipines and other plaes). Theodore Roosevelt was undoubtedly a great man but it is painful now to read some of his writings. Sousa sprang from the same milieu, but there is no denying that some of his marches are just irrestible...for me, anyway.


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Okay I do like the sousaphone for jazz.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I contend that Sousa was a man whose musical genius was limited to a small genre, but within that realm he was boundless. If the mark of a great composer is that his music is distinctive in sound and instantly recognizable as his own, then Sousa (like Bach, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky) qualifies as "great" -- though the aforementioned three had a greater width and depth genre-wise. I will not argue against Sousa being called "the March King"; I can think of no other composer with so many excellent march tunes to his credit. (And the parts for trombone are wonderful!)


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sousa wrote quite a few operettas. In fact, some of his marches come from those. I've heard a couple and found them a bit dull, but I'm no connoisseur of operettas!

There are few recordings of Sousa conducting his band, due to his antithapies. "These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape."


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Oooo... I just visualized a march off between Johann Strauss and Sousa... I wonder who would have won it?


----------



## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

bigshot said:


> The oldest record I own... a pristine copy from 1903. I play it every 4th of July on my Victrola!
> http://www.vintageip.com/xfers/libertybellmarch.mp3
> 
> Unfortunately, Sousa himself was never recorded. He considered phonograph records to be "canned music" and wrote scathing editorials in newspapers on the subject. Victor released records as being by "Sousa's Band" but the concert master was conducting in JPS's absence.


Yes, it's the first law of record collecting that if you find a pristine disc from 1903, it's not going to be a rare and interesting operatic, it's going to be [email protected]#dy Sousa! At least it sounds like you're having fun with yours! :lol:


----------



## Guest (Apr 23, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Sousa wrote quite a few operettas. In fact, some of his marches come from those. I've heard a couple and found them a bit dull, but I'm no connoisseur of operettas!
> 
> There are few recordings of Sousa conducting his band, due to his antithapies. "These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape."


What a great quote! If he could see what electronics has done to popular music he would know that his prediction was coming true. There are songs on the charts these days in which not a single musician has played a single note, and pitch correction software means they don't even have to be able to sing.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Sousa wrote quite a few operettas. In fact, some of his marches come from those. I've heard a couple and found them a bit dull, but I'm no connoisseur of operettas!
> 
> There are few recordings of Sousa conducting his band, due to his antithapies. "These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape."


Why haven't I thought of this? It helps explain why there are so few great opera singers now.

We don't sing any more. We listen to our infernal machines.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Sousa wrote quite a few operettas. In fact, some of his marches come from those. I've heard a couple and found them a bit dull, but I'm no connoisseur of operettas!
> 
> There are few recordings of Sousa conducting his band, due to his antithapies. "These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape."


Sousa shows his misunderstanding of evolution, considering that simply not using vocal chords would not cause the human race to lose vocal chords. There would have to be environmental pressures that selected for the elimination of vocal chords for that to happen.


----------



## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Dedalus said:


> Sousa shows his misunderstanding of evolution, considering that simply not using vocal chords would not cause the human race to lose vocal chords. There would have to be environmental pressures that selected for the elimination of vocal chords for that to happen.


I'm assuming JPS was exaggerating slightly for humorous effect...


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Both threat and menace. I can't count the number of nights I've cowered under the bed in fear of the imminent appearance of John Philip Sousa. Once I was even afraid of Clifton Webb, who played Sousa in a movie.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

GGluek said:


> Both threat and menace. I can't count the number of nights I've cowered under the bed in fear of the imminent appearance of John Philip Sousa. Once I was even afraid of Clifton Webb, who played Sousa in a movie.


So the Bandman is the Sandman's evil twin?


----------



## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

GGluek said:


> Both threat and menace. I can't count the number of nights I've cowered under the bed in fear of the imminent appearance of John Philip Sousa. Once I was even afraid of Clifton Webb, who played Sousa in a movie.


Read Webb's autobiography if you haven't already, it's hilariously bitchy. Unless you are scared of waspish wit, it shouldn't give you nightmares!


----------



## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

I like the gladiator march,the thunderer march & the stars & stripes forever with Washington post march.


----------



## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

JP Sousa's music is fine and he knew what he was doing: Director of the Marine Band, which is still a marvelous ensemble that often places its alumni in major orchestras; leader of a touring professional band; composer of popular music of the day and march literature that is still in use, etc. Go Sousa! ...and may a pox of tasteless music ever haunt his detractors


----------



## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I enjoy it as long as I'm not listening to it.


----------



## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

*ƒ*©k Sousa, meng!*


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Celloman said:


> I enjoy it as long as I'm not listening to it.


That could mean that you find his scores more impressive on the page than in performance - as some of us might find, say, a Mahler symphony.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> That could mean that you find his scores more impressive on the page than in performance - as some of us might find, say, a Mahler symphony.


Even though they've never seen the score?


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Even though they've never seen the score?


To those who can hear music with their ears, the eye can corroborate but not excuse.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> To those who can hear music with their ears, the eye can corroborate but not excuse.


Of course the ear is the final arbiter.

But are you suggesting with this complete non sequitur that some here are unable to hear music?


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> But are you suggesting with this complete non sequitur that some here are unable to hear music?


Oh, no - though it's possible, I guess.

Actually I was just making an adroit enharmonic modulation. A predictable cadence at that point in the development would have resulted in an episodic structure and a feeling of stasis, thereby dissipating the tension, weakening the power of the recapitulation, and rendering further movements superfluous.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

From another post that I submitted about Sousa

"...I am not a fan of Sousa, but he is the one who established the instrumentation of the modern concert band. The problem with Sousa is that his marches are badly performed. The published marches are heavily scored. He employed what has been called elastic scoring techniques (Granger also did this). Playing the marches as written worked when the band was marching. However, conductors were expected to alter what parts the musicians play when the band played in a concert hall. Most high school and under trained college band directors where unaware of this practice and most of the performances were louder and more bombastic than Sousa intended. Kieth (sic) Brion, a noted Sousa scholar, is in the process of issuing a fine series of the complete works of Sousa on the Naxos label which incorporate the way Sousa actually performed his music. I have performed some marches that have been edited by Dr. Brion and they are much lighter and very sophisticated."

Source: http://www.talkclassical.com/29855-favorite-wind-band-works.html#post581515

Since I had submitted this post in January, 2014, I have had the opportunity to play some of Sousa's marches in editions that have been prepared by Frederick Fennell and Dr. Keith Brion. I now consider Sousa to be a better composer than I once thought he was.


----------



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Actually I was just making an adroit enharmonic modulation. A predictable cadence at that point in the development would have resulted in an episodic structure and a feeling of stasis, thereby dissipating the tension, weakening the power of the recapitulation, and rendering further movements superfluous.


Wonderful obfuscation! I salute your bullshitatude.


----------



## Guest (Apr 27, 2015)

Here's an article for you Arpeggio and KenOc (and other fans of Sousa and Monty Python ...)
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/jul/11/monty-python-and-classical-music


----------



## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

I've enjoyed Sousa's marches ever since Clifton Webb starred as John Philip in the 1952 motion picture, "Stars and Stripes Forever". RCA LSC-2569, issued on long play vinyl in 1961, is still my all time favorite recording, and contains the majority of his most famous marches. All are led by Morton Gould and his symphonic band. Those I enjoy most: The Washington Post, Semper Fidelis, El Capitan, King Cotton(not included in the album) and Hands Across the Sea.


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Do you like Sousa marches? Which ones? Which recordings?


I like Sousa....he wrote some very fine marches....nationalistic, militaristic, no doubt....but that's the genre...

Fennell/Eastman wind Ensemble recordings are consistently fine, and they recorded a whole slew of them....I also enjoy a Czech recording I have old Nonesuch release - Urbanec/Czech Brass Orch....another excellent release never made it to CD - Gunther Schuller/Columbia All-Star Band - American march Favorites - released for the Bicentennial of 1976 - all high-powered NY orchestra and free-lancers in a great pick-up group.

"Stars and Stripes...." is not my favorite, and it gets overplayed, for sure...I like Gallant 7th, High School Cadets, King Cotton, Bullets/Bayonets, Rifle Regiment, Solid Men to the Front - also the 6/8 ones are good - Black Horse Troop, Riders for the Flag, etc...some of the early ones are really excellent, too - Semper Fideles, The Thunderer....


----------



## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Some years ago I was chatting with a friend of my mother's who mentioned she was writing her PhD thesis on Sousa's marches. She said that she was basing much of her analyses on Sousa's recordings of his own marches. Trying to show off a bit of my own knowledge I said something like, "Of course you know that Sousa hated recording and so almost all of the recordings attributed to him were actually conducted by his assistant". When she paled visibly (with maybe a tinge of green) I realized I had made a terrible faux pas. To help salvage the situation I stammered that the recordings were still made under Sousa's close supervision and so accurately documented Sousa's style, without the faintest idea if what I was saying was true. I never discussed the matter with her again and vowed to stop being such a smartass with people I barely know.

For years I thought my favorite Sousa march was Valdres, included in several Sousa collection recordings. This was until I discovered in the credits that it was not composed by Sousa. Perhaps it was my favorite Sousa march because he didn't write it. Nevertheless, my favorite Sousa collection is by the Norwegian Military Band on a 1959 Camden LP. It includes Valdres.


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

​I love this one, good sound and the music makes me happy.


----------



## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> No, you're thinking of the _Requiem_ completed by Sousamayr. It's an understandable mistake. Mozart died just before setting the Semper Fidelis Dei.


Isn't there a Supreme Court Justice named Sousamayr? I have all her albums.


----------



## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

Scopitone said:


> Isn't there a Supreme Court Justice named Sousamayr? I have all her albums.


if you're kidding, you know her name is Sotomayor.


----------

