166 PART 2 | FROM THE CIVIL WAR THROUGH WORLD WAR I
hundred, a band of one thousand, a chorus of ten thousand, and many famous
soloists. Over a fi ve-day span, an ambitious program of concerts took place,
including symphonic music, oratorio excerpts, band music, and the singing
of schoolchildren. The program for one of the concerts reveals that, for all his
emphasis on gargantuan effects, Gilmore took care to vary his selections. The
concert began with a huge orchestra featuring some four dozen trumpeters on
the solo part of a French operatic overture. A choral hymn followed, and then a
newly composed march for band and orchestra combined. Next came a soprano
aria, providing a contrast so that the following number—Verdi’s “Anvil” Chorus,
with a hundred Boston fi refi ghters pounding real anvils—could roar forth in all
its splendor. Gilmore then relied on the patriotic familiarity of “Hail Columbia”
for a fi nale.
The National Peace Jubilee of 1869 testifi es to the wind band’s prominent
place in American life. For it was a bandleader who conceived and organized
this event, an artistic and fi nancial success for which an entire region pooled its
musical resources. W hile the sheer number of musicians involved was remark-
able, so was the participation of all manner of music makers: European-born
conductors, solo singers and players, church musicians, whole choirs, public
school teachers, orchestra players, bandsmen, and children—not to mention the
Boston Fire Department. Gilmore, the only musician in Boston with ties to such
a wide community, was the catalyst that made the enterprise work.JOHN PHILIP SOUSA
Until his death in 1892, Gilmore led one of the fi rst professional wind bands in the
United States. And in 1892 John Philip Sousa formed the band that set the profes-
sional standard from that time forward. Sousa is a key fi gure in American music
history. As a prolifi c composer for the stage and concert hall, he put his stamp on a
well-known popular form: the march. As a conductor, he thrilled audiences with
a blend of showmanship and polished performance. W hen Sousa arrived on the
scene, the wind band was already a leading provider of music to the public, but by
the time his performing career ended in 1931, the professional band was a thing of
the past, and an amateur reincarnation—the school band—had begun to fl ourish.
Born in 1854 in Washington, D.C., the son of a U.S. Marine Band member, Sousa
began playing violin as a boy. He studied in a local conservatory of music and at age
fourteen entered the Marine Band’s apprenticeship program. Discharged from
the Marine Corps in 1875, he settled in Philadelphia, played in theater orchestras,
developed his conducting skills, and returned to Washington in 1880, at the age
of twenty-fi ve, as leader of the Marine Band. During his dozen years in that post,
Sousa also composed prolifi cally, especially marches and operettas, the lighter
cousins to grand opera. In 1892 he moved to New York and formed his own band,
which at fi rst contained forty-six members, including some who left Gilmore’s
band when the leader died. By the 1920s Sousa’s band numbered about seventy.
Sousa and his men proved a popular draw at fairs and expositions, settling
in for weeks at a time. The band also spent half the year or more touring North
America by rail. European trips were organized in the early 1900s, and a world
tour in 1910–11. With concerts seven days a week and usually twice a day, Sousa’s
tours were not for the faint of lip. During one week-long swing through southern
Michigan in 1913, the band played fourteen concerts in twelve cities.K John Philip Sousa
(18 5 4 –1932)172028_07_162-182_r3_ko.indd 166 23/01/13 10:19 AM