CHAPTER 7 | BAND MUSIC AFTER THE CIVIL WAR 167
Boasting shiny instruments and dressed in military-style uni-
forms, Sousa’s men projected a spit-and-polish demeanor and played
as if they were a single, well-tuned instrument. In concerts, Sousa liked
to begin with a classical work such as an overture. When the number
ended and applause began, rather than leaving the stage, he would
turn back to the musicians, call out the name of the fi rst encore—
perhaps a popular song arrangement or a Sousa march—and give the
downbeat before the applause had died away. That encore might be
followed by another; or Sousa might move on to the next number
printed in the program. Not knowing what music to expect, the audi-
ence was kept in a state of anticipation. And so were the players.
The second scheduled number typically featured an instru-
mental soloist. Next came another ensemble piece, such as a suite
by Sousa—perhaps his 1910 work Dwellers of the Western World, whose
three movements are titled “The Red Man,” “The W hite Man,”
and “The Black Man.” A vocal selection usually followed, sung by
the band’s soprano soloist, and a rousing instrumental number
completed the fi rst half. Except for the last, all these selections
were encored. The second half continued in a similar vein. From a
variety of music—classical and popular, vocal and instrumental,
soft and loud, solo and ensemble—Sousa the conductor wove collages of sound on
the spot, responding to the occasion and the atmosphere in the hall.
Spontaneity and showmanship aside, Sousa’s band had the skill to play classi-
cal works originally written for orchestra. Sousa liked to say that as well as enter-
taining audiences, he hoped to educate them. Richard Wagner, whom Sousa
once called “the Shakespeare of music,” was a particular favorite; the band also
played Sousa’s arrangements of Edvard Grieg and Richard Strauss, not to men-
tion older works like Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
Although Sousa made no attempt to hide his distaste for ragtime dance (see
chapter 10), he was willing to include ragtime music in his concerts. Audiences
seemed to love ragtime, and Sousa believed that his band’s performances raised
the music above lower-class origins. The concept of “high” and “low” musical val-
ues was embraced by many musicians and critics of that day, including Sousa. In
1899 he likened a syncopated tune to a low-born woman made respectable by the
band’s attentions. “I have washed its face, put a clean dress on it, put a frill around
its neck,” Sousa wrote. “It is now an attractive thing, entirely different from the
frowzly-headed thing of the gutter.”
Sousa’s best-known compositions are his marches. Like dance music, the
march is music for the movement of human bodies, and like most popular dance
music it features a steady beat, regular phrase structure, and repeated sections.
For Sousa, however, the beat of his marches was not just steady; it was “mili-
tary.” Growing up in the nation’s capital, Sousa was six years old when the Civil
War began. He spent his youth and young manhood connected with the Marine
Band, which his father served and he himself would conduct. His capturing of
a martial tone in marches like “The Gladiator” and “The Gallant Seventh” sum-
moned others to celebrate America’s fi ghting spirit, through which, he believed,
democracy had been won and would be preserved.
In all, Sousa composed 136 marches, three-quarters of which follow a stan-
dard musical form that he adopted around 1880, though he did not invent it.K Sousa’s fl amboyant
conducting made him a
favorite of cartoonists and
impressionists.Sousa’s marches172028_07_162-182_r3_ko.indd 167 23/01/13 10:19 AM