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chapter nine Theater on the Bandstand John Philip Sousa’s music is today almost unavoidable as it travels across the American soundscape, appearing on concert programs, at sporting events, during patriotic celebrations, in films, and in advertisements. For the modern listener this Sousa is all and only the March King, a view that, at least in part, is in keeping with the historical record. After their success at Manhattan Beach in the summer of 1893, Sousa and his ensemble settled into a comfortable routine of tours and residencies. Along the way, the director’s own marches always served as an important part of the draw: a new march was featured virtually every season, and well-known favorites peppered concert programs as encores. This celebrity entertainer may have been best known as a march composer , but the Sousa examined in these pages—the one active in the 1870s and 1880s—saw himself primarily as a theater musician. He was, after all, trained in the pit, his earliest professional experiences were with traveling theater companies, and during his twelve years as leader of the United States Marine Band, Sousa continued to search for success on the operetta stage. Even as his reputation as a bandleader overtook his work in the theater, his musical outlook remained thoroughly dramatic. During the early 1890s his concerts often included new storytelling pieces such as “The Chariot Race,” “Sheridan’s Ride,” and The Last Days of Pompeii. Such efforts at program music did not cease as Sousa’s fame spread. While traveling the country, and eventually the world, the Sousa Band often presented audiences with descriptive works such as Dwellers of the Western World (1910), Tales of a Traveler (1911), and Impressions at the Movies (1915). Sousa, meanwhile, continued his quest for an operatic success with El Capitan (1895), The Bride Elect (1897), The Charlatan (1898), Chris and the Wonderful Lamp (1899), and The American Maid (1909). Nine. Theater on the Bandstand 227 These two Sousas, the March King and the theatrical musician, are not as different as they might first appear. Critics often noted that there was something overtly dramatic about this musical entertainer. The Seattle Post Intelligencer wrote: “A concert by Sousa’s band is more than a mere concert— it is a dramatic performance, a stirring lesson in patriotism, and a popular musical event, all on the same program.” At least one of Sousa’s artistic contemporaries noted that the March King himself was a theatrical creation: in the mid-1890s the American stage actor Otis Skinner told a reporter, “Sousa is away ahead of us all. Watch him in his exquisite art of dress, his make-up, his fascinating stage manner, his abandon to the character of the music his band plays and his magnetic capture of his audience. Of course, his band is the greatest on earth and that has something to do with it, but Sousa is the best actor America ever produced.”1 Sousa was an actor in the same way many modern pop icons are actors , and it was through the character of the March King that the bandsman and the theatrical musician were reconciled. At the heart of this character stood the Sousa march. These three-minute works became theatrical delights when performed under the composer’s baton, and every element of the Sousa march—from its initial announcement to its appearance in concerts and in middle-class parlors—converged to create the dramatic persona recognized not only by Otis Skinner but by audiences across America. The Materials of a March Sousa followed a multistep process when composing. He would first sketch out melodic ideas, usually in pencil, and these were often signed and dated. His most famous bass drum player, August Helmecke, later explained that because of the band’s almost constant touring, such sketching often occurred in haste: “In odd moments on trains, in hotel rooms, or shipboard he’d simply jot down his immortal themes, hand them over to the band copyist, and then snap right into action on them.”2 This snapping into action meant drafting two piano versions of the march. The first (in pencil) was used to create a full band score. From this score two sets of hand-copied parts were then extracted. One was sent, along with the second copy of the holograph piano version (usually in ink), to the publisher. The other was used by the Sousa Band to premiere the new march and play it on tour until...

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