TRIBUTE TO SOUSA

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 203, 20 April 1932, Page 3

TRIBUTE TO SOUSA

DEAD, BUT LIVING CREATED NEW STANDARD FOR COMPOSERS OF BAND MUSIC CAPTAIN OF HARMONY Many an old bandsman will be just a little sad at news of John Philip Sousa's death. For Sousa, though not a conductor of the ranlung of a Verbrugghen, or a Toscanini, was for more than 50 years the world's most striking band director and march coniposer, writes F. E. Baume, in the Sydney "Daily Telegraph." And those of the public who loved to sit and listen, will remember Sousa as a master of musical strategy, a captain of harmony in brass. As a Marine handmaster in the United States more than 50 years ago (he was over 80 when he died), he was the first to break away from the tradition of the brass. He believed that a military band should contain every possible band instrument. The cymhal player was as important to him as the clarinet; the triangle expert, who would go "tingting" once every ten minutes or so, was as great in his eyes as the cham pion euphonium player whose tone was mellow as a man's rich haritone. He had tubular bells and contraraised his gem-encrusted baton, and the magnificent band played "The Star-Spangled Banner." That was 20 years ago, but I can still hear the silver-tongued trumpets scaling the steep last slopes of the anthem, rising, falling, dying, while people sang in a whisper so that the trumpet notes would persist. I can remember "Rienzi" that night, with a bass like a battery of howitzers with organ notes in their maws. .And the "Ride of the Vallcyrie," the tromhone players hreaking Wagner's dead heart by standing up in the limelight as they blared. Encore followed encore; by midnight the crowd let Sousa go. He had played all his marches, "Stars and Str:pes Forever" five times, and he smiled so happiiy! * *■ It is strange, this death that cannot kill. Sousa created for America, but bequeathed to the world six great marches, each of which set a new standard for band composers. He had not the musical fecundity of Rimmer, but he produced works in labour which surpassed the more superficial late nineteenth and early . twentieth century quicksteps.^ Each was written in a different style, yet with an indescribable birthmark of family. In "The Stars and Stripes for Ever" he experimented with trumpet fanfares and giant bass and tutti chromatics, ending with a sugarsweet yet majestic trio. In "King Cotton" he introduced almost polka-time to the U.S. regimental pace, yet I heard "King Cotton" played by the 3rd Auckland Mounted Rifles' Band sending off New Zealand troops to Gallipoli. "Liberty Bell," "High School Cadets," and "Washington Post" were other creations; and intensely patriotic was "National Emblem,' modelled 011 the German and Austrian infantry school of "Under the Double Eagle," or "Farewell of the Gladiators." Where there are bands, there will be Sousa. Possibly this coming Sunday in Sydney, there may be a performance of Sousas works, as a tribute to a great conductor, and a bandsman who lived but for his instruments.