To commemorate the Nov. 6 birthday of world-renowned bandleader and composer John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), a new Web site dedicated to the composer of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” is now available from the Library of Congress at www.loc.gov/performingarts/.
This presentation provides access to many music manuscripts from the John Philip Sousa Collection, which is housed in the Library’s Music Division. Also online are more than 450 pieces of printed music and historic recordings of the Sousa Band. The site includes a selection of photographs and the manuscript of “Pipetown Sandy,” Sousa’s semiautobiographical novel of a boy’s adventures in Civil War-era Washington, D.C. Copies of programs and press clippings from the band’s 1919-20 North American tour press books appear courtesy of the U.S. Marine Band Library.
Although he is best known for his marches, Sousa composed a variety of music, including operettas, suites, fantasies, vocal works and dances. Born in Washington, D.C., Sousa enlisted in the U.S. Marine Band as an apprentice musician at the age of 13. After being discharged, he made his living as a violinist and conductor in various theater orchestras in Washington and Philadelphia. His renown as a composer, conductor and arranger grew, and in 1880 he was appointed leader of the U.S. Marine Band, known as “The President’s Own,” a position he held until 1892.
After leaving the Marine Band, he formed his own professional concert band, which employed some of the finest musicians of the day, including Herbert L. Clarke on cornet, Arthur Pryor on trombone and Maud Powell on violin. Known throughout the world as “The March King,” Sousa traveled with his band to entertain people around the country. He and his musicians traveled around the world as well, promoting American music everywhere they went.
Sousa died after a rehearsal of the Ringgold Band in Reading, Pa., on March 6, 1932. He was buried at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
On Dec. 11, 1987, President Ronald Reagan signed a law designating Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” as the national march of the United States. The first recording of this famous march was made in 1897 by the company of the inventor of the 78-rpm gramophone disc, Emile Berliner (whose papers are in the Library of Congress. The recording was selected for inclusion on the National Recording Registry list in 2002 (the registry’s inaugural year).
John Philip Sousa began donating his music manuscripts to the Music Division of the Library of Congress in 1914. Over the years, Sousa family members and others have presented additional Sousa-related materials to the Library. The John Philip Sousa Collection now contains approximately 10,000 items, including music and literary manuscripts, printed music, photographs and business records of the Sousa band. John Philip Sousa IV, the composer’s great-grandson, continues to enrich the collection with additional research materials.
Also housed in the Sousa Collection is “The Library of Congress March,” an unpublished work written in 1932, the year of Sousa’s death. Loras Schissel, a Music Division specialist and Sousa authority, directed his own band, The Virginia Grand Military Band, in the premiere performance of the Library’s march on May 6, 2003, as a special tribute to Library benefactor John W. Kluge, on the eve of the opening of the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress (See Information Bulletin, June 2003.) Sousa’s great-grandson attended the event.
