Sousa: Music for Wind Band, Vol. 2 (Incls 'King Cotton' & 'the Royal Welch Fusiliers')

"Bottom line: wonderful music, wonderfully presented - and at a bargain price. Naxos' 'American Classics' series deserves to become a classic itself."
- infodad.com

"The Royal Artillery Band, a top-notch British band with hundreds of years of history behind it, plays with a soft attack that conceals a lot of muscle. I liked this release so much that I hastened to acquire on my own Volume 1. Both are recommended as worthy additions to any Sousa collection."
- James Camner, Fanfare May/June 2002

John Philip Sousa personified turn-of-the-century America, the comparative innocence and brash energy of a still new nation. His ever-touring band represented America across the globe and brought music to hundreds of American towns. John Philip Sousa, born on 6th November, 1854, reached this exalted position with startling quickness. In 1880, at the age of 26, he became conductor of the U.S. Marine Band. In twelve years the vastly improved ensemble won high renown and Sousa's compositions earned him the title of "The March King." Sousa went one better with the formation of his own band in 1892, bringing world acclaim.

In its first seven years the band gave 3500 concerts; in an era of train and ship travel it logged over a million miles in nearly four decades. There were European tours in 1900, 1901, 1903, and 1905, and a world tour in 1910-11, the zenith of the band era. The unprecedented popularity of the Sousa Band came at a time when few American orchestras existed. From the Civil War to about 1920, band concerts were the most important aspect of American musical life. No finer band than Sousa's was ever heard. He modified the brass band by decreasing the number of brass and percussion instruments, increasing its woodwinds, and adding a harp. His conducting genius attracted the finest musicians, enabling him to build an ensemble capable of executing programmes almost as varied as those of a symphony orchestra. The Sousa Band became the standard by which American bands were measured, causing a dramatic upgrading in quality nationally.

Sousa's compositions also spread his fame. Such marches as The Stars and Stripes Forever, El Capitan, Washington Post, and Semper Fidelis are universally acknowledged as the best of the genre. Sousa said a march "should make a man with a wooden leg step out," and his surely did. Although he standardised the march form as it is known today, he was no mere maker of marches, but an exceptionally inventive composer of over two hundred works, including symphonic poems, suites, operas and operettas. His principles of instrumentation and tonal colour influenced many classical composers, while his robust, patriotic operettas of the 1890s helped introduce a truly native musical attitude in American theatre. The library of Sousa's Band contained over ten thousand titles. Among them are the numerous band compositions of Sousa including the marches and many other compositions; as well as the countless classical and popular works of other composers who he presented in his forty years of touring. The present series seeks to record these for the world to hear.