Klarinet Archive - Posting 000255.txt from 1994/04

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: L. W. Wayne Shell asks about music sources
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 12:07:12 -0400

Re Sousa's "Dwellers of the Western World" written in 1910 and having
three movements, (1) The Red Man, (2) The White Man, (3) The Black
Man, it seems to me that I have played this but I cannot be sure.
However, the purpose of my answer is not to woolgather but to give you
specific information.

The work was published on three separate occasions. Church published
two movements of it (Red Man, Black Man) in 1910 and in 1921.
The complete suite of all three movements was published in 1911 and
again in 1939, also by Church. And then an orchestral version was
published in 1916 and again in 1944. It has not been published since.

The Library of Congress has it along with their rather extensive
Sousa archives. Keith Brion, who lives in Connecticut, also has
a complete set of parts and score. Brion does a Sousa thing with
orchestras and he has his own band called, "The New Sousa Band." I
may have played it with them since I am the b.c. for that group.

I should mention that the work bears racist overtones. The titles
of the three movements of the suite reflect the order in which the
three races supposedly came to inhabit the Western World. It was
written just before Sousa's 1910 world tour and the music is
descriptive of what Sousa perceived to be the best in the
characteristic music of each of the three peoples. Sousa thought
in racial terms here expressing what he believed to be racial
characteristics in music. As a grand finale, the work ends with
"The Messiah of Nations" incorporated into "The White Man."

I am not suggesting that Sousa was a racist, only that he had the
same naive view of race that most of white America had at that time;
i.e., it took the white man to make a viable civilization. As a
completely different issue, I mention that there is a considerable
amount of music from this epoch who blatant racist titles make it
impossible to even consider playing the works which bear those titles.
Fillmore in particular, in works such as "Lassus Trombone" wrote
musical portraits of what he saw as negro buffoons. Some pleasant music,
to be sure, but with blindingly ugly racist titles.

Regarding the Mozart Figaro octet in the arrangement by Giovanni
Wendt (sometimes spelled Went), it was last published by Musica
Rara in the 1960s and as far as I know, is still available from
them, though at an outrageous price. It is not (in my very
humble opinion) a good arrangement.

I do not know anything of the "Arias for Winds" that you mentioned.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================