Klarinet Archive - Posting 000034.txt from 1998/10

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Marching band
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 15:40:32 -0400

Jennifer McKenna wrote:

<<<how else would the traditional "band" come into play without John Philip
Sousa writing marches? Marching bands were the thing at the turn of the
century, people would turn out in droves to see them.>>>

The Sousa band was not, not, not a marching band. Indeed, most Sousa
marches were not written to march to. In a typical Sousa concert, marches
were used to separate the more serious pieces--usually those insane
orchestral transcriptions with all-black pages in the clarinet parts.

The Sousa band was the finest concert ensemble of its day. The musicians in
it were the highest paid musicians in the country--equivalent to today's
rock stars. (The modern-day equivalent to Herbert Clarke isn't Wynton
Marsalis, but Eddie Van Halen.) When it broke up early in the century, the
big 5 orchestras eagerly snapped up its members, who had to take a big pay
cut switching to the orchestra(s).

kjf

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