Sousa: Pathfinder of Panama

This is the sixth release in EMI's American Classics series, a series devoted to releasing the Company's extensive catalogue of American music of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Born in Washington DC in 1854, John Philip Sousa was enlisted by his father, a trombonist in the marine band, as an apprentice in the US Marine Corps. After years as a military bandmaster he later formed his own band. Although Sousa wrote many songs and other pieces, it is as a composer of Marches that he is known to us today and, indeed, he wrote a great many of them. Some Sousa marches are among the best known in the repertoire – who doesn't know The Stars and Stripes Forever and The Liberty Bell (the signature tune for Monty Python's Flying Circus). Here we have a generous selection of Sousa Marches played by a Great American band.

This 2 CD set presents 34 of John Philip Sousa’s best-loved marches, including The Washington Post which, in the early 1890s, sparked a huge world-wide dance-craze, The Liberty Bell, used as the signature tune for the BBC comedy Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and The Stars and Stripes Forever, the official national march of the United States.

Known affectionately as ‘The March King’, Sousa personified turn-of-the-century America, the comparative innocence and brash energy of a still new nation.

Universally acknowleged as the best of the genre, his marches are notable for their vigorous melodic line and unrelenting driving effect, combined with innovative use of instrumentation and tonal color.

The great age of the American march can be bounded by the years 1876 and 1926. This record gives a representative sampling of the American march during those halcyon years with a deliberate emphasis on some of the period's lesser-known and hard-to-find gems. While Sousa's preeminence is beyond dispute, many of his contemporaries wrote memorable marches, and that is the justification for this disc and its title. In addition, all the marches in this collection enjoyed great popularity and thus indicative of the music that would be encountered on a summer eve in many a town.