John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) - Marches

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)

Semper Fidelis (1888)



The Thunderer (1889)

The Liberty Bell (1893)



[Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974),
featuring John Philip Sousa's The Liberty Bell]

El Capitan (1896)



The Stars and Stripes Forever (1897)





John Philip Sousa (November 6, 1854 - March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductorknown particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition and resultant prominence, he is known as "The March King." In public he was typically referenced by his full name.

Sousa was born in Washington, D.C., to John António de Sousa and Maria Elisabeth Trinkhaus.

His parents were of Portuguese, Spanish and Bavarian (German) descent; his grandparents were Portuguese refugees.

Sousa started his music education, playing the violin, as a pupil of John Esputa, and of G. F. Benkert for harmony and musical composition at the age of six, when he was found to have absolute pitch. At 13, his father, a trombonist in the Marine Band, enlisted his son in the United States Marine Corps as an apprentice. Sousa served his apprenticeship for seven years, until 1875, and apparently learned to play all the wind instruments while honing his skills on the violin.

On December 30, 1879, he married Jane van Middlesworth Bellis. They had three children: John Philip Sousa, Jr (1 April 1881 - 18 May 1937), Jane Priscilla (7 Aug 1882 - 28 Oct 1958), and Helen (21 Jan 1887 - 14 Oct 197d5). All three are buried in the John Philip Sousa plot in the Congressional cemetery.

Several years later, Sousa left his apprenticeship to join a theatrical (pit) orchestra where he learned to conduct. He returned to the U.S. Marine Band as its head in 1880, and remained as its conductor until 1892.



Sousa organized his own band the year he left the Marine Band. The Sousa Band toured 1892-1931, performing 15,623 concerts. In 1900, his band represented the United States at the Paris Exposition before touring Europe. In Paris, the Sousa Band marched through the streets including the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe – one of only eight parades the band marched in over its forty years.

Sousa repeatedly refused to conduct on the radio, fearing a lack of personal contact with the audience. He was finally persuaded to do so in 1929 and became a smash hit.

Sousa lived in Sands Point, New York, and died on March 6, 1932, in a room at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel in Reading, Pennsylvania.

[8858 Puccini / 8854 Sousa / 8854 Janacek]

Leos Janacek (1854-1928)

Leos Janacek (1854-1928)

Sinfonietta (1926)

I. Allegretto





IV. Allegretto





Leoš Janáček (July 3, 1854 – August 12, 1928), was a Czech composer. He was inspired by Czech, Moravian and all Slavic folk music and on these roots created his original style. His most celebrated compositons include the symphonic poem Sinfonietta, the oratorial Glagolitic Mass, the rhapsody Taras Bulba, the instrumental cycle Lachian Dances, and his string quartets and operas.

Janáček was born in Hukvaldy, Moravia, (then part of the Austrian Empire), the son of a schoolmaster. In 1865 he enrolled as a ward of the foundation of the Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno, where he took part in choral singing and occasionally played the organ. In 1874 went to Prague to study music at Prague organ school and made a living as a music teacher. He also conducted various amateur choirs.

From October 1879 to February 1880 he studied piano, organ, and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory; among his teachers there were Oskar Paul and Leo Grill. From April to June 1880 he studied composition at the Vienna Conservatory with Franz Krenn.

In 1881 he returned to Brno, where he married Zdenka Schulzová. He was appointed director of the organ school, a post he held until 1919, when the organ school became the Brno Conservatory. In 1888 he attended the performance in Prague of Tchaikovsky’s music, and he met the older composer personally. At that time he also started a systematic study and collection of folk songs, dances and music. In 1903 his daughter Olga died.

In 1916 he started a long professional and personal relationship with theatre critic, dramatist and translator Max Brod. When Jenůfa was performed in Prague in 1916 it was a great success, and brought Janáček his first acclaim; he was 62. A year later he met Kamila Stösslová, a young married woman who was an inspiration to him for the remaining years of his life, and with whom he conducted an obsessive correspondence – passionate on his side at least. In 1924, the year of his 70th birthday, the first biography of Janáček was published by Max Brod. In 1925 he retired.

In 1926 Janáček travelled to England, The Netherlands and Germany. In August 1928, along with Kamila Stösslová and her son Otta, he made an excursion to Štramberk. Soon after this Janáček became ill, and died in the sanatorium of Dr. L. Klein in Ostrava. He is buried at the Central Cemetery in Brno.

[8854 Sousa / 8854 Janacek / 8844 Rimsky-Korsakov]