Photo of the Day: Water Magic

Three weeks ago, on my visit to Longwood Gardens in the Brandywine Valley, I heard a blast of joyous music at 3 pm. I hurried to the source of the sound, the open-air theater in that onetime du Pont country estate.

The music was “Stars and Stripes Forever,” except that, instead of the spectacular fireworks associated with that Fourth of July perennial, visitors here were treated to an equally dazzling water display.

A little later that afternoon, I learned, from an exhibit at the Peirce-du Pont House on the grounds, why that particular piece of music was so appropriate. The composer of that patriotic march, John Philip Sousa, was a friend of Longwood owner Pierre du Pont, and an occasional visitor to these majestic surroundings.

This Day in Pop Music History (Sousa, ‘America’s March King,’ Dies)

March 6, 1932—He is associated indelibly with the Fourth of July, when his “Stars and Stripes Forever” blares joyfully from virtually every pop-music orchestra hall and village bandshell. But John Philip Sousa passed away in late winter at age 77 in Reading, Penn.

Leading the United States Marine Corps Band for a dozen years, Sousa molded a musical unit that matched its larger military organization in precision and pride. He then led a band of his own named after him, composing more than 130 marches alone, not to mention a variety of other genres. So heavily associated was he with the march that he became known as “America’s March King.”

North and South, East and West, Sousa’s oeuvre (which also included "The Washington Post March" and "Semper Fidelis," the official march of the Marine Corps) formed a central part of musical Americana. In the era between the Civil War and the Great Depression, the United States badly needed a force that could overcome divisions bred by class and race. Sousa provided the musical harmony that made citizens forget what had so recently drawn them apart.

Contemporary nativists ought to consider this the next time Sousa’s music makes their hearts move faster (as it inevitably does): this maestro so associated with Americana was the son of immigrants (his father was born in Spain of Portuguese parents, while his mother was Bavarian).

In a 2008 column for the Wall Street Journal, “Sousa as Storyteller,” critic/biographer Terry Teachout discussed the brisk, no-nonsense writing style of Sousa. That’s right: not just composing style, but writing style: 138 newspaper and magazine articles, dozens of song lyrics, three full-length novels and an autobiography, Marching Along: Recollections of Men, Women and Music (1928).

Quite an active creative life, if you ask me.

Incidentally, a film of Sousa's life was released in 1952, starring Clifton Webb, best known as the waspish, prissy critic Waldo Lydecker of Laura. I can't imagine that the actor had much in common with his subject.