The US-LOC has original Sousa band parts for free download

[imperialbari]

I am on several music lists. One is a flute list from where I will quote parts of a post, which holds no personal references at all:

(Start of quote)

Instrumental parts available for Sousa marches from the Library of Congress website at

http://tinyurl.com/5w555n

Make sure to read the copyright link at

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/ ... -home.html

(End of quote)

The downloading takes some manual work, but I found it interesting to download Liberty Bell so far. I remember that march from hearing it 47 years ago, but never saw the parts until now.

From what I can deduce, the Sousa band was not a fixed entity, but changed instrumentation over the years.

This said march has a Bb bass part in bass clef, which is so high, that it must have been played on a euphonium or something similar, maybe a bass trombone. The same part also comes in treble Bb clef.

The only tuba part is marked Eb Tuba, which must be an error. The right naming would be Tuba(-s), as there are passages so low, that they are not possible on 3 valve Eb instruments. But then exactly these passages also have the octave above written in.

There is an article on Sousa by Frederick Fennel at:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.n ... fault.html

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[imperialbari]

Piccolo.jpg

Oboer.jpg

Fagotter.jpg

From the samples I have seen so far the specialty woodwinds, but not always the saxophones, are available in all versions for band, whereas they are not there in the versions for the entity of the Salonorchester (few strings, few winds, and a piano to cover for the rest). The band versions are those with the thumbnails in landscape format.

Some can afford to buy whatever they want. For music students and scholars the availability of free original material clearly different from modern adaptions is of a definite interest. And I save money as well as the process of scanning these modern parts, which I am not really interested in anyway.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[BVD Press]

This said march has a Bb bass part in bass clef, which is so high, that it must have been played on a euphonium or something similar, maybe a bass trombone. The same part also comes in treble Bb clef.

The only tuba part is marked Eb Tuba, which must be an error. The right naming would be Tuba(-s), as there are passages so low, that they are not possible on 3 valve Eb instruments. But then exactly these passages also have the octave above written in.

Each summer I perform in a Civil War Brass Band on authentic instruments. Sousa was familiar with this type of ensemble and even composed a suite of hymns which still remains unpublished. It is a kind of a neat piece and is available from the U of Illinois SABRE Library:

http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/r-rosas/souscoll.htm

For the Civil War Band, there are Bb and Eb Tubas. The Bb tuba is somewhere between a Tuba and a Baritone in terms of size. The CW Band also has baritones. In addition there are Eb Tubas which come with both 3 and 4 valve versions. This is why there are divisi parts in many pieces. We go down to "A" and then have to go back up...

Many parts can be referenced here:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/cwmhtml/

Although I have nothing to back this up, I am guessing Sousa might have used the CW Band music as a guide when he was composing.

As for members of the band, please reference this:

http://www.amazon.com/Incredible-Philip ... 235&sr=8-1

It lists every member of the band over the entire life of the band. It is an amazing body of work which took many decades to compile. I can proudly say a I had a slight part in creating the book. I helped transcribe interviews from various Sousa Band members. I cannot tell you many times I listened to some tapes trying to figure what the members were saying! In some places, I am not sure if I eve did figure it out.

[imperialbari]

Bryan, your posting is interesting and will be read more in depth later on.

My only remark for now is, that sousa must have been aware of the BBb basses right from the first Pepper sousaphones, which were pre-1900. If Liberty Bell is older, he might have followed the CW-era practices of instrumentation.

Klaus

[BVD Press]

My only remark for now is, that sousa must have been aware of the BBb basses right from the first Pepper sousaphones, which were pre-1900. If Liberty Bell is older, he might have followed the CW-era practices of instrumentation.

Liberty was 1894, but it is possible even if there were BBb basses that Eb Tubas were the only ones had available at the time.

If you have time, poke around the Civil War Music site. There is enough music to last a couple of lifetimes!

[imperialbari]

If you have time, poke around the Civil War Music site. There is enough music to last a couple of lifetimes!

Time hopefully will come to the CW era also. Especially about the aspect of the Bb bass being larger than the baritone/euphonium. The old British brass band scores have a Bb bass written in a staff right ABOVE the Eb bass. Geoffrey Brand assumes the intended instrument having been written for a “glorified”
(GB’s term) euphonium. To my knowledge no special fat euphonium ever existed to play this part.

I am working my way Sousa. The Stars and Stripes from 1897 and The Diplomat from 1904 both have a bass clef part for basses, where the lower lines still are doable on a 4 valve Eb bass, even if I greatly would want to do them on a BBb.

The SS has a Bb bass part which in its bass clef variant names the 3rd trombone as an alternative. The part appears to have been modified for the trombone by having the fast turn (seen in baritone and basses) removed.

Klaus

[imperialbari]

Klaus, how do you sign up for "music lists" like the one that sent this to you?

This flute list is very formal (lots of ladies like our merry van, but no bloke & gang). The Galway guy writes there in between. List lingo for him is Sir James. Good knowledge is available:

http://www.larrykrantz.com/flutelst.htm" target="_blank

I happen to be on a very friendly foot with the owners of these two horn lists, which both carry good knowledge from extremely competent pro players, teachers, and repair people:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/horn/" target="_blank

is the less active and the most polite one. The owner, David Thompson, is immensely strong in telling where to get rare music, but still he doesn’t push his own business unduly.

horn@music.memphis.edu" target="_blank

Maybe better at

http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/" target="_blank

has Hans Pizka, retired solohorn of the same Bavarian orchestra where Bob Tucci used to play. Hans writes a very crude English, which scares the merry vans, but nobody knows the horn in the orchestra like he does.

These are my more important lists.

Klaus

[iiipopes]

Klaus, thanks for the links.

Snorlax, I agree totally. I've even seen subsequent "arrangements" that only magnified the bad double scoring and a couple of probably misprints in the earlier editions to the point they are difficult to play and harsh to listen to.

I, for one, am really going to enjoy this link over time.

Another item that is forgotten, especially if you look at the "autographs" of some of the original scores, is that Sousa scored his works almost in a skeletal fashion, as if in order to be prepared to alter or rearrange parts as necessary from performance to performance depending on the actual instrumentation of a particular performance, so that "full" orchestration could be achieved regardless of the number or disposition of the players under his baton for any given performance. So there probably is no real "urtext" of actual parts.

[BVD Press]

The SS has a Bb bass part which in its bass clef variant names the 3rd trombone as an alternative. The part appears to have been modified for the trombone by having the fast turn (seen in baritone and basses) removed.

Not sure about the 3rd Bone and Baritone part, but the Tuba part with the turn is actually a modification on the original manuscript. Basically this turn was not there, but was added later. The University of Illinois has the manuscript score and the original parts. Both do not have the turn. I am not sure when or who added it, but the turns were not original to the piece at least in the tuba part.

[imperialbari]

A thread here this summer or fall dated the modification to a short period between the manuscript date and the print date. Somebody here knew enough to sound convincing in my ears. But of course I don’t remember the poster. And I am no master in searching old threads here.

Klaus

[imperialbari]

For those assuming that Sousa was manipulated by commercial editors to augment his scores with unwanted doublings it may be of interest to look at these pages for comparison:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.n ... 1024&from=" target="_blank

Identified and dated at:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.n ... 1024&from=" target="_blank

Printed parts:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.n ... n=ALLPARTS" target="_blank

Yes there are parts not matching the score nomenclatura:

The solo cornet part is the 1st cornet in the score.

The 1st cornet part is the 2nd cornet in the score.

The 2nd & 3rd cornet part equals the trumpets in the score.

The Eb cornet and Soprano sax parts are not in the score. However they equal the Solo cornet part but for the octave in certain passages, where they are an octave above the Solo cornet. Mere melody enforcement, very relevant in bands with an extended instrumentation likely to have all the background parts manned.

The bass clef trombone parts also are available in treble clef under names pointing towards the CW-era instrumentation.

Yes, the parts are commercially influenced insofar that they are prepared to cover the upcoming concert band instrumentation as well as the fading usage of CW-era instrumentation (for which Sousa had written 25 years earlier).

The material discussed here is from 1904 and the editor is John Church. What fell into my eyes was the true writing for the alto and bass clarinets compared to the corresponding parts in the 1918 Carl Fischer edition of High School Cadets, where they are written much higher.

I really haven’t the time to research Sousa in depth, as I should re-start my own arranging/writing. My work capacity is low anyway due to my eye problems, and I also want to practise some more, as that is a mighty fine workout for my asthma (not to mention the joy of it).

However I do not read from the postings on this thread that there is any Sousa research, which is in the awareness of the more interested segments of the band population. I have an idea about how a collective collection of information could be organized with common cross-platform software in a fashion allowing for a central organiser to join into a simple database to make publicly available.

If there are students out there aiming for a band director education/career that also might be a fine project. Anyway it takes some experience in analysing scores and functions of parts including full acquaintance with harmony and transposition.

Klaus

[J.c. Sherman]

Fascinating... Much to read and learn

J.c.S.