Cat No. JM49067
Price £99.95
Composer: John Philip Sousa
Arranger: William Himes
Category: SALVATIONIST MUSIC

American Festival Series Nos 40 - 43.
This is AFS N0.41 The STARS & STRIPES FOREVER, which is part of a set of four pieces published as one journal.
The other pieces in this journal are :

No.40 - Festival Prelude "IN GOOD COMPANY" by Dudley Bright
No.41 - March - THE STARS & STRIPES FOREVER arr. Wm.Himes
N0.42 - Transcription - RIGAUDON - option Organ arr. Wm.Himes
No.43 - Meditation - THE BLESSING by Wm. Himes

Program Note:
John Philip Sousa’s most famous composition was written on Christmas Day, 1896. Sousa and his wife had been on vacation in Europe when they learned of the death of his band manager, David Blakely. While on the steamship journey home, he heard “the rhythmic beat of a band playing within my brain. It kept on ceaselessly, playing, playing, playing.
Throughout the whole tense voyage, that imaginary band continued to unfold the same themes, echoing and re-echoing the most distinct melody.” Sousa committed the notes to paper on arrival in America, where it was an immediate hit and was featured in virtually every Sousa Band program. The composer conducted it for the last time on the day he died, March 6, 1932.

Note to the Conductor:
For more than a century this march has been published in just about every conceivable form, yet I have found that most brass bands resort to performing from the concert band parts and adapting from woodwind parts (especially piccolo!) as needed. This caused me to wonder, how would Sousa orchestrate this if he were doing it specifically for brass band? Hence, this straightforward transcription with careful attention to maximizing the unique timbre and idiom of an all-brass band.