"The Washington Post" (often called "The Washington Post March") is a

march March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...

composed by

John Philip Sousa John Philip Sousa ( , ; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic music, Romantic era known primarily for American military March (music), marches. He is known as "The March King" or th ...

in 1889. Since then, it has remained as one of his most popular marches throughout the United States and many other countries.

History

In 1888, the recent purchasers of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' newspaper— Frank Hatton, a former

Postmaster General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. History The practice of having a government official ...

, and

Beriah Wilkins Beriah Wilkins (July 10, 1846 – June 7, 1905) was an American politician and Civil War veteran who served three terms as a U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1883 to 1889. Biography Born near Richwood, Ohio, Wilkins attended the common schoo ...

, a former Democratic congressman from Ohio—requested that Sousa, the leader of the

United States Marine Band The United States Marine Band is the premier band of the United States Marine Corps. Established by act of Congress on July 11, 1798, it is the oldest of the United States military bands and the oldest professional musical organization in the ...

, compose a march for the newspaper's essay contest awards ceremony, in conjunction with a campaign to promote the newspaper under new ownership. Sousa obliged; "The Washington Post" was introduced at a ceremony on June 15, 1889, "with President

Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia—a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a ...

in attendance" before "a huge crowd on the grounds of the

Smithsonian Museum The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, education and research centers, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trus ...

". It quickly became quite popular in both the United States and Europe as the standard musical accompaniment to the two-step, a late 19th-century

dance craze ''Dance Craze'' is a 1981 documentary film about the British Two-tone (music genre), 2 Tone music genre. The film was directed by Joe Massot, who originally wanted to do a film only about the band Madness (band), Madness, whom he met during th ...

. This led to a British journalist dubbing Sousa "The March King". Sousa is honored in ''The Washington Post'' building for his contribution to the newspaper and his country. The composition is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

in the US, as its copyright has expired, due to Sousa's death more than 70 years ago and its publication before the early 1920s. During the award ceremony the young essay-contest winners were presented with gold medals that were hand-crafted by local jewelers Galt & Bro., with each having unique designs and custom engravings.

Composition

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Music

This recognizable march is written in standard form: IAABBCCDCDC. Written in

compound duple meter In music, metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bar (music), bars and Beat (music), beats. Unlike rhythm (music), rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but ar ...

, it is suited as an accompaniment to the two-step, a new dance introduced at that time. The opening strain of the march is famous and familiar to many. Typically, the march is played at a tempo of 110 to 120 beats per minute, rarely any faster. March enthusiasts have argued that the trio sections' mellow and moving phrases are among Sousa's most musical. Six sudden eighth notes move the melody along. Its unusually calm break strain is a simple adaptation of the trio melody. It then moves on to the first trio repeat, where the low brass begins an even more mellow

countermelody In music, a counter-melody (often countermelody) is a sequence of notes, perceived as a melody, written to be played simultaneously with a more prominent lead melody. In other words, it is a secondary melody played in counterpoint with the pri ...

Scoring

*Woodwinds: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons *Brass: 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba *Percussion: timpani, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, triangle *Strings: violins I and II, violas, cellos, double basses

Dance

The "two-step" became so strongly identified with Sousa's march that the dance was often called "The Washington Post". In addition, many performance arts groups around the world dance to the famous song.

Recordings

Although many recordings of this march have been made over the years, the original recording of the march played by the

, conducted by Sousa's concertmaster, was made on

Graphophone The Graphophone was the name and trademark of an improved version of the phonograph. It was initially designed at the Volta Laboratory and Bureau, Volta Laboratory established by Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C., United States. It was co ...

cylinder A cylinder () has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infinite ...

for the fledgling

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

company in Washington, D.C., in 1890, catalogue Columbia Cylinder Military #8. It has been reissued in the compact disc era in 1999 by Legacy International as ''March King: John Philip Sousa Conducts His Own Marches'', and as the earliest track of its 26-disc compendium of the history of the Columbia label, '' Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack For A Century''. In 1893, this march was recorded on

North American Phonograph Company The North American Phonograph Company was an early attempt to commercialize the maturing technologies of sound recording in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Though the company was largely unsuccessful in its goals due to legal, technical and financ ...

cylinder #613 by Foh's 23rd Regiment Band of New York. This acoustical recording, unlike many others, has audible, clear, well-recorded drums.Collected Works of the 23rd Regiment Band
at archive.org

References

External links

Washington Post
by "The President's Own"

: Modern 2016

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

(2-page portrait),

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

, and video combining those
Washington Post
by The Sousa Project: scanned

(landscape),

LilyPond LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand. LilyPond is cross-pla ...

, generated

(1-page portrait)
Washington Post
scanned PDF (landscape) of the 1889

Carl Fisher Carl may refer to: *Carl, Georgia, city in USA *Carl, West Virginia, an unincorporated community *Carl (name), includes info about the name, variations of the name, and a list of people with the name *Carl², a TV series * "Carl", an episode of tel ...

release * {{DEFAULTSORT:Washington Post (March) 1889 compositions American patriotic songs Compositions in F major Concert band pieces Sousa marches The Washington Post Songs about cities in the United States