from Il Trovatore.  This is the kind of showman he was.  He built a big palladium for his concerts, but it flopped.  People didn’t come.  I don’t know why that was, and I believe finally it burned down.  That was the predecessor of Sousa.  Then during Sousa’s later years there was Patrick Conway, Creatore, Innes, and Liberati.  They were about forty-five or fifty-piece bands that traveled all over the United States.  They never went to Europe, but Sousa made five or six world tours with his band.  People don’t know about that.

BD:    Why do we remember Sousa and not these others?

WR:    His marches.  They played Sousa marches.

BD:    And also transcriptions?

WR:    Yes, oh yes.  Sousa played transcriptions almost exclusively because there wasn’t any original band music except his own.  There is a little story about when he played the first performance of The Victors march by Louis Elbel.  Sousa and his band were there to do a concert on campus and the composer gave him the parts.  He played it that night, and the composer says Sousa said, “It was the third greatest march ever written.”  Elbel asked, “What about the other two?” and Sousa said, “Well, I wrote those.”  [Both laugh]  It’s a little story, but he did like the march.  Sousa was never like

not municipal bands but college bands.  To answer your question about where are the professional bands, there aren’t any.  There were in those days.  One of the few remaining professional bands that no longer has a budget was the Long Beach Band which Herb Clarke conducted for years.  He was the solo cornetist for the Sousa Band for many years, and assistant conductor for Sousa.  If you ask me why they are no more, it’s money.  I ask you why is there only one symphony orchestra in New York City?

BD:    But there IS a symphony, and there are chamber groups and opera companies, but no band!

WR:    No, not since the Goldman Band.  There’s nobody to fund it.

BD:    Should we try to get this kind of thing going?

WR:    Yes we certainly should, and tonight was an example of the image of what I could see as the true municipal band.  Those people had a great night of enjoyment.  They appreciated it.  That was evidenced by their response.  They had a good time.

BD:    So now you have automatically two thousand band boosters right there.

WR:    Exactly.  We need that in the United States; we need ten thousand Wheatons.  You’d be surprised...  I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but the revival of the community band is astonishing.  For instance, let’s take Michigan alone.  Ten years ago there weren’t more than four or five community bands in the state of Michigan that you’d want to hear.  Today there’s fifty.

BD:    Now you say “that you want to hear.”  In other words, they’ve gotten up to a certain level?

WR:    Their performance standard is such that you enjoy going to the concert and it’s not claptrap.  The concert this evening had some very good repertoire in it.  The young college band director is averse to doing transcriptions.  They want original material and I’m for that, but because it’s new and original doesn’t mean it’s good, or that old music is bad.

BD:    Shouldn’t there be a balance of some new things and some transcriptions?

WR:    Of course.  Now you’re talking!  You see, back in Sousa’s day ninety per cent of the music was transcriptions because there wasn’t any original band music.  The only band music that you found that was original was his!  He didn’t just write marches; he wrote suites.

BD:    Is there any kind of correlation between what Sousa did for the band and what Kreisler did for the violin?

WR:    Very much so.  That’s a very good analogy with Kreisler.  People, including me when I was a kid, went to hear his encores...  Schoen Rosemarie, Liebesfreud, Old Vienna and all those little encores.  [Begins to sing one of them softly]  We went to hear them.  It’s like Horowitz.  There was no way Horowitz could ever end a concert without playing Traumerei.  There was no way he was going to get off that stage!  Now, if you’re going to play Sousa you’d better play Stars and Stripes because they’re going to insist on it.  Sousa was not only a legend, but he made a big contribution and will continue to do so.  For instance, there’s been thousands of marches written since Sousa died... thousands, and where are they?  They are no different than the pop tunes that last three months.

BD:    What is it about a Sousa march that lasts?

WR:    It’s not the form.  It’s a four-bar introduction to sixteen or thirty-two bars, a break-up strain and back again.  It is sonata form.  Stars and Stripes is the longest march he wrote.  It has more measures in it than the rest of them.  He wrote a melody that you could hear a couple of times and sing.

BD:    But you don’t get tired of it.

WR:    Yes, because it’s good.  You bet.  Rhythmically, harmonically, the structure of it; he was a master at putting the voices where they belong.  Color.  And he never once played them the way he wrote them.  We have men going around the country saying, “This is the way Sousa played his marches.”  They must have never heard him.  I heard him twenty-six times!  There’s a young man here from the research center and he showed me some parts of an encore book of Sousa.  There’s Herbert Clarke’s cornet part in which he says, “First strain, tacit.”  I’ve been doing that for fifty years!  I was so proud to see that today because I’ve been doing that all along!  Here was the original Herbert Clarke cornet part with the Sousa Band encore stating, “Tacit, first time, enter second time.”  That’s all the editing.  It’s not written that way.  For instance one time I heard the piccolo variation on the harp.  I heard Bill Bell do it on the tuba with the Sousa Band.  [Sings]  He got the trills in there on his tuba clear as a bell!  That was Sousa.  He was never satisfied.  I asked him if he would object to my editing his marches and he said, “Have you heard my band?”  I said, “Twenty-six times.”  He was very abrupt at these kind of things and said, “Do I edit them?”  I said, “You never play them the way they’re written.”  He said, “Well, that’s editing.”   Then he said, “As long as you don’t change the melody and you don’t change the harmony and you do not change the rhythm, you can do what you want with the color of it.  If I like it, I’ll accept it.  If I don’t, I’ll tell you so.”  But he was constantly changing his ways of presenting the color.

BD:    What advice do you have for someone who wants to write music for the concert band?

WR:    My first advice would be to write music, the score, for the public that appreciates what the band audiences understand, and which they will receive and accept.  Now let me explain what I’m saying.  There’s a lot of wonderful contemporary music being written.  Unfortunately, it’s not accepted by the public.

BD:    Because of its density?

WR:    Its complication.  It’s complicated.  I ask you, how many new operas will have been presented by the Metropolitan in the last decade?

BD:    Very few at the Met, but hundreds in Europe.  They’re much more experimental over there.

WR:    They sure are.  Not only that, they have the money to do it.

BD:    That’s true.  State subsidy.

WR:    You bet!  The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is eighty-five per cent subsidized by the government.  How much does the New York Philharmonic get?  Zero from the government.

BD:    Maybe one per cent from the National Endowment, and that’s it.

WR:    That’s right, and that’s being cut considerably.  So there’s the difference.  It’s the sense of values.  There are more little small town opera companies that you don’t particularly enjoy all the time.  [Laughs]  They’re broken down singers of the past or they’re aspiring young artists with a little tiny orchestra in the pit, but they’re still playing Verdi and Aïda and so on.  The Italians were brought up on that; that’s their history, whereas in Germany it was Beethoven and Brahms, and in Russia it was Tchaikovsky and so on.  But the band, the voice of the band is truly Americana since the Revolutionary War.  It’s rather interesting, too, that where the band really began was in the New England states.  I don’t like to say it, but it’s a fact that the worst bands in schools in the United States are where the band was born, in New England.  They don’t support it.

BD:    You’re talking about support and what you think is important.  Let me ask the great big philosophical question

o, education-wise, the band has been at a disadvantage.  Its very versatility has been its greatest enemy.  Because it can do everything in so many places, they use it.  It’s a window-dresser for the community!

BD:    Where should the balance be, then, between the entertainment and some kind of artistic achievement?

WR:    That’s a good question, and the answer is that if the conductor is truly a serious musician and he’s an educator, he will have both.  There’s no reason in the world that a football band has to play badly.  That’s the conductor

BD:    Are you optimistic about the future of band music in America?

WR:    I’m highly optimistic about it.  I have never been more thrilled and more confident and overjoyed with what I see.  I’m disappointed in many things in the music education field, and in the bands in the schools I am very disappointed, but more than ever in my life I’m convinced that music education is here to stay.  I have yet to see one program that’s good where they have curtailed it.  But we have so many mediocre ones.  We have so many that are so bad, unfortunately, and they’re the ones that are in jeopardy.  There’s too many of them.

BD:    How is the burgeoning of electronic entertainment

Legendary Band Leader William Revelli July 20, 1994 By Knight-Ridder/Tribune.  [Text only - photo added] ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When the University of Michigan band marched under William Revelli, the lines of musicians had to be straight and smart, the music clear and sharp. Nothing but perfection was good enough. Mr. Revelli's ability to accomplish that made him a legend in American band music. "It's very difficult to talk about Bill Revelli except in superlatives," said Allen Britton, dean emeritus of the Michigan School of Music. "He developed the U-M bands into the best in the country. Nothing ever sounded like a Revelli band except a Revelli band." Mr. Revelli, who retired in 1972 after 36 years as band director, died of heart failure Saturday at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital near Ann Arbor. He was 92. He remained active on campus and accepted engagements as guest conductor for bands around the world. He was inducted into the National Band Association Hall of Fame of distinguished conductors in 1981. In 1989, the Louis Sudler Foundation and the John Philip Sousa Foundation presented him with their Order of Merit. He was a "Mt. Rushmore figure" in his field, said professor H. Robert Reynolds, a former student who succeeded him as band director in 1975 and continues in the position. "He was single-handedly responsible for raising the standards everywhere," Reynolds said. "He had a popularity with the general public that was unique, while he was highly respected by the band profession. . . . He deserves to be remembered forever." Mr. Revelli studied violin and music theory at the Beethoven Conservatory of Music in St. Louis and later the Chicago Musical College and the VanderCook School of Music in Chicago. His drive for excellence showed early in his career, when he led the band at Hobart (Ind.) High School to six national high school championships from 1929 to 1935. In 1935, he moved to Michigan as director of bands, including the symphony band, with which he toured nationally. In 1961, he led the symphony band on a 16-week international tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Survivors include two grandchildren, John Strong and Kimberly Snyder, and two great-grandchildren.

This interview was recorded at his hotel on August 1, 1991.  Segments were used (with recordings) on WNIB in 1992 and 1997.  The transcription was made and posted on this website in 2013.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.