America turns 236 today....
John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), storied "King of Marches," was born in the nation's capital. In 1896 he composed his legendary "Stars and Stripes Forever"--now the National March of the US.
On June 2, 1945 a concert honoring America, featuring celebrity musicians, was staged in New York City's Central Park. A famous immigrant, superstar Russian virtuoso pianist Vladimir Horowitz, played his own piano arrangement of Sousa's masterwork. He created it as a tribute to his adopted country, having become a naturalized citizen in 1944. Heard by a national radio audience estimated at two million, it became an instant classic. Here is Horowitz's 1945 Hollywood Bowl performance (3:52) of his legendary arrangement.
Ironically, Horowitz's spectacular success with audiences led him, as he explained in a TV interview (2:13), to stop playing his showstopper in public, 6 or 7 years later. He said that he felt that audiences were so taken with his "Stars" that they paid too little attention to the other composers whose works he had played at recitals, and to his performances of same. Thus when Horowitz returned to the concert stage in 1965 after 12 years of retirement, he came back without his signature arrangement. Though he played at the White House in 1978 and in 1986, in neither concert did he play his most famous encore. Not even presidents could induce the great man to revive it. He did, however, play part of the first page for a coaxing, beseeching Mike Wallace during an engaging 1977 "60 Minutes" interview (14:58).
Here are the lyrics to the piece:
Let martial note in triumph float
And liberty extend its mighty hand
A flag appears 'mid thunderous cheers,
The banner of the Western land.
The emblem of the brave and true
Its folds protect no tyrant crew;
The red and white and starry blue
Is freedom's shield and hope.
Other nations may deem their flags the best
And cheer them with fervid elation
But the flag of the North and South and West
Is the flag of flags, the flag of Freedom's nation.
(repeats) Other nations may deem their flags the best
And cheer them with fervid elation,
But the flag of the North and South and West
Is the flag of flags, the flag of Freedom's nation.
Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.
Let eagle shriek from lofty peak
The never-ending watchword of our land;
Let summer breeze waft through the trees
The echo of the chorus grand.
Sing out for liberty and light,
Sing out for freedom and the right.
Sing out for Union and its might,
O patriotic sons.
Hurrah for the flag of the free.
May it wave as our standard forever
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray,
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.
Happy Birthday, AMERICA.
Bottom Line. Long may the Flag of the Free fly over the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics
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