Corcoran Cadets

Sousa’s second decade of writing marches began with The Corcoran Cadets (1890). The piece is an eighth-note march designed more for sit-down playing, rather than for the field. It seems as though Sousa set out to compose a march that would be produced with minimum resources, yet be rhythmically neat, texturally clean, harmonically and melodically satisfying, and stylistically unique by his own standards. It was the first march performed by The Eastman Wind Ensemble, led by Frederick Fennell, closing their first NBC broadcast in 1953. (3:00)