Sousa, John Philip. (1854–1932) [Sonneck, Oscar G. (1873–1928)]
"Thanks for the two copies of the STAR SPANGLED BANNER" - Typed Letter Signed to Oscar Sonneck
TLS by the "March King" to the eminent American music scholar, c/o G. Schirmer, New York. December 6, 1917. 1 p. Letterhead paper of U.S. Naval Training Station, Great Lakes, Illinois. In full: "Many thanks for the two copies of the 'STAR SPANGLED BANNER'. I am making an instrumentation for band on this authorized version and a publisher has already applied to me asking to print the version. What shall I and what can I do? Very sincerely yours, John Philip Sousa, Lieutenant , USRNF." 10.5 x 8 inches (26.5 x 20 cm).In July, 1889 Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin F. Tracy authorized “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the official raising of the national flag music. In 1931, composer John Phillip Sousa, who had long performed “The Star Spangled-Banner” to end his band concerts and advocated for its adoption as a national anthem, said that “besides its soul-stirring words ... it is the spirit of the music that inspires.” Later that year, President Hoover signed the act designating Key’s poem and Smith’s music as the national anthem.
The present letter documents Sousa's involvement in the war effort after the U.S. had entered the First World War. Ironically, his correspondent, Oscar G. Sonneck, was opposed to the U.S. involvement in the war. Born in New Jersey but educated in Germany, Sonneck introduced the achievements of the then new academic discipline of musicology to the U.S. He headed and built the music department of the Library of Congress from 1902 to 1917 and became one of the first scholars to study the history of American Music. In 1917, harassed by the government because of his opposition to the war, he left the library to accept an executive position at G. Schirmer, where his championed contemporary American composers. Today's Society for American Music was founded in his honor (in 1975) and initially named after him. (23121)