THE MIKADO MARCH by Sousa (1885)

Had he not become the “March King”, John Philip Sousa may well have become “America’s Operetta King.” Sousa loved theater music and hoped to become an operetta writer. He had completed his first operetta, Katherine, in 1879, although it was never produced. He would write 15 in his lifetime, though his main contribution to American music was the march.

In 1879, Gilbert and Sullivan were the rage in England, as well as the United States, with their hit “HMS Pinafore.” The show was in such demand in the US that dozens of companies performed the show simultaneously in New York, including performances by children’s groups, all-black casts, and even one in Yiddish.

In 1879, Sousa was hired as the music director of the Amateur Opera Company of Philadelphia, where he not only trained the singers but also orchestrated the operetta (the only music available was piano-vocal scores). It turned out to be an outstanding production, even drawing a visit from Gilbert and Sullivan themselves to a performance when the company went to New York. Sullivan commented favorably on the orchestrations Sousa had prepared. It was also during the rehearsals for Pinafore that Sousa met his future wife. They would be married by the end of 1879. No wonder he had fond memories of Sullivan’s music!

Gilbert and Sullivan were in New York to witness the phenomenal success of their work, yet they received no royalties from the American productions due to lax copyright laws. Their next show, The Pirates of Penzance, opened in New York a day before the London premiere to comply with US copyright laws. This copyright issue would influence Sousa later in his work as a founding member of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

In 1885, Gilbert and Sullivan’s most successful opera, “The Mikado,” opened and ran for a record 672 performances. Sousa had written operas, but by this time was leader of the US Marine Band and had gone on to cement his reputation as a march composer.

He never dropped his love for the art form and, in tribute to Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote the Mikado March, based on themes from the G&S opera.

Here is a breakdown of the music in the march:

“Mi-ya Sa-ma”
Opening to the opera and the Mikado’s song
“From every kind of man obedience I expect”

“There is beauty in the bellow of the blast”
Katisha and Ko-Ko’s song at the end of the opera. The intro music has a great Sousa counter-melody in the trombones.

“A Wandering Minstrel I”
And if you call for a song of the sea,
We’ll heave the capstan round,
With a yeo heave ho, for the wind is free,
Her anchor’s a-trip and her helm’s a-lee,
Hurrah for the homeward bound!

To lay aloft in a howling breeze
May tickle a landsman’s taste,
But the happiest hour a sailor sees
Is when he’s down
At an inland town,
With his Nancy on his knees, yeo ho!

“For he’s going to marry Yum-Yum”
”You’ll find there are many who’ll wed for a penny, there’s lots of good fish in the sea!, there’s lots of good fish in the sea!”

“A More humane Mikado”
”My object all sublime I shall achieve in time, to let the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime. And make each prisoner pent unwillingly represent a source of innocent merriment!, Of innocent merriment!”

“See how the Fates Their Gifts Allot”
“See how the Fates their gifts allot
For A is happy, B is not
Yet B is worthy, I dare say
Of more prosperity than A”
This material opens the trio section

The melody evokes Japanese folk-song quality by using the pentatonic scale.
Sousa cleverly includes a snippet from the Japanese national anthem Kimigayo to bring the march to an end

A very nice, but not often played, march that is Sousa’s tribute to Gilbert and Sullivan.

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