March Forth: The Classical Roots Behind the Sound of March
March 4, 2026
By Keenan A. Harmon
March 4th, since 2017, is now Marching Music Day. It’s a day founded by Drum Corps International to celebrate the art and music as well as the instruments that support the artform.
Marching band has deep roots in classical music. It started not only with military bands keeping in step centuries ago, but in outdoor venues where light music and dances were held. From Telemann’s Tafelmusik (Table Music) to many a Mozart Serenade, these works were written for people to dine and dance in their time.
Later in the 19th century, it became outdoor carnivals, regional fairs, and festivals in the park that were filled with music performed by brass, wind, and percussion. This is where the “March King” John Philip Sousa emerged, setting the pace for a new kind of march, the American march, with a faster tempo and melody that listeners could hum all day. Meanwhile, in Italy, Giacomo Puccini wrote a festive piece to celebrate the invention of the electric battery called Scossa Elettrica or “Electric Shock” for the concert band.
By the 20th century, the military band would lead parades with marches, and then sit down in a concert hall and perform everything from orchestral transcriptions of Von Suppe’s comic operas to newly composed works for the medium. Gustav Holst’s First and Second Suites for Military Band emerged, as well as English Folk Song Suite and Sea Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Lincolnshire Posy by Percy Grainger. Aaron Copland contributed to the medium in the middle part of the century with his work Emblems as well as William Schumann with George Washington Bridge. You can hear the President’s Own United States Marine Band playing the opening movement of Holst’s First Suite below:
Audio/Video: HOLST Suite No. 1 in E-flat: Chaconne – “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band (1997)
By the postwar era marching bands became a growing activity of competition. It naturally embraced much of the music that forms the activity but began to branch out. Now, you can hear everything from the push of Wagner’s Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral, Samuel Barber’s Second Essay for Orchestra, to John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, expressed not only through sound, but also movement and formation. Modern marching music is a concert of the visual and the aural, giving audiences a kaleidoscope with soundtrack.
Drum and Bugle Corps compete in the summer, and that flows right into marching season and football season. Outside of that time, DCI made quite the choice to choose a day that was off season to celebrate and reflect on the artform, as well as give the command, “March Forth!”
You can hear Puccini’s Scossa Elettrica, along with a wonderful march by Claudio Grafulla, during our March 4th evening broadcast. Listen live for the full experience or find it afterward for a limited time in the WDAV archive. Happy Marching Music Day!
