An all-march hour on “Sweetness and Light?” That’s the fact, Jack!
I hope you’ll join me this morning on KWAX, when we’ll be seized with March madness.
This was always a popular theme when I explored it on other radio stations in past years. On one occasion I was able to take it to five hours! You need an expanse like that in order to get a true sense of the mania, and also the variety of marches available. Marches for band. Symphonic marches. Light music marches. Marches for piano. Marches for string quartet. Funeral marches. Coronation marches. Circus marches.
Of course, it was never all march-or-die, an incessant barrage of three-minute quick marches in 4/4 time. Some of the marches were embedded in larger works. Some of the works merely suggested marches.
Alas, in my current format, I only have an hour. Still time enough for a heart-pumping sampler of works by Sir Arthur Bliss, Marshall Ross, Mily Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky, Richard Rodgers, John Philip Sousa, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Camille Saint-Saëns.
It’s a beautiful morning for a brisk March. Join me for a good stretch of the legs, when we sound off – left, left, left, right, left – on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, here:
