Bandmasters Change

Wonderful to behold, tremendous to hear is a military band--as every schoolboy knows to his marrow. Oldest and most famed of all such U. S. bands is the U. S. Marine Band. Founded in 1798, the "Marines" have played at every inauguration since Thomas Jefferson's day. Glorious in scarlet uniforms, the band plays Hail to the Chief every time the President appears at a big state shindig.

Since 1800, the band has also given concerts. In the 18905, when John Philip Sousa headed it, the U. S. Marine Band became one of the best in the world. When Bandmaster Sousa quit to conduct his own celebrated outfit, the Marine Band's baton fell to an Italian named Francesco Fanciulli, who led it for five years. Since then it has had only two conductors, fiddle-playing, German-born William H. Santelmann and jovial, bespectacled, U. S.-born Captain Taylor Branson.

Last week the U. S. Marine Band polished up its brass buttons for an extra-special concert. The occasion: retirement of aging Bandmaster Branson, who had led its booming marches for the past 13 years, had played the clarinet in its ranks for 29 years before that. To a cheering crowd in Washington's Marine Corps Barracks the band played Sousa's Semper Fidelis, Captain Branson's own Marine Corps Institute March, Victor Herbert's Festival March, The Star-Spangled Banner. Drum Major Hiram H. Florea read a letter from President Roosevelt. When it was all over, Captain Branson, erect in his dark uniform splashed with gold braid, stepped to the microphone and sang the Marine Corps song:

From the Halls of Montezuma

To the Shores of Tripoli. . . .

When he had finished, the audience cheered for two minutes. Then he handed his baton to his successor: sharp-nosed William F. Santelmann, son of the man who conducted the marines before Captain Branson got his job.

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