A few years ago I ran across a clever "Twilight Zone" episode about an Elvis impersonator who goes back in time to meet his idol. Only in this version he turns out to be the one who goes on to cut all the hit records and make the movies etc. The title: "The Once and Future King."
Imagine, if a you will, a reverse scenario of sorts vis-a-vis John Philip Sousa. Even after death, his spirit finds a way to come back and take possession of another young conductor. Then another, and another ad infinitum, so that he is able to continue leading his marches through eternity. And the title of that episode? What else but " `Stars and Stripes' Forever"?Who knows? Maybe it's already happened. Certainly the spirit of the March King was alive and well Friday in Symphony Hall, in the person of conductor Keith Brion. OK, I've seen Sousa impersonators who look more like Sousa, and heard re-creations of his performances that also strike me as being somewhat closer to the originals (although, frankly, Brion seems to be getting better).
But for some reason none of them have made the success of it he has. This is, for example, the fourth year in a row he has conducted the Utah Symphony in the person of Sousa. And Friday, not surprisingly, the place was packed.
As in years past, it wasn't all Sousa. There were also generous helpings of other period trifles, ranging from Suppe's "Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna" Overture - which under Sousa/Brion made an unexpectedly grand effect - to "The Last Rose of Summer," prettily sung by soprano Kimberley Parsons.
Nor was it all Brion. Not when, in addition to Parsons, he allotted portions of the spotlight to trombonist Larry Zalkind and piccolo player Michael Vance. The first, for his part, displayed incredible fluidity and control in Herbert L. Clarke's "The Bride of the Waves" and the familiar Monti "Czardas." But no less remarkable was Vance's playing in Kling's "The Two Little Bullfinches" or, as an encore, Fillmore's "The Whistling Farmer Boy" (with some equally virtuosic barking from cellist Don Harmsworth), the second piccolo part in each being taken by "Sousa" himself.
But where the real Sousa came into the spotlight was likewise via the encores, nearly every other one of which was a Sousa march.
Thus the Suppe was followed by "The Washington Post," here strong, steady and authentically unhurried. A "Pirates of Penzance" medley brought in its wake a rousing "From Maine to Oregon." Sousa's own "Homage to Foster and Nevin" (aka "The Pride of Pittsburgh") prepared the way for "Sesquicentennial Exposition" and "The U.S. Field Artillery," the latter complete with singing, clapping, gunshots and, less obviously, some delicious little dynamic swells.
Similarly a Cohan sing-along was followed by a Sousa-style "Sabre and Spurs" - i.e., solid. Then "George Washington Bicentennial" trailed Grainger's "Colonial Song" and a lively "Creole Belles." Finally, after a lumpy Act 3 Prelude and "Entrance of the Masters" from Wagner's "Die Meistersinger," came the two everyone was waiting for, "Semper Fidelis" and "The Stars and Stripes . . . ."
But you know the title. And that it won't be the last time you'll be hearing it.