John Philip Sousa - High School Cadets (1890)

John Phillip Sousa

"High School Cadets" is a march written in 1890 by John Philip Sousa in honor of the cadet drill team of Washington High School in the District of Columbia. It is in regimental march form (I-AA-BB-CC-DD) and is a popular selection for school concert and marching bands, as well as for professional orchestras and bands. The march has been arranged for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles, and has been frequently recorded, including at least two recorded performances by Sousa's own band. The march's final strains were featured in the 1939 film The Under-Pup.

High School Cadets is in the form of a regimental march, consisting of four repeated musical strains with a short introduction: I-AA-BB-CC-DD.[D] An alternate form plays all four strains without repeats, and then recapitulates the whole march (minus the introduction): I-ABCD-ABCD. This variant is popular with marching bands and was also used by the Edison Military Band in their 1907 recording.

Second (B) strain of High School Cadets, 1st Cornet part.
Each strain is 16 bars in length except the A strain, which is 24 bars long. The A theme, in D-flat major, is "an energetic, somewhat jaunty creation, punctuated by crescendos and exuding a sense of tension... more from happy excitement than from stress or agitation." The second strain derives uplift from the repeated motif of a three-note rising scale, and it ends with a complete ascending chromatic scale (see illustration). The C strain is "a quiet and sonorous trio in G-flat," while the D strain returns to the three-note rising scale motif, with almost every note in the whole strain accented.