"The Fairest of the Fair" is a 1908

march March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March ...

John Philip Sousa John Philip Sousa ( ; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known primarily for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to dis ...

. One of Sousa's more melodic, less military marches, it was composed for the annual

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Food Fair of 1908. It is claimed that the memory of a pretty girl he had seen at an earlier fair inspired the composition.

History

Sousa composed "The Fairest of the Fair" in 1908, intending the Sousa Band to perform it at the annual Boston Food Fair in the fall of that year. It is the only work of any kind that he composed that year and one of only a handful of compositions that he wrote between 1906 and 1910. He apparently completed it in New York during the summer, as the final page of the original score was signed "John Philip Sousa, Camp Comfort, Saranac Lake, Adirondack, New York, July 8, 1908."

Notes

External links

The Fairest of the Fair
Dallas Wind Symphony :* Includes links to Sousa Band recording, sheet music from the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

, etc.
Sousa Band
Sousa marches 1908 compositions American marches Songs written by John Philip Sousa Concert band pieces {{Classical-composition-stub