John Philip Sousa
Library of Congress
John Philip Sousa
Library of Congress
From a vast catalog, one of the lesser-known and lesser-played compositions of John Philip Sousa is the Transit of Venus March. Although the event was of great interest to the composer, the song’s primary intent was meant as a tribute to Joseph Henry, an American physicist and the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Henry, who died in 1878, also sat on the United States’s Transit of Venus Commission. In 1883, the march was played at a ceremony commemorating the unveiling of a statue of Henry near the Smithsonian.
Click here to hear the composition (MIDI file).
