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Published: Monday, 20 January 2025 at 17:00 PM
From ‘measured dignity’ to ‘jittery pop stars’: US presidential inauguration music down the ages
George Washington was, it seems, an elegant and skilful dancer, famed for his participation in what he deemed ‘an agreeable and innocent amusement’. That is probably why, a week after his inauguration as the first president of the United States on 30 April 1789, Washington enthusiastically accepted an invitation to a function hosted by the Dancing Assembly of New York City. He danced ‘two cotillions and a minuet’ as guest of honour, an occasion later commemorated by an engraving in Harper’s Bazaar magazine.
While not officially an ‘inauguration ball’, the Dancing Assembly’s gathering was nonetheless an event of historic significance. It initiated the now firmly established tradition of organising parties and celebrations to mark the installation of a new president, and of putting music at the heart of them. Since Washington’s unofficial dance soirée, the scale of inauguration festivities has, in fact, burgeoned remarkably: Bill Clinton attended a record-breaking 15 inaugural balls in 1997, with George HW Bush running a handy second, with 11 in 1989.
Measured dignity
The first piece of music unequivocally associated with presidential ceremonials was written by the composer and violinist Philip Phile, for George Washington in 1789. Entitled The President’s March, the tune combined a distinctly Handelian demeanour (Phile was a German immigrant) with the measured dignity appropriate to a newly emerging nation. A decade later, with words added, it became the rousingly patriotic Hail, Columbia, sung as a kind of national anthem for a century thereafter.
Comparing the relatively well-mannered stride of Phile’s President’s March with the zippily upbeat gait of Jefferson’s March, written in 1801 for Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration, is to sense the significant leap in self-confidence the fledgling United States of America made during its first 12 years of existence.
Bristlingly go-ahead in its rhythms, Jefferson’s March infectiously encapsulates the foundational strain of American can-do-ism which became a hallmark of its people. Musically, 1801 was significant for another reason too – it marked the first performance at an inauguration of the United States Marine Band (nicknamed ‘The President’s Own’), which has played at every inauguration since.
Eight years later, in 1809, the habit of informally marking the swearing-in of a new president with music and dance took a major step towards becoming a full-scale national institution. That year, friends of James Madison combined to organise an ‘inauguration ball’ for the president-elect, which took place on 4 March ‘at Mr Long’s Hotel’ in Washington.
‘The crowd was excessive, the entertainment bad’
A newly composed piece, predictably entitled Madison’s March, greeted the president and his wife Dolley as they arrived at the function. Opinions varied as to the quality of the music-making and dancing, which occupied those present until midnight. One newspaper thought the ball ‘the most brilliant and crowded ever known in Washington’. John Quincy Adams, a future president himself, was somewhat less enthusiastic. ‘The crowd was excessive,’ he grumbled, ‘the heat oppressive and the entertainment bad’.
Madison’s ball undoubtedly crystallised the notion that the inaugural celebration was now an important place for America’s movers and shakers to be seen, and for new, gladhanding allegiances to be established.
Throughout the 19th century, the celebrations grew in size and importance, and much new music was written for them including catchy campaign songs and the traditional commemorative marches. Among the best of these was the dignified, quasi-operatic President Garfield’s Inauguration March, written in 1881 by America’s ‘March King’ John Philip Sousa.
A feverish cult of global celebrity
Glimpses of how opulent a social occasion the inaugural ball had become, and how central music was to fuelling its festivities, are found in the diary of the poet Walt Whitman. Observing the activity surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural ball in 1865, Whitman poignantly recalled treating Civil War wounded in the same location (the Patent Office Building in Washington). ‘What a different scene’ the dance and supper rooms now presented, Whitman recorded, as they filled with ‘beautiful women, perfumes, the violins’ sweetness, the polka and the waltz’.
With the 20th century came a massive expansion in the realm of telecommunications, with radio, sound recording, movies and television all in turn fuelling a feverish cult of global celebrity. These influences profoundly affected the way in which presidential inaugurations were celebrated, and the type of music played at them.
Enter the ‘star-studded variety show’
Where once decorous quadrilles and rousing marches ruled the day, with ‘light’ classical stylings as the default template, increasingly presidents invited jazz, folk and other popular genres to the party, with stars of stage and screen adding charismatic impact to the general razzmatazz of the occasion.
The election (for the third time) of President Franklin D Roosevelt is often cited as the point at which the inaugural ‘gala’ (as the 1941 organisers called it) morphed into what one commentator has memorably termed ‘a star-studded variety show’. With actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. emceeing in his Navy uniform, guest performers included Charlie Chaplin, Irving Berlin and the mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens, who sang arias from Bizet’s opera Carmen and Oscar Strauss’s operetta The Chocolate Soldier.
But perhaps the ‘turn’ who most vividly reflected the new, cheek-by-jowl jostling of classical and vernacular traditions in the inaugural arena was the 20-year-old acting phenom Mickey Rooney. The multi-talented Rooney brought with him a three-movement ‘symphony’ he had written, named Melodante, and proceeded to astound onlookers by playing it on the piano. As an encore, Rooney rolled out impressions of his fellow actors Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore – highbrow and lowbrow scrunched together in stunningly vaudevillian juxtaposition. The audience loved it.
Marian Anderson makes history
The new strain of populist spectacle injected into inaugural celebrations by Roosevelt was here to stay. Gene Kelly, Abbott and Costello, John Wayne and Ethel Merman were among the numerous showbiz performers who featured in the post-war period, but classical performers held their end up too.
Particularly significant was the appearance at Harry S Truman’s 1949 gala of the soprano Dorothy Maynor, the first African American to sing at an inaugural event. Maynor reputedly knew 100 operas by heart, but racial segregation meant she never once set foot upon a US operatic stage. Eight years later, in an even more symbolic moment, contralto Marian Anderson sang the national anthem at the inauguration ceremony of Dwight D Eisenhower, the first African American to do so.
JFK, Ella, Sinatra and Bernstein
For sheer stardust factor, however, it’s generally acknowledged that no inaugural gala has ever quite equalled John F Kennedy’s in 1963. With Frank Sinatra organising, an astonishing array of performing talent – including singers Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte and Mahalia Jackson – was rostered for a gala which in one writer’s opinion ‘more closely resembled Saturday night at Caesars Palace’.
Again, though, classical music got a significant look-in. Maestro-of-the-moment Leonard Bernstein conducted the 70-strong orchestra, opening proceedings with a new work of his own – the punchy Fanfare for the Inauguration of John F Kennedy, whose buoyant, energetic syncopations seemed a perfect upbeat to the Kennedy era.
And, for the first time, a classical composer was commissioned to write a piece specifically for a presidential inauguration. John La Montaine was the composer chosen, and his evocative overture From Sea to Shining Sea has undeservedly gone out of fashion since.
While the trend for what writer Amanda Petrusich has called ‘extravagantly dressed and jittery pop stars’ has only strengthened in our media-centric modern era, classical performers still pop up regularly at inaugural celebrations. Soprano Jessye Norman and mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne both sang the Shaker song ‘Simple Gifts’ for their respective presidents – Ronald Reagan (1985) and Bill Clinton (1993) – while mezzos Susan Graham and Denyce Graves entertained George W Bush in 2005.
2009’s miming megastars
Classical performers were also responsible for one of the most newsworthy mini-scandals to have accompanied inaugurations down the years. In January 2009, a quartet of violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinettist Anthony McGill was scheduled to play Air and Simple Gifts, a new piece by film composer John Williams, immediately before Barack Obama took his oath of office outside the US Capitol.
When sub-zero temperatures (with wind chill added) threatened to break strings, crack instrument casings and play havoc with intonation, the quartet instead mimed its way through a recording made as a precaution two days previously. While some critical huffing and puffing over this cheat-sheet solution predictably followed, Yo-Yo Ma was unapologetic. ‘If we had not done that, we would have had four-and-a-half minutes of absolute disaster,’ he commented. ‘It was wicked cold.’
Organisers of this month’s inauguration, where Donald J Trump becomes the 47th US president, will be hoping for better weather. They will also be hoping the brouhaha surrounding the musical celebrations at Trump’s 2017 inaugural is not repeated.
‘I think you’re a tyrant’
A raft of celebrity artists – Andrea Bocelli, Elton John and Charlotte Church included – declined to take part, citing various reasons. Church was among those pulling no punches. ‘Your staff have asked me to sing at your inauguration,’ she tweeted to the incoming president. ‘A simple Internet search would show I think you’re a tyrant. Bye.’
Whether the quadrennial injection of patriotic fervour provided by presidential celebrations can continue long into an uncertain future is a moot question. For many, though, the sense of national unity they foster remains important. ‘Music is sometimes presented as a kind of impartial panacea, a bridge between enemies,’ is how Amanda Petrusich puts it. ‘That’s a lot to ask of art. But it’s still a nice fantasy to indulge, even if just for a night.’
Who is performing at the Trump inauguration?
Performing at Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration in 2025 will be country music star Carrie Underwood, who leapt to fame after winning the TV talent show American Idol in 2005. Carrie will sing ‘America the Beautiful‘ prior to Trump taking the oath of office, with accompaniment from the Armed Forces Chorus and the United States Naval Academy Glee Club.
Then, at the end of the ceremony, we will hear from opera singer Christopher Macchio, who will perform the national anthem, ‘The Star Spangled Banner‘. at the end of the ceremony. You’ll also see performances from singer-songwriter Lee Greenwood, choirs from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and the United States Marine Band.
The music doesn’t stop there, though. There are four days of celebrations in Washington D.C., featuring the likes of Kid Rock, The Village People, Billy Ray Cyrus and Liberty University’s gospel choir Praise Choir.