Washington, D.C. native and legendary bandmaster John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) wrote a dozen operettas, six full-length operas, and over 100 marches, earning the title “March King”. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at an early age and went on to become the conductor of the President’s Own United States Marine Band at age 26. In 1892 he formed “Sousa and his Band”, which toured the United States and the world under his directorship for the next forty years to great acclaim. Not only was Sousa’s band hugely popular, but it also exposed audiences all over the world to the latest, cutting-edge music, bringing excerpts of Wagner’s Parsifal to New York a decade before the Metropolitan Opera staged it, and introducing ragtime to Europe, helping to spark many a composer’s interest in American music.
Paul Bierley briefly describes the origin of 1880s Our Flirtation (sometimes also known as Our Flirtations) in his book The Works of John Philip Sousa, reproduced in the Marine Band Edition of the score.
Our Flirtations was a musical comedy first produced in Philadelphia in 1880. Sousa was responsible for the incidental music, which included this original march. It was dedicated to Henry L. West, a newspaperman of the Washington Post staff.
The US Marine Band gives the definitive performance: