John Phillip Sousa, Marches

Sousa was quite conservative in his use of the major dominant ninth chord, though that should not be surprising because the entire 19th century repertoire of the closely related galop, polka schnell, one-step, march, and even the turn-of-the-century rag were all conservative in comparison with the waltz, the early polka or polka française and related and derivative dances. In general, Sousa employs the ninth chord in the typical variety of ways, but not often with direct resolutions. Here are examples from the Sousa March Album for piano published by the John Church company (Cincinnati/Chicago/New York) in 1902.

One of the most interesting collection of figures comes early, in the march Yorktown’s Centennial (1881): in the first and fourth boxes, an almost direct resolution of V9; in the second box a "free note" ninth drops to ^3 rather than ^5, but (third box) in the repetition makes a direct resolution (that is, B4 over V does go to A4 over I).

The White Plume  (1884): an indirect resolution through pairing (bars 2-3 of the excerpt pair to bars 4-5).

In the trio, another drop from 9 in V9 to ^3. (^5 as C6 does show up in the accompaniment embellishing figure--dotted arrow--but with the octaves that imitate the characteristic orchestral doublings any connection would be weak at best).

The Liberty Bell  (1893): another indirect resolution through parallelism (boxes and dotted arrow),, but also note the repetition of 9 in bar 6, closer to the resolution.

Manhattan Beach  (1893): the first arrow shows an instance of prominent hypermetric positioning of the 9 over V; the other two arrows are yet more drops from ^6 to ^3.

The Directorate (1896): the firmest of the lot, V9 through the bar and a direct resolution.

Hail to the Spirit of Liberty (1900): attention to 9, indirect resolution (dotted arrow).

In the trio, the "classic" figure: descent from ^7 through ^6 (as 9 of V9) and direct resolution.

Finally, Congress Hall  (1901): an indirect resolution (first two boxes with dotted arrow), then a 9 over V curiously extended with a chromatic scale that buries the chord's distinctive sound.

Johann Strauss, sr., Radetzky March

The Radetzky March, op. 228 (1848), is the most well-known composition of Johann Strauss, sr. I am including it here partly for that reason, but partly also to begin making the point that there were repertoires other than the waltz in which the dominant ninth made inroads. Granted, these other repertoires--especially the polka--were directly influenced by the waltz practices of the 1820s and 1830s.

In general, marches were treated more traditionally than dance genres and the dominant ninth is relatively rare in them, but the Radetzky March, especially at the fast tempo it is usually heard today, is loosely aligned in its figures and expression with the galop, and figures from dance or theatrical music play a major role.

Note the parallelism of ^6-^5 over V then over I in the first strain (bars 5-6).

In the trio, we hear two direct resolutions of the ninth: see the arrows in the examples below:

First strain:

Second strain: