Pops Waves the Flag in Seasonal Way : Patriotism: Marches, odes, Sweet Adelines and a euphonium solo contribute to the spirit of the Fourth this week.

Sousa marches and patriotic medleys are as requisite to a Fourth of July pops program as potato salad and cold fried chicken are to the traditional holiday picnic.

Wednesday night at Hospitality Point, guest conductor Carl Hermanns and the San Diego Symphony pops orchestra did not flout tradition: The unmistakable martial cadences of Sousa surrounded a parade of flag-waving odes, ably assisted by the 120 massed voices of San Diego’s Sweet Adelines vocal ensemble.

For those ears too jaded to respond to Sousa’s “El Capitan” and “Washington Post” marches or to the time-worn Peter J. Wilhousky arrangement of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Hermanns programmed Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” and Herbert L. Clarke’s “Bride of the Waves,” transcribed for euphonium.

In his usual chatty way, Hermanns described the euphonium as a kind of “baby tuba.”

Although the “Lincoln Portrait” is not exactly obscure, it is no pops staple.

From the subdued opening to its brassy finale, Hermanns pressed the piece forward with a steady hand, and the players responded with their cleanest playing of the evening.

Wednesday’s narrator for the 3,167 concert-goers was City Councilman Bruce Henderson, who earnestly intoned the bold, awkwardly chiseled words of Abraham Lincoln expounding the need for national resolve to eradicate the evils of slavery.

This aptly nationalistic program runs through Saturday, and, each evening, a different local politician assumes the narrator’s role.

Heather Buchman, the orchestra’s principal trombone, performed the euphonium solo in “Bride of the Waves,” a novel idea that no doubt looked better on paper than it sounded in concert.

Although Buchman coaxed a sweet, mellow sound from the valved instrument that gently gurgles in the tenor range, she could not make it spring through the agile figuration of the piece, which was of course intended for the cornet, Clarke’s own instrument.

Coupled with the conductor’s difficulty in keeping soloist and orchestra together through the quick transitions of this variation cycle, the quaint period piece fizzled like a damp firecracker.

Director Kim Hulbert’s energetic Sweet Adelines sounded best in their unaccompanied songs, especially a snappy arrangement of Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart’s upbeat “Come Follow the Band.”

Although the well-disciplined chorus projected the characteristic sonority of women’s barbershop harmony--an intensely bright and shallow sound--this writer agrees with the wag who labeled it “cruel and not sufficiently unusual punishment.”