Elgar in 1904|thumb|upright|alt=middle-aged white man with neat dark hair and large moustache seen in left semi-profile
The Pomp and Circumstance Marches are a series of five marches for orchestra composed by Edward Elgar between 1901 and 1930, together with a sixth march created in 2006 by Anthony Payne from Elgar's sketches. The five original marches were dedicated to the composer's friends the conductor Alfred E. Rodewald, the composer Granville Bantock and the organists Ivor Atkins, G. R. Sinclair and Percy Hull.
In England, the first, and best-known, of the marches is an established feature at the Last Night of the Proms every year, and in the US and elsewhere its slow middle section is traditionally played as the processional tune at most high school and college graduation ceremonies.
Origin of the name
Elgar took the phrase "Pomp and Circumstance" from Act 3, Scene 3 of Shakespeare's Othello:
Additionally, on the score of the first march, Elgar set as a motto for the whole set of marches a verse from Lord de Tabley's poem "The March of Glory", which (as quoted by Elgar's biographer Basil Maine) begins:
The composer said that the title "is merely a generic name for what is a set of six marches. Two … have already appeared and the others will come later. One of them is to be a soldier's funeral march".
Marches
The Pomp and Circumstance marches are
- March No. 1 in D major (1901)
- March No. 2 in A minor (1901)
- March No. 3 in C minor (1904)
- March No. 4 in G major (1907)
- March No. 5 in C major (1930)
- March No. 6 in G minor (written as sketches, elaborated by Anthony Payne in (2005)–(2006))
The first five were all published by Boosey & Co. as Elgar's opus 39, and each of the marches is dedicated to a particular musical friend of Elgar's. Later conductors have generally taken slightly slower tempi. Payne's completion of the sixth march is longer in duration, at eight minutes or a little over.
March No. 1 in D
thumb|Opening of the first Pomp and Circumstance March, published in 1902|alt=page of printed orchestral score
Dedication
March No. 1, was composed in 1901 and dedicated "to my friend Alfred E. Rodewald and the members of the Liverpool Orchestral Society".
Instrumentation
The instrumentation is: two piccolos (2nd ad lib.), two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in A, bass clarinet in A, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns in F, two trumpets in F, two cornets in A, three trombones, tuba, three timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle, side drum, jingles, glockenspiel (ad. lib.) and tambourine (ad lib.)), two harps, organ, and strings.
History
The best-known of the six marches, Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 had its premiere, along with the second march, in Liverpool on 19 October 1901, conducted by the composer.
The historian Bernard Porter takes a different position, rejecting any depiction of the Elgar of the marches as "a jingoistic tub-thumper, a manifestation of the worst aspects of late Victorian and Edwardian bombast". The Elgar scholar Daniel M. Grimley has commented that it is "especially difficult to listen to the Pomp and Circumstance marches with neutral ears given this highly polarized reception history".
Arrangements
- For piano solo: The first four marches were arranged by Adolf Schmid and March No. 5 by Victor Hely-Hutchinson.
- For brass band: March No. 1 was arranged (transposed to B) by J. Ord Hume.
Recordings
The first recordings – Marches 1 and 2 only – were made in July 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. They were issued by His Master's Voice (HMV), with the first march playing at 79 r.p.m. and the second at 80 r.p.m. The composer conducted an unidentified "Symphony Orchestra". After electrical recording came in during the 1920s HMV made new recordings conducted by Elgar, the first two marches with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra and the other three with the London Symphony Orchestra.
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| Sir Arthur Bliss
| London Symphony
| 1958
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| Sir John Barbirolli
| Philharmonia/New Philharmonia
| 1966
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| Daniel Barenboim
| London Philharmonic
| 1974
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| Norman Del Mar
| Royal Philharmonic
| 1975
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| Sir Adrian Boult
| London Philharmonic
| 1977
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| Sir Georg Solti
| London Philharmonic
| 1977
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| Alexander Gibson
| Scottish National
| 1978
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| Vernon Handley
| London Philharmonic
| 1981
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| Andrew Davis
| Philharmonia
| 1982
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| André Previn
| Royal Philharmonic
| 1985
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| Barry Tuckwell
| London Symphony
| 1988
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| Vladimir Ashkenazy
| Sydney Symphony
| 2009
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| Sir Andrew Davis
| BBC Philharmonic
| 2011
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| Sir Mark Elder
| Hallé
| 2015
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Notes, references and sources
Notes
References
Sources
External links
- Free sheet music of the marches on Cantorion.org