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Although Nimrod from the Enigma Variations, and possibly Salut d'Amour, Chanson
de Matin and the Serenade for Strings are
arguable contenders for the title, few would dispute that Elgar's best known work is the first Pomp and Circumstance March with its world-famous
refrain of Land of Hope and Glory. (The story of how the words came to be associated
with the march is told elsewhere.) Of the five Pomp and Circumstance Marches, the first is the most
militaristic in character and it is almost certainly this work's popularity that has singlehandedly
created the false but widely-held view among superficial commentators on Elgar's music that it
is the work of an excessively nationalistic personality. There are, of course, other passages in
Elgar's output, notably the Triumphal March which opens scene 6 of Caractacus, which convey a similar atmosphere. But it will
surprise many to learn that, throughout his life, Elgar composed only three formal marches for
ceremonial occasions : the Imperial March, written for Queen Victoria's
Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the Coronation March for King George V's
Coronation in 1911 and the Empire March for the British Empire Exhibition
held at Wembley in 1924. The unquestioning nationalism is surely more in the mind and ear of
the audience than of the composer.
At the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, Elgar had just achieved a measure of
national fame. King Olaf had been well received in
London the previous year and when, at the
turn of the year, Elgar submitted sketches for two new works to mark the Jubilee, Novello's
eagerly snapped them up. One work was The Banner of St
George, the other was the Imperial March. Both captured the mood of public
confidence and national celebration, and were immediate and considerable successes. But only
the Imperial March has retained anything like that level of popularity. Most, on hearing
it today, would recognise the tune if not the title. It is, on the whole, a lively, rumbustious march,
tuneful, cheerful, exuberant, yet displaying a proper sense of restraint in its more subdued trio
section. It is not difficult to see why this easily memorable march should so readily strike a chord
in the wider public's affection.
It was not until he had reached, and perhaps even passed, the peak of his popularity, with four
of the five Pomp and Circumstance Marches now
published, that Elgar was again committed to produce a march for a ceremonial occasion. That
occasion was the Coronation of King George V in Westminster Abbey in June 1911,
for which occasion Elgar also wrote the short offertory O
Hearken Thou. The Coronation March is by far the best of these three
marches - indeed, better also than any of the Pomp and
Circumstance Marches taken separately. It is an impressive, extended work, running
to something over ten minutes in length, with conflicting moods and tensions and an underlying
tinge of sadness, surprising in view of the work's purpose. It is also surprising to learn that Elgar
had composed the majestic opening theme for a projected ballet on Rabelais, begun
some ten years earlier but abandoned possibly because of Victorian prudery expressed by, among
others, his wife Alice.
A similar gap separates the second march from the third, the Empire March of 1924. This
is music from Elgar's twilight years, while he was still grieving over the death of his wife Alice
some four years previously. It is but a pale shadow of his earlier marches, lacking the
distinctiveness and decisiveness of melody which so characterised his more successful marches.
But, unlike the more musically satisfying Pageant of Empire which Elgar also composed
for the British Empire Exhibition, the Empire March retains a significant measure
of popularity.
The Empire March was followed six years later by the completion of a fifth Pomp and Circumstance March, an altogether more
accomplished work, but based on sketches made many years earlier. |
