Sunday, January 8, 2012

Pomp and Circumstance #1

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies.




March No. 1 was composed in 1901 and "Dedicated to my friend Alfred E. Rodewald and the members of the Liverpool Orchestral Society".

The instrumentation is: 2 piccolos (2nd ad lib.), 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, bass clarinet in A, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in F, 2 cornets in A, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani (3), percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle, side drum, jingles, and tambourine ad lib.), 2 harps, organ — it appears in the final statement of the grand tune — and strings.

It had its premiere, along with the more reserved second March, played by the Liverpool Orchestral Society conducted by Alfred Rodewald, in Liverpool on 19 October 1901. Both marches were played two days later at a London Promenade Concert in the Queen's Hall London, conducted by Henry Wood, with March No. 1 played second, and the audience "...rose and yelled... the one and only time in the history of the Promenade concerts that an orchestral item was accorded a double encore."

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