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The name, and the shared structure of alternating sherzo and trio
sections, identify these five marches as a single work. They
were composed over an extended period, however, the fifth march
not being published until almost thirty years after the first.
It may be that Elgar saw them as something of a money-spinner,
bringing in the income that more substantial works of greater
critical acclaim failed to do. But the publication dates are
somewhat deceptive. Elgar produced no completely original work
after Alice's death in 1920, and the fifth march is based on
ideas Elgar had jotted down many years earlier, making the five
marches far more contemporary in conception. And they rise above
the description of pot-boiler.
The first march needs no introduction, being familiar throughout
the world through the tune of the trio section and its associated
words: Land of Hope and Glory. Elgar did not write the tune with
the intention of setting words to it. Elgar claims that the idea was first put to him by King
Edward VII some months after the premiere of the orchestral version, by which time the
march itself had already attained a significant popularity. This possibility is borne out by the fact
that the words were written by A C Benson as part of the libretto for the Coronation Ode, a work Elgar composed for the
king's
Coronation. The fourth march, probably the best known after the first, suffered a similar fate
when,
during the Second World War, the author A P Herbert provided
patriotic verses beginning "All Men Shall be Free..." for the
trio section of that march.
But the marches should not be taken in isolation.
The mood of the three lesser known marches is substantially different from that
of marches 1 and 4, displaying a restlessness and measure of diffidence in contrast to
the confidence and swagger of their better known companions. Two are in
a minor key. It is essential that the five marches are considered and heard as a suite rather
than as a somewhat arbitrarily assembled collection of discrete pieces, to be dipped into and
sampled separately. Only then can the changes of mood and the balance of the
suite as a whole be fully appreciated.
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