Funeral March of a Marionette

The Funeral March of a Marionette (Marche funèbre d'une marionnette) is a short piece by Charles Gounod. It was written in 1872 for solo piano and orchestrated in 1879. It is perhaps best known as the theme music for the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

While residing in London, England, between 1871 and 1872, Gounod started to write a suite for piano called Suite burlesque. It was a satirical character piece that was intended to be a parody of the personality of Henry Chorley, a music critic. It greatly amused Gounod's English patron, Georgina Weldon, who described Chorley as having a "thin, sour, high-pitched sopranish voice" and moving like a "stuffed red-haired monkey." Gounod intended to publish the piece with a dedication to Chorley, but the latter died before this was possible. Weldon then invented a new program for the piece, which was re-titled Funeral March of a Marionette. After completing this piece, Gounod abandoned the rest of the suite and had the single movement published by Goddard & Co. The piece was dedicated to Madame Viguier, a pianist and the wife of Alfred Viguier, the first violin in the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire.

In 1879, he orchestrated the piece with piccolo, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in D, 2 trumpets in A, 3 trombones, ophicleide, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, and strings.

The work is in the key of D minor with a central section in D major; the time signature is 6/8.

The following storyline underlies the Funeral March of a Marionette:

Additionally, inscriptions are found throughout the score as follows:

The work has been recorded many times. One of the earliest recordings was by John Philip Sousa's band in 1903.

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