Pomp and Circumstance No 4

The Pomp and Circumstance Marches (full title Pomp and Circumstance Military Marches), Op. 39, are a series of marches for orchestra composed by Sir Edward Elgar.

The title is taken from Act III, Scene 3 of Shakespeare's Othello:

Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th'ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!

But also, 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

Like a proud music that draws men on to die
Madly upon the spears in martial ecstasy,
A measure that sets heaven in all their veins
   And iron in their hands.
I hear the Nation march
Beneath her ensign as an eagle's wing;
O'er shield and sheeted targe
The banners of my faith most gaily swing;
Moving to victory with solemn noise,
With worship and with conquest, and the voice of myriads.

proclaiming the "shows of things" (Maine's quotation marks): the naïve assumption that the splendid show of military pageantry—"Pomp"—has no connection with the drabness and terror—"Circumstance"—of actual warfare. The first four marches were all written before the events of World War I shattered that belief, and the styles in which wars were written about spurned the false romance of the battle-song.

The Pomp and Circumstance marches are

The first five were all published by Boosey & Co. as Elgar's Op. 39, and each of the marches is dedicated to a particular musical friend of Elgar's.

Each march takes about five minutes to play.

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: 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, and tambourine ad lib.), two harps, organ, and strings.

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