Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D Major

Main page on Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches Op. 39

• From set of five Military Marches (“Pomp and Circumstance”), Opus 39. Elgar composed March No. 1 in D Major in 1901.¹

“I shall never forget the scene at the close of the first of them [Elgar’s first two Op. 39 marches]—the one in D major. The people simply rose and yelled. I had to play it again—with the same result; in fact, they refused to let me go on with the programme!”

Conductor Henry Wood, who directed this piece at the London Proms a couple days after its premiere in Liverpool²

• Elgar arranged the trio melody from this march for choir, in his Coronation Ode, composed in 1902 for the accession of Edward VII.³
  • This tune appears in mvt. 7, “Land of Hope and Glory.” The text is by A.C. Benson.
  • “Land of Hope and Glory” became immensely popular in Britain during WWI. Elgar was very patriotic⁴ but was also distressed by the war’s violence, so his feelings about this song were mixed, and he even suggested changing the lyrics (that didn’t happen).⁵
• The march is played at American graduations because in 1905 it was played at Yale when Elgar was given an honorary doctorate. After that Princeton, Columbia and the University of Chicago used it and soon just about every American college had jumped on the bandwagon.⁶

1. Diana McVeagh, “Elgar, Sir Edward,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed September 18, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008709.
2. Henry Joseph Wood, My Life of Music (London: Gollancz, 1946), 154.
3. Diana McVeagh, “Elgar, Sir Edward,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed September 18, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008709.
4. Tristram Hunt, “Beyond the Pomp and Circumstance,” The Guardian June 2, 2007,
5. McVeagh, “Elgar, Sir Edward,” Grove Music Online.
6. Miles Hoffmann, “’Pomp and Circumstance:’ Familiar Standard Marches Ahead of Competitors,” NPR (May 27, 2003), accessed September 19, 2019, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1273081.