Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 in C Major

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

• The “Pomp and Circumstance” March No.5 in C Major was composed in 1929/1930.¹ It was the last “Pomp and Circumstance” march that Elgar completed, though he had contracted with his publisher Boosey for six.²
• Elgar came up with the main theme of this march while he was on a drive through Gloucester and he scribbled it down on an Ordnance Survey map, which still survives.³
• At the first performance of Pomp and Circumstance no.5 in Sept. 1930, the hall was sold out.⁴

“No recent announcement can have given more pleasure to a vast number of people than the promise of a new Military March by the Master of the King’s Music.”

From The Daily Telegraph, on the premiere of this march⁵

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. Richard Smith, “Elgar – His Music: Pomp and Circumstance Marches Nos. 1-5, op 39,” The Elgar Society, accessed September 18, 2019, http://www.elgar.org/3pomp.htm.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Quoted in Richard Smith, “Elgar – His Music: Pomp and Circumstance Marches Nos. 1-5, op 39,” The Elgar Society, accessed September 18, 2019, http://www.elgar.org/3pomp.htm.