Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 in D major

When Elgar wrote his Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 in D major it was just one of a pair of a projected set of six marches for orchestra - ceremoniously titled, it is true, but with no ambition to rival the National Anthem in patriotic fervour. First performed by the Liverpool Orchestral Society with no particular acclaim on 19 October 1901, it proved to be a sensation at the Queen’s Hall Prom three day later when Henry Wood had to play it no fewer three times “merely,” as he said, “to restore order” in the audience. What excited them was, of course, the big tune in the middle. The briskly heroic and brilliantly scored outer sections are rousing enough but the slower middle section did exactly what Elgar predicted it would: “I’ve got a tune that will knock’em,” he told a friend “knock’em flat.” At that time, of course, it had no words attached. “Land of Hope and Glory” came a year later when – apparently at the suggestion of Edward VII himself – the big tune was incorporated in a Coronation Ode with words by A.C. Benson.