Musical Form
March
Music for marching feet - from military parades to funerals, weddings, and graduations.
Orchestral
A march is music written for marching - or music that sounds as if it were. It has a strong, steady beat, usually in two or four beats to the bar (LEFT-right, LEFT-right), clear, memorable tunes, and often the brilliant sound of brass and drums. Marches have accompanied armies, processions, ceremonies, and celebrations for centuries, and they have found their way into symphonies, operas, and ballets.
From the battlefield to the bandstand
Drums and fifes kept soldiers in step long before anyone wrote marches down. As European armies developed military bands in the 17th and 18th centuries, composers began writing marches for them, and the Turkish Janissary bands of the Ottoman army, with their drums, cymbals, and triangles, made a great impression on Western ears. In the 19th century, brass bands and military bands spread across Europe and America, and the march became popular entertainment in parks and bandstands.
How a march is built
Most marches follow a simple pattern. After a short introduction, there are two or three catchy strains, each usually repeated. Then comes the trio, a contrasting middle section, often quieter and more lyrical and in a new key, before the music builds to a rousing finish. The tempo depends on the purpose: a quick-step march for parades, a slow, solemn march for funerals and processions.
The March King
The American bandmaster John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), known as "The March King," wrote more than a hundred marches, and his The Stars and Stripes Forever (1896) became the national march of the United States. Its famous piccolo solo in the final strain is one of the best-known moments in band music.
Marches in the concert hall
Classical composers have long borrowed the march. Mozart's famous "Rondo alla turca" imitates Turkish military music, and Beethoven included a "Turkish" march in the finale of his Ninth Symphony and a mighty funeral march in his "Eroica" Symphony. Chopin's Funeral March, from his Piano Sonata No. 2, has become the music of mourning everywhere.
Weddings have their marches too: the "Wedding March" from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the "Bridal Chorus" from Wagner's Lohengrin ("Here Comes the Bride"). In Britain, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches are a national institution, and his first is played at graduations across America.
Famous marches
- Sousa - The Stars and Stripes Forever.
- Elgar - Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1.
- Verdi - Triumphal March from Aida. See opera.
- Mendelssohn - "Wedding March" from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
- Johann Strauss I - Radetzky March - the clapping finale of Vienna's New Year's Day concert.
- Tchaikovsky - March from The Nutcracker.
- Holst - "Mars, the Bringer of War" from The Planets, a terrifying march in five beats to the bar.
Where to start listening: The Stars and Stripes Forever, then the Radetzky March and Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance No. 1. See also the waltz, the other great dance of the 19th century.