March
Form of music to accompany the orderly progress of large group of people, especially soldiers; one
of earliest known music forms. Military marches are of 4 kinds: funeral (4/4 time), slow (usually 4/4),
quick (2/4 or 6/8), and double‐quick. The march entered art music in 17th cent. in the works
of Couperin and Lully. Marches occur in the operas of Mozart (e.g. Die Entführung, Figaro, Così fan
tutte, and Zauberflöte); Schubert wrote Marches militaires and Beethoven incorporated a funeral
march into his Eroica symphony, as did Chopin into a piano sonata. Famous operatic marches were
written by Meyerbeer, Wagner, and Verdi. It was further developed in the symphony by Berlioz,
Mahler, Tchaikovsky, and Elgar. Military marches for concert performed by symphony orchestra
were written by Elgar (Pomp and Circumstance) and R. Strauss. Some of the best military marches
were written in the 19th century by Sousa, Johann Strauss I, and Lanner.
Funeral march
Among the best known of these (all of them in some public use on occasions of mourning) are the
following:
Handel's Dead March in Saul (from the oratorio of that name); the 2nd movt of Beethoven's 3rd
Sym. (Eroica); the 3rd movt of Chopin's 2nd pf sonata (in B♭ minor, Op.35); Chopin's Marche
funèbre in C minor, Op.72b.
There are also:
Beethoven's march ‘sulla morte d'un eroe’ (on the death of a hero), which is a movt in his pf sonata
in A♭, Op.26; Mendelssohn's Song without Words No.28, in E minor (the title Funeral March not,
however, authentic); Siegfried's Funeral March from Wagner's Götterdämmerung; Grieg's Funeral
March for Nordraak (military band, but scored also by Halvorsen for orch); Berlioz's Funeral March
for the Last Scene of ‘Hamlet’ (Op.18, No.3, 1848). Several sym. movts (e.g. Elgar's 2nd
Sym. larghetto and various examples in the works of Mahler) have the character if not the title of
funeral marches.