MS Mus. 1821

Draft in short score, seemingly intended as a march in the ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ series. The musical content appears to develop the pencil sketch in Add MS 63154, ff. 37v-38.

Autograph, primarily in ink but with pencil annotations; five loose leaves with 16 staves to a page, continuously numbered, and with paste-downs (folios 3, 6 and 7). Folios 1, 2, 4, 8 and 9 are titled ‘P + C 5’ in Elgar’s hand, although folio 8 is also stamped ‘Pomp & Circumstance March No. 6’. The leaves are numbered and a continuous draft appears on the rectos only. Versos contain a mixture of: further working of some ideas; blank pages; and cancelled extracts of other pieces, as detailed below.

The first editions of the first four Pomp and Circumstance marches (composed between 1901 and 1907) indicate that six were planned in all. However the fifth march was not composed until 1930 and a sixth never appeared. The present manuscript does not include material from any of the completed marches, or that used by Anthony Payne for his reconstruction of the projected sixth march (2006).

Several leaves are also stamped ‘Coliseum Masque’ (ff. 1, 2, 5 and 9), suggesting the material may have been considered at some point as part of the music for ‘The Crown of India’ - a masque presented at the London Coliseum in 1912 with music by Elgar. The verso of folio 5 contains part of the song ‘Oh, soft was the song’, op. 59, no. 3 (1909), cancelled and upside down.