It's influenced at least 2 of my marches and is likely prepped to influence several more over my lifetime. It's surprisingly harmonically complex, from its diminished chord-filled opening bars, through its striking chromatic mediant use later in the march proper, to its use of secondary dominants in the trio. It has an accessible A-B-A-B'-Coda structure...and a rather pessimistic ending. Yup, I figured I'd better transcribe Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 39.
As of the day this was published, you'd have to pay for a piano transcription of this excellent march. No. At this point, I'm transcribing my own instead.
This is mainly based on the Royal Scottish National Orchestra interpretation, the first one I ever listened to fully (listen to it in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIKaWwmS9hY - it might end up disappearing some day, though), although I did take some other interpretations into account while writing this.
As is typical of piano transcriptions of orchestral works, I skipped a lot of notes. This is perhaps the most obvious in Bars 116-123, where I emphasize the fast runs new to the A section instead of the triplet-filled horn part. Throughout, I tended to eliminate the highest and lowest notes.
I simplified away the triplets in Bars 163-170 because I couldn't really hear them in the Royal Scottish National Orchestra interpretation.
This is meant to be played by pianists who can span a 10th--or hopefully an 11th!--in both hands. Feel free to redistribute notes between hands or arpeggiate chords as necessary. Bar 186 might especially need it.
All parts notated "trem." are meant to imitate drum rolls. I only transcribed the most obvious drum rolls in the Royal Scottish National Orchestra interpretation in this way.
The ending tremolo is actually meant to be a 32nd-note tremolo. However, due to how Musescore implements fermatas--it literally slows down the tempo by a certain stretch factor (2.33 times as slow, in this case)--I needed to use a 64th-note tremolo to get the sound of a 32nd-note tremolo.
I've tested Bar 80 on a real piano, and trust me, its use of intersecting hands is completely fine.
Bars 52, 140, and 190 were always pains to transcribe and play, though. I believe they're the most difficult bars of this entire piece to play. I still hope they're possible at full speed.
You might have heard an excerpt of this march in Fantasia 2000...or, just like me, you might not have remembered it.
Because I cannot take credit for composing the tune, but Edward Elgar's works have fallen into the public domain, I am using the CC0 license. Feel free to do nigh-anything you want with this!
