Elgar: Wand Of Youth Suite No.2 Op.1b I.March - wind dectet

The Wand of Youth (Music to a Child's Play) Second Suite, (Op. 1b) is dedicated to Hubert A. Leicester.

The music was drawn from material written by the composer in his youth and orchestrated forty years or so later.

This is my arrangement of the first mvt:

1. March

The opening of the march is variously described by musical analysts as "tense and hesitant",^[having "an air of pensive expectancy", and "in sombre mood ... in the key of G minor in 4/4 with much use of triplet rhythms".

(It reminds me of one of the minor movements from Dvorak’s Legends.)

In the trio section, in G major, Elgar gives the strings a jaunty, skipping rhythm. (My arrangement gives this melody to the flutes, later played as tutti.)

Elgar's 1929 programme note records that the march was composed to conclude the family play.

Arranged double wind quintet (dectet/decet) and bass