Pomp and Circumstance
Finding Elgar's Five Marches in Clubland
The German sociologist Max Weber thought that modernity’s rampant onslaught had disenchanted the world, taking myth and magic out of our lives. The rituals that underlay healthy social life were disappearing so rapidly as to create a fundamental crisis of meaning. As Clubland’s armchair yapper and squash court-residing philosopher, yours truly took it upon himself to tell that great thinker that he was most certainly wrong. Clubland has all the pomp and circumstance it needs to re-enchant the world, thus, leading me to the English composer Sir Edward Elgar’s (1857–1934) suite of five marches, Pomp and Circumstance (Op. 39).
You’ve probably heard the first march from Pomp and Circumstance at graduation. It all began on June 28, 1905, when Yale conferred upon Elgar an honorary Doctorate of Music at its two hundred and fifth Commencement in Woolsey Hall, and Elgar travelled across the pond to receive his honorary doctorate from President Arthur T. Hadley.
Seated on the very first row on stage, Elgar faced the audience while the first march from the suite that came to be known as Pomp and Circumstance: Five Marches, was performed at a university commencement ceremony in the United States. Having walked out of Woolsey Hall to the first march, those boys then became eligible to join the Yale Club of New York, which then occupied the building that now houses the Penn Club. Other schools followed Yale’s adoption of the march as the definitive graduation song, and by the time the Roaring Twenties came around, it had proliferated commencement ceremonies across the country.
The only surviving video recording of Elgar conducting music from the first march of Pomp and Circumstance, from the archives of British Pathé.
Clubland USA brings to you five rejoinders to Weber’s disenchantment thesis, following in Elgar’s footsteps.
The first march, “Finding Happiness on Safari”, brings us to the best club in the middle of the wilderness. After years of being on safari, from Africa to Asia, I’ve realised that the pukka safari lodge is a club in the wilderness, and you’re bound to bump into fellow club rats before you even make it to your accommodations.
In the second march, my focus turns to the concrete jungle of Manhattan, where Whit Stillman’s 1990 masterpiece Metropolitan is set, and the spirit of which lives on to this day in the fabled institution that is the club holiday party. “Metropolitan and the Club Holiday Party” gives a new spin to “clubbing”.
Is pomp and circumstance only for special occasions like the club holiday party? We reckon not. For the third march, “Squash Whites Only”, I reflect on my ritual of donning whites for my weekday lunchtime game of squash.
And, eventually, in “Five Marches and Tea Time”, I find myself at tea time, the subject of the fourth march in the suite, the victim of a little switcheroo.
Thus, after four from yours truly, I leave you to the fifth and final march of the suite, in the form of “Dispatches from Clubland”, brought to you this week by Ben Kahn.
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March I: Finding Happiness on Safari
Today, going on safari is perhaps the last refuge of the young fogey who is also an idle romantic and bon vivant like myself. You wake up slightly before the crack of dawn and huddle into your safari jeep, trying desperately to guzzle your coffee before it falls victim to the ruts on the country backroads. There is something about having the wind in your hair that feels like freedom, like independence, the sort of thing you’re never going to find solace in. There’s no music, no technology, only nature and you. If there was ever a Luddite’s paradise, it is on safari. Elgar might not be bellowing from the speakers, but the steady beat of the thuds as you make your way through the carriage paths trodden by jeeps that came before is a darned good substitute.
To continue reading this march, please click here.
March II: Metropolitan and the Club Holiday Party
The last hope for pomp and circumstance lies directly in Clubland. New York’s University Club annual holiday dance, which yours truly was spotted at in a shawl-collar tuxedo, stipulates both good dress and dancing to the tunes of a chamber orchestra, a reprise for Stillman’s Metropolitan, and perhaps the last of the great club holiday parties. Boston’s Union Club requires its members and guests to adhere to the dress code while prohibiting electronic devices from everywhere but the dedicated study, nicely cordoned off in a back room. No sneakers and laptops, puh-lease. New York’s Union Club is similarly pukka, and ties aren’t optional, much like University Club.
To continue reading this march, please click here.
March III: Squash Whites Only
The pomp and circumstance of walking through the entrance to the squash courts or to the tennis courts, wearing whites, and then proceeding to play: almost like a uniform, yes, but also, a visual signifier that both players understand the ends and the means that they are about to deploy on court. But it is not merely the aesthetic dimension that ought to grab our eye. There is ritual, much needed and long missed ritual, in the everyday routine of finding oneself on court, serving, playing, winning and losing, and then doing it all over again.
To continue reading this march, please click here.
March IV: Five Marches and Tea Time
Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance is a series of five marches. Three of Clubland’s adaptations of it are seen above. I must ask for your forbearance, though, for in America, I’ve learnt that the brown liquid served as teatime has been substituted for another brown liquid, and that’s gotten me in quite the tizzy. Or, a fellow club rat once put it (though it did take him twelve minutes to compose this itty bit of poetry): rail rail rail rail / rail rail rail cross / rail rail rail Bertgetmeagoddamnmartini / rail rail boast drop / lob rail rail rail. Thus, in the spirit of Bertgetmeagoddamnmartini, I bid thee adieu, for it is time for “tea”.
March V: Dispatches from Clubland
A tale of two Richards. There will be a new president at the Explorers Club later this month. Richard Wiese was re-elected by the board and will serve as the president of the storied club on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Wiese’s exploits include climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro at eleven years old, conducting the first microbial survey of Central Park, and riding a white horse on stage at the Waldorf-Astoria, where the horse promptly defecated on Sir Edmund Hillary’s place setting. The wound Wiese received was promptly sterilized with a bottle of bubbly. The outgoing president, Richard Garriott, assumed office in January 2021. We wonder which Richard will succeed Wiese when he completes his term.
Louisville club rats—a recent exception to indoor smoking laws will soon allow patrons of cigar lounges and select bars to smoke indoors. The fine cigar-appreciating residents of the Corn Cracker State will once again be able to smoke indoors, unmolested by jackbooted goons from the government. Three cheers to the fine folks at Louisville Thoroughbred Society, who appear to have a smoking room, even before the ban was lifted! Which club do you think will be next to install an indoor cigar room?
Members of the Greenbriar Hills Country Club are embroiled in a lawsuit against the City of Kirkwood, Missouri. Over what, you ask? The Club’s newly constructed pickleball courts which are unable to be used until passing a post-construction noise study.
Pickleball’s role in Clubland is hotly debated by some hence its absence from Smaller the Ball, Better the Sport but it’s definitely not a noisy sport, only one that draws the ire of killjoys.
Three cheers for these Missouri club rats and their fight back against their locally-elected killjoys!
Speaking of courts, we’re in the midst of squash season.
Squash Parents: if you’re at a squash tournament, much less a bronze level tournament, don’t behave like you’re at the Tournament of Champions.
At a recent US Squash Bronze tournament at a certain unnamed Connecticut club, a parent challenged referees and match officials ardently, insisting that she was from Greenwich (whatever that means), while her son was puking his guts out. After having pumped her son from an inhaler and telling him off, she proceeded to go on an angry tirade against the tournament director and match officials.
Sadly, she wasn’t well versed in the ways of Clubland. It turned out that the match official who bore the brunt of her unhappiness was, in fact, the ranking committee member at the unnamed club who hosted the tournament. Calls were made to spread the news of ill tidings.
That’s all for this week, club rats! Behave yourself at squash tournaments, appreciate the chances you have to smoke indoors, and remember—in a pinch, champagne is good for more than mimosas.
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