A slow, ceremonial March. Marches have often been used within larger works for their specific meaning or emotional suggestiveness. Well-known examples include the Dead March from Handel's Saul (1739), Beethoven's ‘Marcia funebre sulla morte d′un eroe’ from his Piano Sonata in A♭ op.26 (1800-01) and the slow movement of his Symphony no.3 in E♭ (‘Eroica’, 1803), the ‘Marche funèbre’ (1837) in Chopin's Piano Sonata in B♭ minor op.35 (he also wrote another, in C minor, 1827) and Siegfried's Funeral March in Wagner's Götterdämmerung (1876), Mahler's Symphony no.1 in D (1888) includes a parody funeral march based on a minor-key version of Frère Jacques.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.