Five Little Pitches: A Close Look at Aida’s Triumphal March

Few operatic melodies are more familiar than the march that accompanies Radamès’s victorious army into the city of Thebes. Certainly few are simpler. The theme, played by a small chorus of trumpets, comprises only five different pitches (Track 40). The phrase is heard twice (Track 41), then the same notes are rearranged into a new melody to form a middle section (Track 42), before the original phrase recurs one more time (Track 43). In Track 44, Verdi repeats this pattern, but in a seemingly unrelated key. Track 45 adds a simple ornamentation to the middle section that keeps playing when the main melody returns to conclude the march in Track 46.

The Triumphal March is one of very few passages in which Verdi sought to bring genuine historical effect to Aida. Recent archeology had uncovered simple, valveless horns, which prompted Verdi to commission special trumpets in an attempt to recreate the spare, stirring tones the ancient Egyptians might have heard when celebrating a victory.

The composer turned out to be more historically accurate than he could have known. Half a century after Aida, in 1925, a pair of horns was found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen. One was tuned in A flat, the other in B—precisely the same two keys Verdi had chosen for his triumphal march!

Please note that all tracks are orchestral only (no reproducible pages). The entire piece can be heard in Track 47.