the wedding march

Originally written as a piece of incidental music for productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream around 1842, Felix Mendelssohn’s processional in C Major did not become standard matrimonial canon until when on this day in 1858 it was selected by Victoria, Princess Royal, for her marriage ceremony to Friedrich (“Fritz”) Wilhelm, Prince of Prussia and future albeit short-reigning king—in 1888, the Year of the Three Emperors.
The recessional piece played on the pipe organ is often accompanied with the chorus from Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin (Treulich geführt but colloquially known as “Here Comes the Bride) or baroque composer Jeremiah Clarke’s Prince of Denmark’s March (Prins Jørgens March or Trumpet Voluntary) to play in the bride. Though the first tune may be the most culturally resonant, the last was used as the signature tune and introductory first few bars used by the BBC during broadcasts directed toward Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II, the march being a symbolic connection between the two kingdoms. For decades afterwards, it remained the call sign of BBC World Service for Europe and was for the Soviet public BBC’s station identification for its Russian language programming.  A selection of the melodies are below: