Tge big familiar tune in Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 1, eventually Land of Hope and Glory, begins very quietly, more in reflectiveness than triumph.
Elgar was no tub-thumping supporter of Empire, and he was ambivalent about having this melody, first heard at the Proms in 1901 and then used in the Coronation Ode for Edward VII the following year, turned into a patriotic hymn when the First World War broke out. The war caused him terrible anguish, though it has to be admitted he was at least as concerned for the fate of military horses as he was for the men.
So he was never very enthusiastic about the words that A C Benson fitted to his big melody, and actually begged for some other less grandly imperial words to be substituted for them. But by then it was too late: the public adored them, and Land of Hope and Glory became a smash hit. The association with the Proms continued, and by the late Twenties it had become a Last Night fixture, though it was only with the televising of the Proms from 1947 onwards that the singalong became a visual spectacle as well, with balloons and silly hats.
