Adrian Chiles follows ‘the Elgar less travelled’

12 September 2025, The Tablet

Edward Elgar photographed by Hebert Lambert in 1931

National Portrait Gallery

A Catholic composer’s tale

Artworks: Finding Elgar
BBC RADIO 4

There are some intriguing glances at Sir Edward Elgar in the recently published The Benson Diaries (reviewed 9 August). Arthur Benson, its compiler, wrote the words to what became “Land of Hope and Glory” to accompany Elgar’s existing tune. Benson’s Elgar is a modest and self-deprecating type, not keen on a 1907 performance of The Kingdom at King’s College, Cambridge, because the music seemed “so far behind what he had dreamed of …”.

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