Music to our ears
We may not like the lyrics of Land of Hope and Glory but there’s no denying it’s a banging tune, says Katie Derham
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https://www.radiotimes.com/programme/b-r6scex/sunday-feature/episodes/?episode=b-ao8fxa
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How many pieces of music or songs do you know? I mean really know, in a “group singalong without having to read the words” kind of way? Wonderwall? Sweet Caroline? Happy Birthday?
OK, well done so far, pop pickers. But how about classical music? I thought so. It’s tricky isn’t it? But there are a couple. And the chances are, they’re the songs you’ll hear sung lustily at the Last Night of the Proms. Accompanied by the frantic waving of flags and a sprinkling of inflatable bananas, these songs will delight and enrage large swathes of the population in equal measure, but have become – undoubtedly – de facto national anthems.
These singalong classical bangers, like Land of Hope and Glory and Rule, Britannia! were written long ago – the former in 1901 (with lyrics added in 1902) and the latter way back in 1740. Both have lyrics that are of their time and, yes, also incredibly problematic.
As I researched Home of Hope and Glory, my programme on Radio 3 this week, I was fascinated to find out how a song like Land of Hope and Glory was born, and how it broke through and became not just an Edwardian hit, but also one that is still immediately recognisable around the world, over a century later. It was also very interesting to discover that the very modern preoccupations around its lyrics aren’t modern at all. In fact, the concerns were shared by its author and composer.
Derham with her Proms co-presenters. BBC/Ray Burmiston
Let’s meet the fine Edwardian gentlemen in question, complete with their tremendous moustaches: composer Edward Elgar and essayist and poet Arthur Benson. The former is very famous. Wrote marvellous music. Bit of an outsider, but by the turn of the last century already recognised as a giant of British music. Benson was not so well known, but a fascinating man: an educator, academic, poet, music lover and probably one of the best-connected men in England. I also discovered that I live in his old family home. I know, what are the chances?
Neither of them set out to write a patriotic song. In fact, Elgar didn’t write a song at all. He wrote a march. It was called Pomp and Circumstance March Number 1 and it was so good that when it received its London premiere, the famous conductor Henry Wood had to play it three times before the audience would stop cheering. So when Elgar was asked to write something for a special concert to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII, he thought he’d wheel it out again. This time, he was asked to provide words and turn it into an ode and for that he was introduced to Arthur Benson.
Benson was something of a pet of the royals; his family had known theirs for years, and he’d become their unofficial poet laureate. The two men corresponded by letter and, in a tale that has a few unexpected twists and turns, cooked up between them a song that was then made famous by the formidable contralto superstar of the day, Clara Butt.
The original lyrics had been rather bland, but under pressure from the publisher, and in a fit of patriotic fervour after Britain’s victory in the Boer War, Benson dashed off the verses that we know today… and then spent the rest of his life regretting them.
Benson was fiercely outspoken about atrocities committed in the name of the British Empire and found it excruciating that his words, written in haste, were sung with jingoistic fervour throughout the First World War. But the trouble was, Elgar had written one of the great pieces of classical music. A simple, memorable melody that could bring communities together and yet have a sense of universality.
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So as the flags are waved at the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday 14 September, you may well choose not to sing the words to Land of Hope and Glory – but remember that what you are witnessing is the unstoppable power of a really great tune.
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