The Times - UK (2020-09-05)

the times | Saturday September 5 2020 1GM 33

Comment

twice; the whole audience joined in. I

could not. I regret very profoundly

how this song has become an

anthem to war. There’s been so much

sorrow and sacrifice over the last

four years; nothing glorious about it.

The world is a changed place and I

am awfully tired of it.”

As a patriotic soundtrack, though,

Land of Hope and Glory was fixed,

loved by some, repudiated by others.

It was sung by the actress Jeanette

MacDonald in her 1941 film Smilin’

Through and famously belted out by

the forces’ sweetheart Vera Lynn.

Conversely, in 1969, the conductor

Colin Davis had it taken off the

Proms’ Last Night programme,

saying “it smacked of Earl Haig”. It

was restored after an outcry.

The irony is that when Benson

wrote the lyrics, the sun was already

setting on the Empire. The appeal to

God to make Britain “mightier yet”

was really a begging letter, which the

Almighty failed to answer.

So what does one do with a slice of

musical heritage that was loved and

hated from the outset? One response

is to see it, and sing it, with a full

awareness of its context, as another

intriguing artefact from our complex

and contradictory historical legacy.

There is another, more radical

option. In his original version, in

answer to the question of how to

extol the Mother of the Free, Benson

wrote:

Truth and Right and Freedom

Each a holy gem

Stars of solemn brightness

Weave thy diadem.

The traditionalists cannot object if

we dust off and restore this slice of

Victorian boilerplate gobbledegook.

And the protesters cannot complain

if, in place of colonial expansionism,

we celebrate three virtues reflecting

the better aspects of our national

past, just as Elgar intended.

All together now...

He suggested that the

line ‘wider still and

wider’ be removed

Land of hope and inglorious regret

Elgar hated the way his most famous composition became an accidental anthem to jingoism and empire

Ben

Macintyre

@benmacintyre1

‘I’

ve a got a tune in my head

that will knock ’em — knock

’em flat,” Edward Elgar wrote

to a friend describing his first

Pomp and Circumstance

March, written in May 1901, the

central melody of what would

become Land of Hope and Glory.

And he was right. The tune still

knocks you flat. It is the words,

imperialist, clunking and jingoistic,

that reliably, every few years, ignite a

political firestorm when they are

belted out by people dressed as

bananas and waving Union Jacks at

the Last Night of the Proms:

Wider still and wider

shall thy bounds be set;

God, who made

thee mighty, make

thee mightier yet.

It’s a controversy

into which Tim

Davie, the new

director-general

of the BBC, has

waded, like a man

dutifully walking

into a hail of

gunfire. But the

story behind Land

of Hope and Glory is

more complex, and

much more interesting,

than suggested by the

increasingly wearisome

battle between woke anti-

imperialist left and jingoistic

Brexity right.

Elgar did not write the words. He

came to despise the song, which

eventually overshadowed everything

else he composed. And it was written

not in the heyday of imperialist

conquest but at the very moment the

British Empire was starting to

crumble, its bounds growing not

wider still and wider, but narrower.

Elgar was neither the first nor the

last artist to find

that his creation

took on a life of

its own as a result

of unstoppable

popularity.

It was born as

a march without

words, four

months after the

death of Queen

Victoria. Elgar did

not think it needed

lyrics. Sir Henry

Wood, who conducted

it for its London premiere

at the Proms in 1901, later

recalled: “Little did I think then

that the lovely broad melody of the

trio would one day develop into our

second national anthem.”

But Edward VII (the most musical

member of a largely tone-deaf clan)

told Elgar the march would make a

good song, and the composer duly

incorporated it into his Coronation

Ode for 1902. Arthur C Benson, an

Eton schoolmaster, poet and essayist,

provided the words, which is when

the trouble began. Benson’s original

lyrics were considered too pallid. The

Boer War was still raging. Cecil

Rhodes, the imperialist and mining

tycoon, had just bequeathed his

massive fortune to encourage the

“extension of British rule throughout

the world”.

So Benson, the son of an

Archbishop of Canterbury and a

neurotic social misfit who poured

what feelings he had into his

writing, produced something much

more overtly nationalistic and

sinew-stiffening:

By Freedom gained, By Truth

maintained

Thine Empire shall be strong.

There is lots more guff about the

spilling of “hero’s blood”, “the Ocean”

and “stern and silent pride”.

Elgar was himself an unabashed

child of empire: “We are a nation

with real military proclivities [and] I

have some of the soldier instinct in

me.” He did not want his

composition falling into the wrong

hands: “Don’t let any blasted Labour

rogues or Liberals use the tune!”

Even he, however, had doubts about

the overtly imperialist tone and

suggested that the line about “wider

still and wider” be removed.

The initial reception was mixed.

The Musical News dismissed the song

as “spirited — exciting — throbbing

— pulsing, almost maddening in its

insistent rhythm”. But Wood had

already observed the tune’s power:

“The people simply rose and yelled. I

had to play it again. With the same

result. The audience roared its

applause... merely to restore order I

played the march a third time.”

With its lyrics, and against the

backdrop of the First World War, it

vastly increased in popularity as an

expression of national pride. And the

louder the song was sung, the more

Elgar cringed. In a diary entry for

November 11, 1918, he wrote: “The

war is over, thank God. What a

terrible, cruel waste of life there has

been. Alice and I went to the

Coliseum tonight and they played

Land of Hope and Glory not once, but

Land of Hope and Glory, a mainstay of Last Night of the Proms, had left Edward Elgar “awfully tired” by 1918

CHRISTIE GOODWIN/REDFERNS VIA GETTY IMAGES

offering to help Pluto bounce back as

a viable planet? Or veering off right

so Priti Patel can tell Martians to get

back in the sea?

Cummings’s project, staffed by

weirdos and misfits, is modelled on

the early Apollo missions: it turns

the clock back to the 1960s, several

people will die in the process, and it

will encourage conspiracy theories.

Did Brexit really happen, or was

it faked in a Lincolnshire

warehouse? Boris Johnson’s hair

is blowing in the wind but everyone

knows there’s no atmosphere at

a Tory party event.

This week Johnson was

asked if he had become a

“prisoner” of No 10. He didn’t

answer, which is no great

surprise from someone who

responded to Sir Keir Starmer

asking when he knew the exam

algorithm had gone haywire

with: “Perhaps I could begin by

congratulating him on his birthday.”

But with Cummings and his other

handlers moving out of No 10,

Johnson is not a prisoner, he is just

floating pointlessly in space. No

direction, just spinning.

Back on that morning in July 1969

the news update from Mission

Control included one other nugget:

“The interest in the flight of Apollo

11 continues at a high level but a

competing interest in the Houston

area is the easing of watering rules.”

People in Houston, the city from

where this wonder of technology and

human endeavour was being run,

were more concerned about when

they could water their lawn.

A salutary lesson for Captain

Cummings. While you are busy

shooting for the moon, people are

starting to notice that the grass

might be greener on the other side.

Put a man on

the moon?

Major Dom

can’t even

put a TV

on the wall

I

t was 53 hours, 57 minutes and

55 seconds into the Apollo 11

mission. Mission Control — the

inspiration for Dominic

Cummings’s new government

command centre — had woken the

three astronauts for their morning

update. The centre’s $24 billion

tangle of wires and science was all

that connected Earth with a tin can

hurtling through space.

But those on board weren’t taking

it very seriously. “I’d like to enter

Aldrin in the oatmeal eating contest

next time,” joked Michael Collins.

“He’s on his 19th bowl.” All that

expensive kit and it came down to

mocking Buzz Aldrin’s dietary habits.

The equivalent in the new

Cummings set-up will be one of the

big screens displaying an Instagram

feed of Liz Truss’s lunch. Just not yet.

The PM’s adviser moved into his

You’ve-Got-A-Nerve Centre this

week. But the TVs didn’t. He might

be inspired by the effort to put a man

on the moon but he can’t even put a

flatscreen on the wall. Whitehall, we

have a problem.

The absence of Dom’s 45-incher is

not what should worry us. The

bigger question is what might be on

the screens when they do arrive.

Perhaps a live feed showing the

whereabouts of Gavin Williamson?

Sat-Gav would map updates in real

time, with the multiple U-turns

inevitably drawing two perfect circles

separated by a long oval.

This is a Mission Control which is

missing its mission. What is the point

of this government? What is the

message? If this were a space

mission, where would it be going?

Matt Hancock throwing a protective

arm around Saturn, or Liz Truss

hiring Darth Vader as a trade

ambassador? Rishi Sunak kindly

Matt Chorley

Listen to Matt Chorley

every Monday to

Thursday, 10am to 1pm

ider

set;

s

ing,

he

ome

e anti-

ingoistic

las

th

to

it

o

p

a

w

m

dea

Vict

not t

lyrics.

Wood, w

iit for its Lo

at the Proms

recalled: “Little did

Lan