The other night I turned the radio on in mid-work and thought I'd
identified it as one of the Tchaikovsky orchestral suites but the harmonies
sounded wrong.  After a while, I recognised it as Elgar, a work I knew but
not really well.  It was The Wand of Youth, which he wrote in mid-career.
I know most of Elgar's orchestral music and can't think of any other work
that sounds so much like Tchaikovsky.  I wondered whether it was done
consciously.  Does anyone know more about The Wand of Youth?

Richard Pennycuick
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