I just listened to this for the second time. Just to make sure. I am convinced it is Elgar's worst piece. It is absolutely pathetic. To be fair to Ed, the libretto is truly awful - Crown the King is particularly useless, Crown the King with Life? What is that supposed to mean? I suspect it means 'Long live the King' but that is probably a much better way to say it. But is doesn't stop there: no, we have 'C the K with Peace/Might/...' And stopping in the middle of the last verse just to work in P & C number 1... What is that about? It sounds ridiculous. Britain ask of thyself seems to be Elgar's answer to the 1812 overture (you may remember my feelings with regard to that little number). Big and Empty. The slow movements ramble on with no interesting harmonic/scoring features etc. This is particularly true of the penultimate movement which is rather less interesting than the average hymn. The whole thing seems to be a vehicle for the big tune which in the finale is very well handled IMO but that seems to be the only salvagable thing in the whole 30 minutes of it. Just compare it to Spirit of England, which several orders of magnitude a better piece. Tell me I am wrong. I double dare you. David Stewart [log in to unmask]