For the whole of the 18th and 19th centuries, while Europe produced the baroque, classical and romantic composers from Bach to Beethoven to Wagner, England was known as the "land without music". We listened to it, we performed it, but we didn't write it. So when the first English composer of genius after Purcell (who wrote in the late 1600s) arrived in the person of Edward Elgar it is not surprising that that it took him some time to find his voice and reveal his genius. By the time he was 40 Elgar's fame was still only provincial - a leading light of the Three Choirs festival in the west country, but not known elsewhere. The Enigma Variations changed all that, and it was quickly followed by Sea Pictures, Dream of Gerontius and Cockaigne. Gerontius was soon performed all over Europe and when Richard Strauss publicly described Elgar as "a composer of real genius" England realised that the 200 years "without music" was over.

Cockaigne was written in early 1901 in the aftermath of Dream of Gerontius. Though it was soon successful the premiere of Gerontius had been a disaster. Elgar was furious and upset, but in a few weeks he was at work on a new piece. "I call it Cockayne and it's cheerful and Londony - stout and steaky". He had recently learnt the trombone and consciously made the trombone parts more substantial than usual. He finished it in March 1901 and it was first performed in London in June.

It starts tentatively and gradually picks up momentum into the first big tune which is in two parts. The first part is swaggering and jolly, and the second part broad and sweeping. It then subsides and the second theme is quieter, romantic and dreamy. With a swirl the first theme reappears. A longer quiet section with fragments of other themes leads to a big crescendo and the third theme, bold and martial on brass and percussion. This too subsides and a steady tread of feet takes us to the emotional heart of the piece ("two lovers only concerned with each other, among the trees of a London square"). The rest of the overture develops these themes in a mixture of swaggering ceremonial and tenderness, and it is the ceremonial which gives the rousing close.