Pageant of Empire is also the title given to the set of songs, to words by Alfred Noyes, written by Sir Edward Elgar and included in the Pageant. Elgar conducted the massed choirs at the opening ceremony of the Exhibition, including Land of Hope and Glory, but the songs were not performed there until 21 July, when they were conducted by the composer.
Elgar composed his Empire March for the same occasion, and this march was at the time considered part of the Pageant of Empire. However the Empire March was not performed then and Elgar's Imperial March took its place.
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Famous quotes containing the words pageant of, pageant and/or empire:
“What helps it now, that Byron bore,
With haughty scorn which mock’d the smart,
Through Europe to the Aetolian shore
The pageant of his bleeding heart?
That thousands counted every groan,
And Europe made his woe her own?”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“On September 16, 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)