Arthur Reynolds, chairman of the North America Branch of The Elgar Society, is an expert on the life and career of Sir Edward Elgar, a man whose name is less likely to come up in casual conversation than Millard Fillmore’s.

On the other hand, none of Fillmore’s cultural contributions rings in the ears of American high school and college graduates the way one of Elgar’s does.

Edward Elgar composed Pomp and Circumstance.

Reynolds, who owns what is arguably the largest collection of Elgar memorabilia in private hands, has promised to explain how Elgar’s work became the It’s a Small World After All of high school and college graduations.

“Percy Young, in his biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, wrote, ‘The years before the first Great War belonged to Elgar in point of public esteem,’” Reynolds said. “Elgar was a towering figure in his day.”

I found the description a bit limiting. Elgar, whose career spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries, would have been called a nerd if, at the time, the word had been part of the vernacular.

Self-taught, not only in music but in science as well, he often took breaks from composing to putter around in his home brew chemistry laboratory. During one such break, while composing Falstaff, Elgar must have concluded chemistry wasn’t relaxing enough. Instead, he unwound by disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling his watch, an act he duly recorded in the margins of his manuscript.

Elgar and I could have been great friends.

Around strangers and casual acquaintances, Elgar was a socially-awkward introvert (and what nerd isn’t?). But with his friends, he was a charming and quirky extrovert.

That quirkiness lead to his developing a fiercely loyal core of influential fans who contributed to Pomp and Circumstance‘s ubiquity.

First on that list would be Elgar’s editor and mentor, August Jaeger. According to Reynolds, “In January, 1902, Elgar wrote to Jaeger and said, ‘I’ve got a tune in my head.’ He kept this tune for several months, thinking he could weave it into a symphony. But as he tried to develop it, he realized it wasn’t symphonic material. By June or July he decided to give up on the symphony and use the tune in a march, instead. The tune became the trio tune within the march.

“All told, there are five Pomp and Circumstance marches, but this one, in D, was the first. And the most famous.”

Had the piece premiered with the same relative acclaim today, it would be challenging Beyoncé and Drake for music chart supremacy.

As any nerd knows, that sort of attention is embarrassing. So, Elgar kept his head down, composing other pieces, and not dwelling on Pomp and Circumstance or its immediate popularity. But in 1905, Pomp and Circumstance marched back into his life. And ours.

“Samuel Sanford was a professor of music at Yale,” Reynolds said. “By 1905 he’d been over to England and was a great and devoted friend of Elgar’s. Sanford told the composer, ‘I’ve asked the people who make the decision, and we want to award you an honorary doctorate at Yale.’”

On June 27, 1905, Elgar was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree on the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut.

“The head of the music department at the time was Horatio Parker and Parker was also serving as organist for the ceremonies,” Reynolds said. “Since the composer was there, Parker decided to play Pomp and Circumstance as the recessional. Everybody filed out to it, and since then it’s been used in almost every high school and college graduation.”

With a little help from Elgar’s friends and admirers.

The New York Times reported that, along with Elgar, luminaries in the fields of science, law, and divinity received honorary doctorates that day, meaning both the stage and the lawn chairs were filled with influential dignitaries.

“These people went back to their respective institutions,” Reynolds said, “and said, ‘Let’s use this.’”

In a fairy-tale ending, perhaps more suitable for It’s a Small World After All, the people did. Over and over again.

Reynolds said thereafter Pomp and Circumstance was even more of an embarrassment to Elgar. “Every time he’d walk into a restaurant with an orchestra in the corner they’d start playing Pomp and Circumstance. Elgar often wrote that he wished he’d never composed it.”

Elgar and I definitely could have been great friends.

Courtesy of Arthur Reynolds