NURSERY SUITE

Princess Elizabeth was only four years old when England's greatest composer, Sir Edward Elgar, dedicated his latest composition Nursery Suite to her, along with her recently born sister Princess Margaret and their mother (the Duchess of York).

One year later, in 1931, attending the composer's recording of the final movement (Dreaming - Envoy) of the piece at the Kingsway Hall along with her mother and father (Duke and Duchess of York) on the 4th of June, the young girl found the whole thing very unusual and most exciting.

There was just something about watching this pulsating engine room of music operating at full force with the magnificently moustached conductor keeping it all held together as if by magic with his baton. She couldn't quite understand how all of the elderly gentleman's shuffling on the podium and gesturing with his stick had any relationship whatsoever with the music that was reaching all the way to her young ears, but she knew somehow it did.

Many decades later, as the reigning Monarch of Great Britain, she reflected that sometimes things are propelled by a magical and mysterious link, in a way that is often felt in the heart like a sort of transmission of energy. It was something special she believed she shared with the British public, a kind of symbiotic alchemy of feeling that bound them together in a way similar to that of the conductor that day back in June 1931 with his orchestra.

And all throughout her long life and occupation of the throne Queen Elizabeth II had felt the guiding force of music as much a counsel to her as her greatest advisors, if not more so.

For in the end, she thought to herself, what greater solace is there in this life than music?

Rest in Peace, your Majesty x