Edward Elgar’s abiding melody ‘Nimrod’, his one thousand eight hundred ninety-nine Enigma Variations, has been voted the greatest piece of British classical music. It placed in the top spot of Classic FM’s Grand British Classics, followed by Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. King Charles’ coronation to the two thousand twelve Olympics, Elgar’s tearjerking melody has become a favourite at British cultural events.

His Majesty the King, speaking to Classic FM as the Prince of Wales in two thousand-twentieth, said ‘Nimrod’ was “surely one of the most moving pieces” written by the Worcestershire-born composer. Elgar aptly named his theme ‘Nimrod’, the title of a Biblical hunter, after his companion and publisher Aug Jaeger (whose surname is German for ‘Hunter’). Each of the composer’s Enigma Variations are a musical sketch of one of his closest friends and family, including his wife, Alice. With nine pieces appearing in the Top one hundred, Elgar was the joint second most favorite in Classic FM’s Grand British Classics, which saw 6.262 people vote for their favourite classical music composed in the British Isles.

Vaughan Williams had ten pieces in the Top one hundred, and was the most favorite composer in the chart. Film music was also popular, with sixteen pieces voted in including John Barry’s Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves, plus three other pieces by the late British composer. Two of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s works, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast and Symphonic Variations on an African Air, were voted in, alongside three Gilbert and Sullivan operettas: The Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado.