Variations on an Elizabethan Theme
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Variations on an Elizabethan Theme (also seen as Variations on Sellinger's Round) is a set of variations for string orchestra, written collaboratively in 1952 by six English composers: Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Oldham, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett and William Walton.
Imogen Holst also played an important role in orchestrating the overall work, but she did not write a variation of her own.[1]
The variations were written to celebrate the forthcoming coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953.[1] (Benjamin Britten also wrote his opera Gloriana in honour of this occasion.)