The work of lifelong friends, bicycling companions, and folk-song collectors Holst and Vaughan Williams is integral to the revival of British music in the 20th century. Folk-song idioms permeate Vaughan Williams’ lyrical Oboe Concerto, and Greensleeves and Dargason feature in Holst’s evergreen St Paul’s Suite. They inspired and nurtured the next generation of composers, including the oboist Gipps, whose Cringlemire Garden evokes sweeping views across Lake Windermere to the Langdale Pikes.

Another keen cyclist, Elgar is perhaps the quintessential English composer. During a walk along the Cardiganshire coast, he heard a distant choir ‘On the cliff, between blue sea and blue sky, there came up to me the sound of singing’, giving him the inspiration for his magnificent Introduction and Allegro.