Orb and Sceptre is a march for orchestra written by William Walton for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, London, on 2 June 1953. It follows the pattern of earlier concert marches by Elgar and Walton himself in consisting of a brisk opening section followed by a broad melody in the middle, trio, section and a return to the lively first theme to conclude the piece after a second appearance of the big tune.

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Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto, Op. 15, was written from 1938 to 1939 and dedicated to Henry Boys, his former teacher at the Royal College of Music. Britten worked on it while staying with Aaron Copland and completed it in Quebec. It was premiered in New York on 29 March 1940 by the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa with the New York Philharmonic conducted by John Barbirolli. A year after its first performance in New York, the concerto was performed for the first time in England at Queen’s Hall on 6 April 1941. It was conducted by Basil Cameron, and the soloist was Thomas Matthews, leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It received its first broadcast performance with the BBC Orchestra, conducted by Clarence Raybould and Thomas Matthews as soloist, on 28 April 1941.

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Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 3, published as A Pastoral Symphony and not numbered until later, was completed in 1922. Vaughan Williams's inspiration to write this symphony came during World War I after hearing a bugler practising and accidentally playing an interval of a seventh instead of an octave; this ultimately led to the trumpet cadenza in the second movement.

The work is among the least performed of Vaughan Williams's symphonies, but has gained the reputation of being a subtly beautiful elegy for the dead of World War I and a meditation on the sounds of peace. Like many of the composer's works, the Pastoral Symphony is not programmatic, but its spirit is evocative. None of the movements are particularly fast or upbeat (the composer himself described it as "four movements, all of them slow"), but there are isolated extroverted sections. Vaughan Williams emphasized that the work is "not really Lambkins frisking at all as most people take for granted" (i.e., English pastoral scenery); its reference is to the fields of France during World War I, where the composer served in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

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