Composed in 1917 for viola, string quartet & string orchestra, and first performed that year at the Mons Memorial Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The work is inscribed to the memory of Francis Purcell Warren, a fellow-student of the composer at the Royal College of Music in the years of the First World War. He was a Viola Scholar and composer, and also one of the circle of young musicians that included Ivor Gurney, Eugene Goossens, Arthur Benjamin, Arthur Bliss and Howells himself – all fellow-students at one time. Purcell Warren was killed in the 1914–1918 War, and this Elegy was composed soon after his death.