In 1959, William Walton was commissioned to compose music for the opening and closing credits of a television series based on Winston Churchill's History of the English-speaking Peoples. The resulting work, March for the History of the English-speaking Peoples, was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra in May of that year and later published by Oxford University Press. However, the television project never materialized, and consequently Walton's score, which might have become one of his more familiar among popular audiences through television exposure, was all but forgotten. With the moderate surge in popularity that Walton's music enjoyed in the last decade of the twentieth century (due in no small part to an effort by Chandos Records and the William Walton Trust to have his complete works recorded), this and other little-known pieces have become available for consideration.

Though not a particularly substantial work (it lasts less than five minutes), the March for the History of the English-speaking Peoples is nonetheless well crafted. The introductory section contrasts a festive, brass-heavy fanfare with a lyrical passage in the strings. The middle section takes on a ceremonial tone, with a rhapsodic string and woodwind melody that swells into a grandiose tutti section. An abrupt key change takes us back to the lively initial material, while a dramatic rubato leads to a broadly orchestrated rendering of the first section's lyrical second theme. This swells to a magnificent maestoso that seems to suggest a joyful but solemn conclusion; it is playfully undercut at the last minute by a final return of the lively first theme, which carries us to the end of the piece.

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