Johann Heinrich Walch (1776–1855), was a German conductor,[1][2] chamber musician and choral master at the court of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg.
He acted in various capacities for Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, and after his death for Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the father of Queen Victoria's husband Albert, Prince Consort.
[1] Walch composed many well-known marches, some of which have long been wrongly attributed to Beethoven and the Prince Consort, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
In the United Kingdom, the march is traditionally played at the National Service of Remembrance in London on Remembrance Sunday each year on the Sunday nearest to 11 November.
The march was also played during the funerals of King Edward VII (1910), of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (2002), of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (2013, during the procession to St Paul's Cathedral), of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (2021, during the procession to St George's Chapel), and of Queen Elizabeth II (2022, during the procession to the lying in state at Westminster).