It is a late composition, written in 1930, the result of an invitation to write a test piece for the National Brass Band Championship.
[1] There are five movements, which follow each other without breaks: The Severn of the title is the name of the river which runs through the centre of the city of Worcester where Elgar spent his childhood and lived later.
Many reference books assert that The Severn Suite was entirely based on "old sketches"[2] but the remaining three movements are, so far as is known, original compositions.
Henry Geehl, a brass band composer and employee of R.Smith, later claimed to have orchestrated the piece, giving a highly circumstantial account of his involvement to several newspapers.
However, in 1995 the original manuscript, entirely in Elgar's hand,[4] resurfaced at auction — its emergence demonstrates that Geehl's longstanding claim to have orchestrated the work was in fact fraudulent.