Many people have heard the dynamic tones of British composer Edward Elgar, and many have cried to them, even if they do not realize they have.

Anyone who has attended a graduation ceremony will likely recognize the composer of the famous “Pomp and Circumstance” song.

Elgar is only the most renown of the three composers who will be paid tribute at “A Concert of British Chamber Music” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Tarble Arts Center.

John David Moore, an English professor, will perform on piano, while Sharry Spicknall, the concertmaster of Eastern’s symphony, will perform on violin, and Elaine Fine, a music instructor at Lakeland College, will perform on viola.

In addition to Elgar, the trio will perform the works of Thomas F. Dunhill and Arnold Bax, who were also early 20th century British composers.

Though the songs are all about 100 years old, Fine said that time and place in history are becoming part of popular culture.

“The English culture from the early 20th century is sort of popular now because of ‘Downton Abbey,’” she said. “This is kind of the music that those people would have listened to; this is what would have been around in their time.”

And though “Pomp and Circumstance” is not on the program for the night, Fine said people would be equally impressed with his other songs “Canto Popolare” and “Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 82.”

“(People) think Elgar is a one-hit wonder, but no, Elgar wrote a lot of really fantastic music,” Fine said.

Fine said the Dunhill and Bax pieces are significant in that they were written to feature the viola as a chamber music instrument.

She said piano trios are usually written for piano, violin and cello, but these particular musicians wrote pieces like the “Phantasy-Trio in E flat, Op. 36” and the “Trio in One Movement, Op. 4” with viola taking place of the cello.

“There’s only a small amount of music for violin, viola and piano, and this is kind of special music because it was written in England in a time when, (following) the English renaissance that happened in the 16th century, there was a sort of secondary English renaissance of string music,” Fine said.

She said a viola is similar to a violin; the difference is that the viola is an alto instrument while the violin is soprano.

Fine said chamber music is music written for a few playing together in a small space, as opposed to orchestral music, written for an orchestra of around 100 people in a big hall.

“It’s more intimate,” she said. “It’s like a conversation between three or four people as opposed to a whole group playing together with a whole section. So, there’s a lot more interaction.”

Fine said the main thing listeners will take away from the performance, which is free to attend, is an interesting variety.

“(Elgar is) one of the best loved and most well known composers,” she said. “Dunhill and Bax are not so well known, so people will be pleasantly surprised to hear music from people they’ve never heard of, ever before.”

Stephanie Markham can be reached at 581-2812 or DENverge@gmail.com.