The weather must have improved, for Elgar later writes of visits "to Moglio church and back by the old mule track" to "Andorra by train", to "the Roman bridge, and up to the church of St. John the Baptist" where he refers to "a shepherd there was watching his flock, sheep and goats; lovely sight and view". The name Moglio was transcribed into a musical phrase for the overture; place was also found for a shepherd's song, together with the tramp of ancient Rome. Indeed, in its way the work is as autobiographical as the more or less contemporary Symphonia Domestica by Richard Strauss (which Elgar disliked intensely)

The opening, for example, was entirely due to the family pet, Dan the bulldog. The theme went back to July 1899 and commemorated "Dan triumphant, after a fight". In the context of the overture, Elgar called it the "Joy of living (wine and macaroni)" and went on to characterise it as "Maybe the exhilarating out-of-doors feeling arising from the gloriously beautiful surroundings - streams, flowers, hills: the distant snow mountains in one direction, and the blue Mediterranean in the other." The supreme energy of the theme, rising in giant-step sequence, generates counterpoints by the dozen, and the first subject group continues with a nobilmente passage combining an impassioned descending melodic line with the slow twist of rising chromatics in the inner parts. The "shepherd" and "Moglio" themes are are further worked at the beginning of the development section, leading to the piled discords, intensifying rhythms and insistent repetitions depicting the Roman ruins.

In the recapitulation, by omitting the whole of the nobilmente section and curtailing the transition, Elgar soon arrives at the second group, now in E flat, but with a glint of E major towards the end. The coda is superbly contrived. The nobilmente begins ppp and tranquillo, but is extended through a long crescendo. The movement gathers speed, until the "Dan" theme ultimately combines with the nobilmente in full-dress splendour, bringing the work to an impressive close.