Edward Elgar

Edward Elgar was an English composer who received international recognition for his classical compositions. His most famous orchestral works include the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstances Marches (including Land of Hope and Glory), concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, such as The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music, and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society of Edwardian Britain, he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition. He nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British Army officer. She inspired him both musically and socially, but he struggled to achieve success until his forties, when after a series of moderately successful works his Enigma Variations (1899) became immediately popular in Britain and overseas¹. He followed the Variations with a choral work, The Dream of Gerontius (1900), based on a Roman Catholic text that caused some disquiet in the Anglican establishment in Britain, but it became, and has remained, a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere. His later full-length religious choral works were well received but have not entered the regular repertory. In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a violin concerto that were immensely successful. His second symphony and his cello concerto did not gain immediate public popularity and took many years to achieve a regular place in the concert repertory of British orchestras¹. Elgar's music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. His stock remained low for a generation after his death. It began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. Some of his works have, in recent years, been taken up again internationally, but the music continues to be played more in Britain than elsewhere¹. Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of acoustic recordings of his works. The introduction of the moving-coil microphone in 1923 made far more accurate sound reproduction possible, and Elgar made new recordings of most of his major orchestral works and excerpts from The Dream of Gerontius¹. Elgar was born in the small village of Lower Broadheath, near Worcester, England, on 2 June 1857. His father, William Henry Elgar (1821–1906), was raised in Dover and had been apprenticed to a London music publisher. In 1841 William moved to Worcester where he worked as a piano tuner and set up a shop selling sheet music and musical instruments¹. His mother Ann Greening (1822–1902) was from a farm near Wichenford where her father had been a landowner and a farmer. Edward was the fourth of their seven children¹. Elgar received his first musical training from his father, who taught him to play the violin and piano. He also learned to play the organ and the bassoon. He was educated at a local school run by the Congregationalist minister, where he acquired some Latin, but he left at the age of 15 and never received any formal musical education. He worked as a clerk in a solicitor's office and later as a teacher in a local school. He also gave violin and piano lessons and played in several local orchestras and ensembles¹. In 1885, Elgar moved to London to try to establish himself as a composer and a violinist. He stayed there for only a year, finding it difficult to make his way in the musical world of the capital. He returned to Worcester, where he became the conductor of the Worcester Philharmonic Society¹. In 1889, he married Caroline Alice Roberts (1850–1920), a daughter of Major-General Sir Henry Roberts, who had served in India. Alice was a keen amateur musician and a published author of verse and prose. She encouraged and supported Elgar's musical ambitions and became his social mentor as well¹. The Elgars had one child, Carice Irene Elgar (1890–1970), who was named after her parents (Car-ice). They moved several times, living in London, Malvern, Hereford and Gloucestershire. They settled in Worcestershire in 1904 at Plas Gwyn, a house on the outskirts of Hereford that Elgar bought with the income from his successful works¹. Alice died there in 1920 after a long illness. Elgar was devastated by her death and wrote: "The wind blows through the house & there is no sound but that & it is not her voice". After Alice's death, Elgar composed very little of significance. He travelled extensively in Europe and America, where he was received with great acclaim. He also accepted several honorary degrees and awards, including the Order of Merit in 1911 and a baronetcy in 1931. He was also offered a peerage, but declined it¹. He maintained a close friendship with Alice Stuart-Wortley, a daughter of the painter John Everett Millais, who had been one of his earliest admirers and supporters. She was known as "Windflower" in his Enigma Variations. In 1933, Elgar underwent an operation for colorectal cancer. The surgery was unsuccessful and he died on 23 February 1934 at the age of 76. He was buried next to Alice at St Wulstan's Roman Catholic Church in Little Malvern¹. His unfinished Third Symphony and his opera The Spanish Lady were later completed by other composers from his sketches¹. His music continues to be widely performed and appreciated by audiences around the world.