Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM

Order of Merit

The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...

, GCVO

Royal Victorian Order

The Royal Victorian Order is a dynastic order of knighthood and a house order of chivalry recognising distinguished personal service to the order's Sovereign, the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth realms, any members of her family, or any of her viceroys...

(2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations

Enigma Variations

Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra , Op. 36, commonly referred to as the Enigma Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–1899. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the...

, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches

Pomp and Circumstance Marches

The "Pomp and Circumstance Marches" , Op. 39 are a series of marches for orchestra composed by Sir Edward Elgar....

, concertos for violin

Violin Concerto (Elgar)

Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61, is one of his longest orchestral compositions, and the last of his works to gain immediate popular success....

 and cello

Cello Concerto (Elgar)

Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, by which time his music had gone out of fashion with the concert-going public...

, and two symphonies

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...

, 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 Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 and 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 overseas. 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

Anglicanism

Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...

 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. The first of his Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1901) is well known in the English-speaking world.

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 orchestras. 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 remains more played in Britain than elsewhere.

Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of acoustic recordings of his works. The introduction of the microphone in 1925 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 Gerontius. These recordings were reissued on LP record

LP record

The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

 in the 1970s and on CD in the 1990s.

Biography

Early years

Edward Elgar was born in the small village of Lower Broadheath

Broadheath, Worcestershire

Broadheath with Lower Broadheath is a civil parish officially known as Lower Broadheath, in the Malvern Hills district of Worcestershire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,713...

, outside Worcester

Worcester

The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

, England. His father, William Henry Elgar (1821–1906), was raised in Dover

Dover

Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...

 and had been apprenticed to a London music publisher. In 1841 William moved to Worcester, where he worked as a piano tuner

Piano tuning

Piano tuning is the act of making minute adjustments to the tensions of the strings of a piano to properly align the intervals between their tones so that the instrument is in tune. The meaning of the term in tune in the context of piano tuning is not simply a particular fixed set of pitches...

 and set up a shop selling sheet music and musical instruments. In 1848 he married Ann Greening (1822–1902), daughter of a farm worker. Edward was the fourth of their seven children. Ann Elgar had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before Edward's birth, and he was baptised and brought up as a Roman Catholic, to the disapproval of his father. William Elgar was a violinist of professional standard and held the post of organist of St. George's Roman Catholic Church, Worcester, from 1846 to 1885. At his instigation, masses by Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....

 and Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.- Life :...

 were first heard at the Three Choirs Festival

Three Choirs Festival

The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...

 by the orchestra in which he played the violin. All the Elgar children received a musical upbringing. By the age of eight, Elgar was taking piano and violin lessons, and his father, who tuned the pianos at many grand houses in Worcestershire, would sometimes take him along, giving him the chance to display his skill to important local figures.
Elgar's mother was interested in the arts and encouraged his musical development. He inherited from her a discerning taste for literature and a passionate love of the countryside. His friend and biographer W. H. "Billy" Reed

William Henry Reed

William Henry "Billy" Reed was an English violinist, teacher, minor composer, conductor and biographer of Sir Edward Elgar...

 wrote that Elgar's early surroundings had an influence that "permeated all his work and gave to his whole life that subtle but none the less true and sturdy English quality." He began composing at an early age; for a play written and acted by the Elgar children when he was about ten, he wrote music that forty years later he rearranged with only minor changes and orchestrated as the suites titled The Wand of Youth.

Until he was fifteen, Elgar received a general education at Littleton (now Lyttleton) House school, near Worcester. However, his only formal musical training beyond piano and violin lessons from local teachers was more advanced violin studies with Adolf Pollitzer

Adolf Pollitzer

Adolf Pollitzer, also Adolph Pollitzer was a Hungarian Jewish violinist.In 1842, he left Budapest for Vienna, where he studied the violin under Joseph Böhm at the Vienna Conservatory; and in his 14th year he took the first prize at the Conservatory. After a concert tour in Germany, he went to...

, during brief visits to London in 1877–78. Elgar said "my first music was learnt in the Cathedral

Worcester Cathedral

Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England; situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester...

 ... from books borrowed from the music library, when I was eight, nine or ten." He worked through manuals of instruction on organ playing and read every book he could find on the theory of music. He later said that he had been most helped by Hubert Parry

Hubert Parry

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...

's articles in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...

. Elgar began to learn German, in the hope of going to the Leipzig Conservatory for further musical studies, but his father could not afford to send him. Years later a profile in The Musical Times

The Musical Times

The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...

considered that his failure to get to Leipzig was fortunate for Elgar's musical development: "Thus the budding composer escaped the dogmatism of the schools." However, it was a disappointment to Elgar that on leaving school in 1872 he went not to Leipzig but to the office of a local solicitor as a clerk. He did not find an office career congenial, and for fulfilment he turned not only to music but to literature, becoming a voracious reader. Around this time, he made his first public appearances as a violinist and organist.

After a few months, Elgar left the solicitor to embark on a musical career, giving piano and violin lessons and working occasionally in his father's shop. He was an active member of the Worcester Glee Club

Glee club

A glee club is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs—glees—by trios or quartets. In the late 19th Century it was very popular in most schools and was made a tradition...

, along with his father, and he accompanied singers, played the violin, composed and arranged works, and conducted for the first time. Pollitzer believed that, as a violinist, Elgar had the potential to be one of the leading soloists in the country, but Elgar himself, having heard leading virtuosi at London concerts, felt his own violin playing lacked a full enough tone, and he abandoned his ambitions to be a soloist. At twenty-two he took up the post of conductor of the attendants' band at the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum

Powick Hospital

Powick Hospital was a psychiatric facility located on outside the village of Powick, Worcestershire. Founded in 1847 as the Worcester County Pauper and Lunatic Asylum, it was designed by architects John R. Hamilton & James Medland of Gloucester and opened in August 1852...

 in Powick

Powick

Powick is a Worcestershire village two miles south of the city of Worcester and four miles north of Great Malvern, close to the River Teme. It is a civil parish of the Malvern Hills District, and it includes the village of Callow End and the hamlets of Bastonford, Clevelode, Colletts Green, and...

, three miles (5 km) from Worcester. The band consisted of: piccolo, flute, clarinet, two cornets, euphonium, three or four first and a similar number of second violins, occasional viola, cello, double bass and piano. Elgar coached the players and wrote and arranged their music, including quadrille

Quadrille

Quadrille is a historic dance performed by four couples in a square formation, a precursor to traditional square dancing. It is also a style of music...

s and polkas, for the unusual combination of instruments. The Musical Times wrote, "This practical experience proved to be of the greatest value to the young musician. ... He acquired a practical knowledge of the capabilities of these different instruments. ... He thereby got to know intimately the tone colour, the ins and outs of these and many other instruments." He held the post for five years, from 1879, travelling to Powick once a week. Another post he held in his early days was professor of the violin at the Worcester College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen

New College Worcester

New College Worcester is a residential secondary school for students, aged 11–19, who are blind or partially sighted. It caters for around 80 students including those who have other special needs or disabilities along with their visual impairment. It is located in the city of Worcester, England...

.

Although rather solitary and introspective by nature, Elgar thrived in Worcester's musical circles. He played in the violins at the Worcester and Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 Festivals, and one great experience was to play Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

's Symphony No. 6

Symphony No. 6 (Dvorák)

Czech composer Antonín Dvořák composed his Symphony No. 6 in D major, Op. 60, B. 112, in 1880. It is dedicated to Hans Richter, who was the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. With a performance time of approximately 40 minutes, the four-movement piece was one of the first of...

 and Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Roman Catholic hymn to Mary. It has been variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III...

under the composer's baton. Elgar regularly played the bassoon in a wind quintet, alongside his brother Frank, an oboist (and conductor who ran his own wind band). Elgar arranged numerous pieces by Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

, and others for the quintet, honing his arranging and compositional skills.
In his first trips abroad, Elgar visited Paris in 1880 and Leipzig in 1882. He heard Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

 play the organ at the Madeleine

Église de la Madeleine

L'église de la Madeleine is a Roman Catholic church occupying a commanding position in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It was designed in its present form as a temple to the glory of Napoleon's army...

 and attended concerts by first-rate orchestras. In 1882 he wrote, "I got pretty well dosed with Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

 (my ideal!), Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

, Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...

 & Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, so had no cause to complain." In Leipzig he visited a friend, Helen Weaver, who was a student at the Conservatoire. They became engaged in the summer of 1883, but for unknown reasons the engagement was broken off the next year . Elgar was greatly distressed, and some of his later cryptic dedications of romantic music may have alluded to Helen and his feelings for her. Throughout his life, Elgar was often inspired by close women friends; Helen Weaver was succeeded by Mary Lygon, Dora Penny, Julia Worthington, Alice Stuart Wortley and Vera Hockman, who enlivened his old age.

In 1883, while a regular member of the orchestra for W. C. Stockley's winter concert seasons in Birmingham, Elgar took part in a performance of one of his first works for full orchestra, the Sérénade mauresque. Stockley had invited him to conduct the piece, but, as Stockley later recalled, "he declined, and, further, insisted upon playing in his place in the orchestra. The consequence was that he had to appear, fiddle in hand, to acknowledge the genuine and hearty applause of the audience." He often went to London in an attempt to get his works published, but this period in his life found him frequently despondent and low on money. He wrote to a friend in April 1884, "My prospects are about as hopeless as ever ... I am not wanting in energy I think, so sometimes I conclude that 'tis want of ability. ... I have no money – not a cent." For a number of years he was assistant to his father, William Elgar, as organist of St George's Roman Catholic Church, Worcester, and succeeded him for four years from 1885. During this period he wrote his first liturgical works in the Catholic tradition, beginning with his three motets Op. 2 (1887) for four-part choir (Ave Verum Corpus, Ave Maria and Ave Maris Stella), and followed by a setting of Ecce sacerdos magnus

Ecce sacerdos magnus

Ecce sacerdos magnus is an antiphon and a responsory from the common of confessors in the Liturgy of the Hours and in the Graduale Romanum.Its words are, Ecce sacerdos magnus, qui in diebus suis, placuit Deo, which means, "behold the great priest, who in his days, pleased God".In certain cases,...

for the entry of the Bishop on an official visit to St. George's in 1888, all four of which remain in the repertoire of church choirs.

Marriage

When Elgar was twenty-nine, he took on a new pupil, Caroline Alice Roberts

Caroline Alice Elgar

Caroline Alice, Lady Elgar was an English author of verse and prose fiction, who married the composer Edward Elgar.- Family :...

, daughter of the late Major-General

Major-General (United Kingdom)

Major general is a senior rank in the British Army. Since 1996 the highest position within the Royal Marines is the Commandant General Royal Marines who holds the rank of major general...

 Sir Henry Roberts, and a published author of verse and prose fiction. Eight years older than Elgar, Alice became his wife three years later. Elgar's biographer Michael Kennedy

Michael Kennedy (music critic)

Dr. George Michael Sinclair Kennedy CBE is an English biographer, journalist and writer on classical music. He joined the Daily Telegraph at the age of 15 in 1941, and began writing music criticism for it in 1948...

 writes, "Alice's family was horrified by her intention to marry an unknown musician who worked in a shop and was a Roman Catholic. She was disinherited." They were married on 8 May 1889, at Brompton Oratory. From then until her death she acted as his business manager and social secretary, dealt with his mood swings and was a perceptive musical critic. She did her best to gain him the attention of influential society, though with limited success. In time he would learn to accept the honours given him, realising that they mattered more to her and her social class and recognising what she had given up to further his career. In her diary she wrote, "The care of a genius is enough of a life work for any woman." As an engagement present, Elgar dedicated his short violin and piano piece Salut d'Amour

Salut d'Amour

Salut d’Amour, Op. 12, is a musical work composed by Edward Elgar in 1888, originally written for violin and piano.-History:Elgar finished the piece in July 1888, when he was engaged to be married to Caroline Alice Roberts, and he called it "Liebesgruss" because of Miss Roberts’ fluency in German...

to her. With Alice's encouragement, the Elgars moved to London to be closer to the centre of British musical life, and Elgar started devoting his time to composition. Their only child, Carice Irene, was born at their home in West Kensington on 14 August 1890. Her name, revealed in Elgar's dedication of Salut d'Amour, was a contraction of her mother's names Caroline and Alice.

Elgar took full advantage of the opportunity to hear unfamiliar music. In the days before miniature scores and recordings were available, it was not easy for young composers to get to know new music. Elgar took every chance to do so at the Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...

 concerts. He and Alice attended day after day, hearing music by a wide range of composers. Among these were masters of orchestration from whom he learned much, such as Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

 and Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

. His own compositions, however, made little impact on London's musical scene. August Manns

August Manns

Sir August Friedrich Manns was a German-born conductor who made his career in England. After serving as a military bandmaster in Germany, he moved to England and soon became director of music at London's Crystal Palace. He increased the resident band to full symphonic strength and for more than...

 conducted Elgar's orchestral version of Salut d'amour and the Suite in D at the Crystal Palace, and two publishers accepted some of Elgar's violin pieces, organ voluntaries, and partsongs. Some tantalising opportunities seemed to be within reach but vanished unexpectedly. For example, an offer from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

, to run through some of his works was withdrawn at the last second when Sir Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

 arrived unannounced to rehearse some of his own music. Sullivan was horrified when Elgar later told him what had happened. Elgar's only important commission while in London came from his home city: the Worcester Festival Committee invited him to compose a short orchestral work for the 1890 Three Choirs Festival

Three Choirs Festival

The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...

. The result is described by Diana McVeagh in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, as "his first major work, the assured and uninhibited Froissart

Froissart Overture (Elgar)

Froissart, Op 19, is a concert overture by Edward Elgar, inspired by the 14th century chronicles of Jean Froissart, to which Elgar had been attracted through mention of them in Walter Scott's Old Mortality.-History:...

." Elgar conducted the first performance in Worcester in September 1890. For lack of other work, he was obliged to leave London in 1891 and return with his wife and child to Worcestershire, where he could earn a living conducting local musical ensembles and teaching. They settled in Alice's former home town, Great Malvern

Great Malvern

Great Malvern is an area of Malvern, Worcestershire, England. It is the historical centre of the town, and the location of the headquarters buildings of the of Malvern Town Council, the governing body of the Malvern civil parish, and Malvern Hills District council of the county of...

.

Growing reputation

During the 1890s, Elgar gradually built up a reputation as a composer, chiefly of works for the great choral festivals of the English Midlands

English Midlands

The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

. The Black Knight (1892) and King Olaf (1896), both inspired by Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

, The Light of Life (1896) and Caractacus (1898) were all modestly successful, and he obtained a long-standing publisher in Novello and Co. Other works of this decade included the Serenade for Strings

Serenade for Strings (Elgar)

Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 20, is a piece for string orchestra in three short movements, by Edward Elgar.It was written in March 1892 and first performed in private in that year, by the Worcester Ladies' Orchestral Class, with the composer conducting. It received its first public...

(1892) and Three Bavarian Dances

Three Bavarian Dances

Three Bavarian Dances, Op 27 is an orchestral work by Edward Elgar.It is an arrangement for orchestra of three of the six songs Elgar wrote under the collective title From the Bavarian Highlands. The original song lyrics were written by the composer’s wife Alice, as a memento of a holiday the...

(1897). Elgar was of enough consequence locally to recommend the young composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an English composer who achieved such success that he was once called the "African Mahler".-Early life and education:...

 to the Three Choirs Festival for a concert piece, which helped establish the younger man's career. Elgar was catching the attention of prominent critics, but their reviews were polite rather than enthusiastic. Although he was in demand as a festival composer, he was only just getting by financially and felt unappreciated. In 1898, he said he was "very sick at heart over music" and hoped to find a way to succeed with a larger work. His friend August Jaeger

August Jaeger

August Jaeger was an Anglo-German music publisher, who developed a close friendship with the English composer Edward Elgar.Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, Jaeger met Elgar through his employment at the London music publisher Novello...

 tried to lift his spirits: "A day's attack of the blues ... will not drive away your desire, your necessity, which is to exercise those creative faculties which a kind providence has given you. Your time of universal recognition will come."
In 1899, that prediction suddenly came true. At the age of forty-two, Elgar produced the Enigma Variations

Enigma Variations

Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra , Op. 36, commonly referred to as the Enigma Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–1899. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the...

, which were premiered in London under the baton of the eminent German conductor Hans Richter

Hans Richter (conductor)

Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...

. In Elgar's own words, "I have sketched a set of Variations on an original theme. The Variations have amused me because I've labelled them with the nicknames of my particular friends ... that is to say I've written the variations each one to represent the mood of the 'party' (the person) ... and have written what I think they would have written – if they were asses enough to compose". He dedicated the work "To my friends pictured within". Probably the best known variation is "Nimrod", depicting Jaeger. Purely musical considerations led Elgar to omit variations depicting Arthur Sullivan and Hubert Parry, whose styles he tried but failed to incorporate in the variations. The large-scale work was received with general acclaim for its originality, charm and craftsmanship, and it established Elgar as the pre-eminent British composer of his generation.

The work is formally titled Variations on an Original Theme; the word "Enigma" appears over the first six bars of music, which led to the familiar version of the title. The enigma is that, although there are fourteen variations on the "original theme", there is another overarching theme, never identified by Elgar, which he said "runs through and over the whole set" but is never heard. Later commentators have observed that although Elgar is today regarded as a characteristically English composer, his orchestral music and this work in particular share much with the Central European tradition typified at the time by the work of Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

. The Enigma Variations were well-received in Germany and Italy, and remain to the present day a worldwide concert staple.

National and international fame

Elgar's biographer Basil Maine commented, "When Sir Arthur Sullivan died in 1900 it became apparent to many that Elgar, although a composer of another build, was his true successor as first musician of the land." Elgar's next major work was eagerly awaited. For the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival

Birmingham Triennial Music Festival

The Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival, in Birmingham, England, founded in 1784, was the longest-running classical music festival of its kind. Its last performance was in 1912.-History:...

 of 1900, he set Cardinal John Henry Newman's poem The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...

for soloists, chorus and orchestra. Richter conducted the premiere, which was marred by a poorly prepared chorus, which sang badly. Elgar was deeply depressed, but the critics recognised the mastery of the piece despite the defects in performance. It was performed in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, Germany, in 1901 and again in 1902, conducted by Julius Buths

Julius Buths

Julius Buths was a German pianist, conductor and minor composer. He was particularly notable in his early championing of the works of Edward Elgar in Germany. He conducted the continental European premieres of both the Enigma Variations and The Dream of Gerontius...

, who also conducted the European premiere of the Enigma Variations

Enigma Variations

Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra , Op. 36, commonly referred to as the Enigma Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–1899. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the...

in 1901. The German press was enthusiastic. The Cologne Gazette said, "In both parts we meet with beauties of imperishable value. ... Elgar stands on the shoulders of Berlioz, Wagner, and Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, from whose influences he has freed himself until he has become an important individuality. He is one of the leaders of musical art of modern times." The Düsseldorfer Volksblatt wrote, "A memorable and epoch-making first performance! Since the days of Liszt nothing has been produced in the way of oratorio ... which reaches the greatness and importance of this sacred cantata." Richard Strauss, then widely viewed as the leading composer of his day, was so impressed that in Elgar's presence he proposed a toast to the success of "the first English progressive musician, Meister Elgar." Performances in Vienna, Paris and New York followed, and The Dream of Gerontius soon became equally admired in Britain. According to Kennedy, "It is unquestionably the greatest British work in the oratorio form ... [it] opened a new chapter in the English choral tradition and liberated it from its Handelian preoccupation." Elgar, as a Roman Catholic, was much moved by Newman's poem about the death and redemption of a sinner, but some influential members of the Anglican establishment disagreed. His colleague, Charles Villiers Stanford

Charles Villiers Stanford

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...

 complained that the work "stinks of incense". The Dean of Gloucester

Gloucester Cathedral

Gloucester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the river. It originated in 678 or 679 with the foundation of an abbey dedicated to Saint Peter .-Foundations:The foundations of the present...

 banned Gerontius from his cathedral in 1901, and at Worcester the following year, the Dean insisted on expurgations before allowing a performance.
Elgar is probably best known for the first of the five Pomp and Circumstance Marches

Pomp and Circumstance Marches

The "Pomp and Circumstance Marches" , Op. 39 are a series of marches for orchestra composed by Sir Edward Elgar....

, which were composed between 1901 and 1930. It is familiar to millions of television viewers all over the world every year who watch the Last Night of the Proms, where it is traditionally performed. When the theme of the slower middle section (technically called the "trio

Ternary form

Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form, usually schematicized as A-B-A. The first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them...

") of the first march came into his head, he told his friend Dora Penny, "I've got a tune that will knock 'em – will knock 'em flat". When the first march was played in 1901 at a London Promenade Concert, it was conducted by Henry J. Wood

Henry Wood

Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...

, who later wrote that the audience "rose and yelled ... the one and only time in the history of the Promenade concerts that an orchestral item was accorded a double encore." To mark the coronation of Edward VII

Edward VII of the United Kingdom

Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...

, Elgar was commissioned to set A. C. Benson

A. C. Benson

Arthur Christopher Benson was an English essayist, poet, and author and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge....

's Coronation Ode for a gala concert at the Royal Opera House

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 in June 1901. The approval of the king was confirmed, and Elgar began work. The contralto

Contralto

Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 Clara Butt

Clara Butt

Dame Clara Ellen Butt DBE , sometimes called Clara Butt-Rumford after her marriage, was an English contralto with a remarkably imposing voice and a surprisingly agile singing technique. Her main career was as a recitalist and concert singer.-Early life and career:Clara Butt was born in Southwick,...

 had persuaded him that the trio of the first Pomp and Circumstance march could have words fitted to it, and Elgar invited Benson to do so. Elgar incorporated the new vocal version into the Ode. The publishers of the score recognised the potential of the vocal piece, "Land of Hope and Glory", and asked Benson and Elgar to make a further revision for publication as a separate song. It was immensely popular and is now considered an unofficial British national anthem. In the United States, the trio, known simply as "Pomp and Circumstance" or "The Graduation March", has been adopted since 1905 for virtually all high school and university graduations.

In March 1904 a three-day festival of Elgar's works was presented at Covent Garden, an honour never before given to any English composer. The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

commented, "Four or five years ago if any one had predicted that the Opera-house would be full from floor to ceiling for the performance of an oratorio by an English composer he would probably have been supposed to be out of his mind." The king

Edward VII of the United Kingdom

Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...

 and queen

Alexandra of Denmark

Alexandra of Denmark was the wife of Edward VII of the United Kingdom...

 attended the first concert, at which Richter conducted The Dream of Gerontius, and returned the next evening for the second, the London premiere of The Apostles

The Apostles (Elgar)

The Apostles, Op. 49, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar. It was first performed on 14 October 1903.-Overview:...

(first heard the previous year at the Birmingham Festival). The final concert of the festival, conducted by Elgar, was primarily orchestral, apart for an excerpt from Caractacus and the complete Sea Pictures

Sea Pictures

Sea Pictures, Op. 37 is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar...

(sung by Clara Butt). The orchestral items were Froissart

Froissart Overture (Elgar)

Froissart, Op 19, is a concert overture by Edward Elgar, inspired by the 14th century chronicles of Jean Froissart, to which Elgar had been attracted through mention of them in Walter Scott's Old Mortality.-History:...

, the Enigma Variations, Cockaigne

Cockaigne (In London Town)

Cockaigne , Op. 40, also known as the Cockaigne Overture, is a concert overture for full orchestra composed by the British composer Edward Elgar in 1900-01.-History:...

, the first two (at that time the only two) Pomp and Circumstance marches, and the premiere of a new orchestral work, In the South (Alassio)

In the South (Alassio)

In the South , Op. 50, is a concert overture composed by Edward Elgar during a family holiday in Italy in the winter of 1903 to 1904.The work is dedicated "To my friend Leo F. Schuster".- History :...

, inspired by a holiday in Italy.

Elgar was knighted

Knight Bachelor

The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...

 at Buckingham Palace on 5 July 1904. The following month, he and his family moved to Plâs Gwyn, a large house on the outskirts of Hereford

Hereford

Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...

, overlooking the River Wye

River Wye

The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK and for parts of its length forms part of the border between England and Wales. It is important for nature conservation and recreation.-Description:...

, where they lived until 1911. Between 1902 and 1914, Elgar was, in Kennedy's words, at the zenith of popularity. He made four visits to the U.S., including one conducting tour, and earned considerable fees from the performance of his music. Between 1905 and 1908, he held the post of Peyton Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

. He had accepted the post reluctantly, feeling that a composer should not head a school of music. He was not at ease in the role, and his lectures caused controversy, with his attacks on the critics and on English music in general: "Vulgarity in the course of time may be refined. Vulgarity often goes with inventiveness ... but the commonplace mind can never be anything but commonplace. An Englishman will take you into a large room, beautifully proportioned, and will point out to you that it is white – all over white – and somebody will say, 'What exquisite taste'. You know in your own mind, in your own soul, that it is not taste at all, that it is the want of taste, that is mere evasion. English music is white, and evades everything." He regretted the controversy and was glad to hand on the post to his friend Granville Bantock

Granville Bantock

Sir Granville Bantock was a British composer of classical music.-Biography:Granville Ransome Bantock was born in London. His father was a Scottish doctor. He was intended by his parents for the Indian Civil Service but was drawn into the musical world. His first teacher was Dr Gordon Saunders at...

 in 1908. His new life as a celebrity was a mixed blessing to the highly-strung Elgar, as it interrupted his privacy, and he often was in ill-health. He complained to Jaeger in 1903, "My life is one continual giving up of little things which I love." Both W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

 and Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

 sought to collaborate with Elgar in this decade. Elgar refused, but would have collaborated with George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 had Shaw been willing.

Elgar's principal composition in 1905 was the Introduction and Allegro for Strings

Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)

Sir Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47, was composed in 1905 for performance in an all-Elgar concert by the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. Scored for string quartet and string orchestra, Elgar composed it to show off the players' virtuosity. Though initial critical...

, dedicated to Samuel Sanford

Samuel Sanford

Samuel Simons Sanford was an American pianist and educator.He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He studied piano in New York with William Mason...

, professor at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

. Elgar visited America in that year to conduct his music and to accept a doctorate from Yale. His next large-scale work was the sequel to The Apostles – the oratorio The Kingdom

The Kingdom (Elgar)

The Kingdom, Op. 51, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar.It was first performed at the Birmingham Music Festival on 3 October 1906, with the orchestra conducted by the composer, and soloists Agnes Nicholls, Muriel Foster, John Coates and William Higley. The...

(1906). It was well-received but did not catch the public imagination as The Dream of Gerontius had done and continued to do. Among keen Elgarians, however, The Kingdom was sometimes preferred to the earlier work: Elgar's friend Frank Schuster

Leo Frank Schuster

Leo Frank Schuster , was a patron of the arts in the United Kingdom, normally known to his friends as "Frankie". His home at 22 Old Queen Street, London, became a meeting-place for artists, writers and musicians, including Siegfried Sassoon, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert, Sir Edward Elgar...

 told the young Adrian Boult

Adrian Boult

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...

: "compared with The Kingdom, Gerontius is the work of a raw amateur." As Elgar approached his fiftieth birthday, he began work on his first symphony, a project that had been in his mind in various forms for nearly ten years. His First Symphony

Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)

Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 55 is one of his two completed symphonies. The first performance was given by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter in Manchester, England, on 3 December 1908. It was widely known that Elgar had been planning a symphony for more than...

 (1908) was a national and international triumph. Within weeks of the premiere it was performed in New York under Walter Damrosch, Vienna under Ferdinand Löwe

Ferdinand Löwe

Ferdinand Löwe was an Austrian conductor.- Biography :Löwe was born in Vienna, Austria where along with Munich, Germany his career was primarily centered. From 1896 Löwe conducted the Kaim Orchestra, today's Munich Philharmonic, where he returned from 1908 to 1914...

, St. Petersburg under Alexander Siloti

Alexander Siloti

Alexander Ilyich Siloti was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. Alexander Ilyich Siloti (also Ziloti, , Aleksandr Iljič Ziloti) (9 October 1863, near Kharkiv - 8 December 1945, New York) was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. Alexander Ilyich Siloti (also Ziloti, , Aleksandr Iljič...

, and Leipzig under Arthur Nikisch

Arthur Nikisch

Arthur Nikisch ; 12 October 185523 January 1922) was a Hungarian conductor who performed internationally, holding posts in Boston, London and - most importantly - Berlin. He was considered an outstanding interpreter of the music of Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Liszt...

. There were performances in Rome, Chicago, Boston, Toronto and fifteen British towns and cities. In just over a year, it received a hundred performances in Britain, America and continental Europe.
The Violin Concerto

Violin Concerto (Elgar)

Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61, is one of his longest orchestral compositions, and the last of his works to gain immediate popular success....

 (1910) was commissioned by Fritz Kreisler

Fritz Kreisler

Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...

, one of the leading international violinists of the time. Elgar wrote it during the summer of 1910, with occasional help from the violinist W. H. Reed

William Henry Reed

William Henry "Billy" Reed was an English violinist, teacher, minor composer, conductor and biographer of Sir Edward Elgar...

, the leader of the London Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

, who helped the composer with advice on technical points. Elgar and Reed formed a firm friendship, which lasted for the rest of Elgar's life. Reed's biography, Elgar As I Knew Him (1936), records many details of Elgar's methods of composition. The work was presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society

Royal Philharmonic Society

The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...

, with Kreisler and the London Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

 (LSO), conducted by the composer. Reed recalled, "the Concerto proved to be a complete triumph, the concert a brilliant and unforgettable occasion". So great was the impact of the concerto that Kreisler's rival Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...

 spent much time with Elgar going through the work. There was great disappointment when contractual difficulties prevented Ysaÿe from playing it in London.

The Violin Concerto was Elgar's last popular triumph. The following year he presented his Second Symphony

Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)

Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 2 in E major, Op. 63, was completed on 28 February 1911 and was premiered at the London Musical Festival at the Queen's Hall by the Queen's Hall Orchestra on 24 May 1911 with the composer conducting...

 in London, but was disappointed at its reception. Unlike the First Symphony, it ends not in a blaze of orchestral splendour but quietly and contemplatively. Reed, who played at the premiere, later wrote that Elgar was recalled to the platform several times to acknowledge the applause, "but missed that unmistakable note perceived when an audience, even an English audience, is thoroughly roused or worked up, as it was after the Violin Concerto or the First Symphony." Elgar asked Reed, "What is the matter with them, Billy? They sit there like a lot of stuffed pigs." The work was, by normal standards, a success, with twenty-seven performances within three years of its premiere, but it did not achieve the international furore of the First Symphony.

Last major works

In June 1911, as part of the celebrations surrounding the coronation

Coronation of the British monarch

The coronation of the British monarch is a ceremony in which the monarch of the United Kingdom is formally crowned and invested with regalia...

 of King George V

George V of the United Kingdom

George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....

, Elgar was appointed to the Order of Merit

Order of Merit

The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...

, an exclusive honour limited to twenty-four holders at any time. The following year, the Elgars moved back to London, to a large house in Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

, designed by Norman Shaw

Richard Norman Shaw

Richard Norman Shaw RA , was an influential Scottish architect from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings.-Life:...

. There Elgar composed his last two large-scale works of the pre-war era, the choral ode, The Music Makers (for the Birmingham Festival, 1912) and the symphonic study Falstaff (for the Leeds Festival, 1913). Both were received politely but without enthusiasm. Even the dedicatee of Falstaff, the conductor Landon Ronald

Landon Ronald

Sir Landon Ronald was an English conductor, composer, pianist, singing teacher and administrator...

, confessed privately that he could not "make head or tail of the piece," while the musical scholar Percy Scholes wrote of Falstaff that it was a "great work" but, "so far as public appreciation goes, a comparative failure."

When World War I broke out, Elgar was horrified at the prospect of the carnage, but his patriotic feelings were nonetheless aroused. He composed "A Song for Soldiers", which he later withdrew. He signed up as a special constable in the local police and later joined the Hampstead Volunteer Reserve of the army. He composed patriotic works, Carillon

Carillon (Elgar)

”Carillon” is a recitation with orchestral accompaniment written by the English composer Edward Elgar as his Op. 75, in 1914. The words are by the Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts....

, a recitation for speaker and orchestra in honour of Belgium, and Polonia

Polonia (Elgar)

Polonia is a symphonic prelude by the English composer Edward Elgar written in 1915 as his Op. 76.-History:On 13 April 1915 the Polish conductor Emil Młynarski asked Elgar to compose something, thinking of how Elgar's Carillon had been a recent tribute to Belgium, but this time using Polish...

, an orchestral piece in honour of Poland. Land of Hope and Glory, already popular, became still more so, and Elgar wished in vain to have new, less nationalistic, words sung to the tune.
Elgar's other compositions during the war included incidental music

Incidental music

Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....

 for a children's play, The Starlight Express

The Starlight Express

"The Starlight Express" is a children's play by Violet Pearn, based on the imaginative novel "A Prisoner in Fairyland" by Algernon Blackwood, with songs and incidental music written by the English composer Sir Edward Elgar in 1915.- Production :...

(1915); a ballet, The Sanguine Fan

The Sanguine Fan

The Sanguine Fan, Op. 81, is a single-act ballet written by Sir Edward Elgar in 1917. It was one of the pieces he composed to raise money for wartime charities, having been asked to write it by his close friend and confidante Lady Alice Stuart-Wortley....

(1917); and The Spirit of England (1915–17, to poems by Laurence Binyon

Laurence Binyon

Robert Laurence Binyon was an English poet, dramatist and art scholar. His most famous work, For the Fallen, is well known for being used in Remembrance Sunday services....

), three choral settings very different in character from the romantic patriotism of his earlier years. His last large-scale composition of the war years was The Fringes of the Fleet

The Fringes of the Fleet

The Fringes of the Fleet is a booklet written in 1916 by Rudyard Kipling . The booklet contains essays and poems that Kipling wrote about nautical subjects in World War I....

, settings of verses by Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, performed with great popular success around the country, until Kipling for unexplained reasons objected to their performance in theatres. Elgar conducted a recording of the work for the Gramophone Company

Gramophone Company

The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...

.

Towards the end of the war, Elgar was in poor health. His wife thought it best for him to move to the countryside, and she rented 'Brinkwells', a house near Fittleworth

Fittleworth

Fittleworth is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located seven kilometres west from Pulborough on the A283 road and three miles south east from Petworth. The village has an Anglican church, a primary school and one pub, the Swan...

 in Sussex, from the painter Rex Vicat Cole

Rex Vicat Cole

Reginald Rex Vicat Cole was an English landscape painter, son of the artist George Vicat Cole and Mary Ann Chignell. He was educated at Eton and began to exhibit in London in 1890. In 1900 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. His work to 1906 is extensively reproduced...

. There Elgar recovered his strength and, in 1918 and 1919, he produced four large-scale works. The first three of these were chamber pieces

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

: the Violin Sonata in E minor

Violin Sonata (Elgar)

Sir Edward Elgar wrote his Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82, in 1918, at the same time as he wrote his String Quartet in E minor and his Piano Quintet in A minor...

, the Piano Quintet in A minor

Piano Quintet (Elgar)

The Quintet in A minor for Piano and String Quartet, Op. 84 is a chamber work by Edward Elgar.He worked on the Quintet and two other major chamber pieces in the summer of 1918 while staying at Brinkwells near Fittleworth in Sussex. W. H...

, and the String Quartet in E minor

String Quartet (Elgar)

The String Quartet in E minor, Op. 83, was one of three major chamber music works composed by Sir Edward Elgar in 1918. The others were the Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82, and the Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84. Along with the Cello Concerto in E minor, Op...

. On hearing the work in progress, Alice Elgar wrote in her diary, "E. writing wonderful new music". All three works were well received. The Times wrote, "Elgar's sonata contains much that we have heard before in other forms, but as we do not at all want him to change and be somebody else, that is as it should be." The quartet and quintet were premiered at the Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

 on 21 May 1919. The Manchester Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

wrote, "This quartet, with its tremendous climaxes, curious refinements of dance-rhythms, and its perfect symmetry, and the quintet, more lyrical and passionate, are as perfect examples of chamber music as the great oratorios were of their type."
By contrast, the remaining work, the Cello Concerto in E minor

Cello Concerto (Elgar)

Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, by which time his music had gone out of fashion with the concert-going public...

, had a disastrous premiere, at the opening concert of the London Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

's 1919–20 season in October 1919. Apart from the Elgar work, which the composer conducted, the rest of the programme was conducted by Albert Coates

Albert Coates (musician)

Albert Coates was an English conductor and composer. Born in Saint Petersburg where his English father was a successful businessman, he studied in Russia, England and Germany, before beginning his career as a conductor in a series of German opera houses...

, who overran his rehearsal time at the expense of Elgar's. Lady Elgar wrote, "that brutal selfish ill-mannered bounder ... that brute Coates went on rehearsing." The critic of The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

, Ernest Newman

Ernest Newman

Ernest Newman was an English music critic and musicologist. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most celebrated British music critic in the first half of the 20th century." His style of criticism, aiming at intellectual objectivity in contrast to the more subjective...

, wrote, "There have been rumours about during the week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever the explanation, the sad fact remains that never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself. ... The work itself is lovely stuff, very simple – that pregnant simplicity that has come upon Elgar's music in the last couple of years – but with a profound wisdom and beauty underlying its simplicity." Elgar attached no blame to his soloist, Felix Salmond

Felix Salmond

Felix Adrian Norman Salmond was an English cellist and cello teacher who achieved success in both England and the United States of America.-Early life and career:...

, who played for him again later. In contrast with the First Symphony and its hundred performances in just over a year, the Cello Concerto did not have a second performance in London for more than a year.

Last years

Although in the 1920s Elgar's music was no longer in fashion, his admirers continued to present his works when possible. Reed singles out a performance of the Second Symphony in March 1920 conducted by "a young man almost unknown to the public", Adrian Boult

Adrian Boult

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...

, for bringing "the grandeur and nobility of the work" to a wider public. Also in 1920, Landon Ronald presented an all-Elgar concert at the Queen's Hall

Queen's Hall

The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...

. Alice Elgar wrote with enthusiasm about the reception of the symphony, but this was one of the last times she heard Elgar's music played in public. After a short illness, she died of lung cancer on 7 April 1920, at the age of seventy-two.

Elgar was devastated by the loss of his wife. With no public demand for new works, and deprived of Alice's constant support and inspiration, he allowed himself to be deflected from composition. His daughter later wrote that Elgar inherited from his father a reluctance to "settle down to work on hand but could cheerfully spend hours over some perfectly unnecessary and entirely unremunerative undertaking", a trait that became stronger after Alice's death. For much of the rest of his life, Elgar indulged himself in his several hobbies. Throughout his life he was a keen amateur chemist, sometimes using a laboratory in his back garden. He enjoyed football, supporting Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.

Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.

Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club that represents the city of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands region. They are members of the Premier League, the highest level of English football. The club was founded in 1877 and since 1889 has played at...

, for whom he composed an anthem, "He Banged the Leather for Goal", and in his later years he frequently attended horseraces. His protégés, the conductor Malcolm Sargent

Malcolm Sargent

Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...

 and violinist Yehudi Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...

, both recalled rehearsals with Elgar at which he swiftly satisfied himself that all was well and then went off to the races. In his younger days, Elgar had been an enthusiastic bicyclist, buying Royal Sunbeam bicycles for himself and his wife in 1903 (he named his "Mr. Phoebus)" As an elderly widower, he enjoyed being driven about the countryside by his chauffeur. In 1923, he took a voyage to South America, journeying up the Amazon

Amazon River

The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...

. Almost nothing is recorded about the events that Elgar encountered during the trip, which gave the historical novelist James Hamilton-Paterson

James Hamilton-Paterson

James Hamilton-Paterson is a poet and novelist.He is one of the most reclusive of British literary exiles, sharing his time between Austria, Italy, and the Philippines.-Early life:...

 considerable latitude when writing Gerontius, a fictional account of the journey.

After Alice's death, Elgar sold the Hampstead house, and after living for a short time in a flat in St James's in the heart of London, he moved back to Worcestershire, to the village of Kempsey

Kempsey, Worcestershire

Kempsey is a village and civil parish in the Malvern Hills District in the county of Worcestershire, England. It is bounded by the River Severn on the west, and the A38 main road runs through it and is about 3 miles south of Worcester....

, where he lived from 1923 to 1927. He did not wholly abandon composition in these years. He made large-scale symphonic arrangements of works by Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 and Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

 and wrote his Empire March and eight songs Pageant of Empire

Pageant of Empire (Elgar)

Pageant of Empire is the title given to a set of songs, to words by Alfred Noyes, written by the English composer Sir Edward Elgar and given important positions in the Pageant of Empire at the British Empire Exhibition.-Details:...

for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition

British Empire Exhibition

The British Empire Exhibition was a colonial exhibition held at Wembley, Middlesex in 1924 and 1925.-History:It was opened by King George V on St George's Day, 23 April 1924. The British Empire contained 58 countries at that time, and only Gambia and Gibraltar did not take part...

. Shortly after these were published, he was appointed Master of the King's Musick

Master of the Queen's Music

Master of the Queen's Music is a post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England.The post is roughly comparable to that of Poet Laureate...

 on 13 May 1924, following the death of Sir Walter Parratt

Walter Parratt

Sir Walter Parratt KCVO was an English organist and composer.-Biography:Born in Huddersfield, son of a parish organist, Parratt began to play the pipe organ from an early age, and held posts as an organist while still a child...

.

From 1926 onwards, Elgar made a series of recordings of his own works. Elgar, described by the music writer Robert Philip as "the first composer to take the gramophone seriously", had already recorded much of his music by the early acoustic-recording process for His Master's Voice (HMV)

Gramophone Company

The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...

 from 1914 onwards, but the introduction of electrical microphones in 1925 transformed the gramophone from a novelty into a realistic medium for reproducing orchestral and choral music. Elgar was the first composer to take full advantage of this technological advance. Fred Gaisberg

Fred Gaisberg

Frederick William Gaisberg was an American-born musician, recording engineer and one of the earliest classical music producers for the gramophone. He himself did not use the term 'producer' and was not an impresario like his protégé Walter Legge of EMI or an innovator like John Culshaw of Decca...

 of HMV, who produced Elgar's recordings, set up a series of sessions to capture on disc the composer's interpretations of his major orchestral works, including the Enigma Variations, Falstaff, the first and second symphonies, and the cello and violin concertos. For most of these, the orchestra was the LSO, but the Variations were played by the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra. Later in the series of recordings, Elgar also conducted two newly founded orchestras, Boult's BBC Symphony Orchestra

BBC Symphony Orchestra

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...

 and Sir Thomas Beecham

Thomas Beecham

Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...

's London Philharmonic Orchestra

London Philharmonic Orchestra

The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...

.

Elgar's recordings were released on 78-rpm discs by both HMV and RCA Victor

RCA Records

RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

. After World War II, the 1932 recording of the Violin Concerto with the teenage Menuhin as soloist remained available on 78 and later on LP

LP record

The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

, but the other recordings were out of the catalogues for some years. When they were reissued by EMI on LP in the 1970s, they caused surprise to many by their fast tempi, in contrast to the slower speeds adopted by many conductors in the years since Elgar's death. The recordings have subsequently been issued on compact disc. These were reissued on CD in the 1990s.

In November 1931, Elgar was filmed by Pathé

Pathé

Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...

 for a newsreel depicting a recording session of Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 at the opening of EMI's Abbey Road Studios

Abbey Road Studios

Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...

 in London. It is believed to be the only surviving sound film of Elgar, who makes a brief remark before conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, asking the musicians to "play this tune as though you've never heard it before." A late piece of Elgar's, The Nursery Suite

Nursery Suite

The Nursery Suite is one of the last compositions by Edward Elgar. Like Elgar's The Wand of Youth suites, it makes use of sketches from the composer's childhood.There are seven movements and a coda:...

, was an early example of a studio premiere; its first performance was in the Abbey Road studios. For this work, dedicated to the wife and daughters of the Duke of York

George VI of the United Kingdom

George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...

, Elgar once again drew on his youthful sketch-books.
In his final years, Elgar experienced a musical revival. The BBC organised a festival of his works to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday, in 1932. He flew to Paris in 1933 to conduct the Violin Concerto for Menuhin. While in France, he visited his fellow composer Frederick Delius

Frederick Delius

Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...

 at his house at Grez-sur-Loing

Grez-sur-Loing

Grez-sur-Loing is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France.-People:It is located 70 km south of Paris and is notable for the artists and musicians who have lived or stayed there...

. He was sought out by younger musicians such as Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent and John Barbirolli

John Barbirolli

Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...

, who championed his music when it was out of fashion. He began work on an opera, The Spanish Lady, and accepted a commission from the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 to compose a Third Symphony

Symphony No. 3 (Elgar)

Edward Elgar's Third Symphony was incomplete at the time of his death in 1934. Elgar left 130 pages of sketches which the British composer Anthony Payne worked on for many years, producing a complete symphony in 1997, officially known as "Edward Elgar: the sketches for Symphony No 3 elaborated by...

. His final illness, however, prevented their completion. He fretted about the unfinished works. He asked Reed to ensure that nobody would "tinker" with the sketches and attempt a completion of the symphony, but at other times he said, "If I can't complete the Third Symphony, somebody will complete it – or write a better one." After Elgar's death, Percy M. Young

Percy M. Young

Percy Marshall Young was a British musicologist, editor, organist, composer, conductor and teacher.Young was born in Northwich, Cheshire. From 1934 to 1937 he was a Director of Music at Stranmillis Teacher Training College in Belfast. From 1937 to 1944, Young was a Musical Adviser to...

, in cooperation with the BBC and Elgar's daughter Carice, produced a version of The Spanish Lady, which was issued on CD. The Third Symphony sketches were elaborated by the composer Anthony Payne

Anthony Payne

Anthony Payne is an English composer, most famous for the work published as Edward Elgar: The Sketches for Symphony No. 3 Elaborated by Anthony Payne...

 into a complete score in 1998.

Inoperable intestinal cancer was discovered during an operation on 8 October 1933. Elgar died on 23 February 1934 at the age of seventy-six and was buried next to his wife at St. Wulstan's Church in Little Malvern

Little Malvern

Little Malvern is a small village and a civil parish on the lower slopes of the Malvern Hills south of Malvern Wells, near Great Malvern, the major centre of the area often referred to as The Malverns. in Worcestershire, England. It contains a Romanesque church called Little Malvern Priory, after...

.

Influences, antecedents and early works

Elgar was contemptuous of folk music and had little interest in or respect for the early English composers, calling William Byrd

William Byrd

William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...

 and his contemporaries "museum pieces". Of later English composers, he regarded Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

 as the greatest, and he said that he had learned much of his own technique from studying Hubert Parry

Hubert Parry

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...

's writings. The continental composers who most influenced Elgar were Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

, Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

 and, to some degree, Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

. In Elgar's chromaticism

Chromaticism

Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...

, the influence of Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

 is apparent, but Elgar's individual style of orchestration owes much to the clarity of nineteenth century French composers, Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

, Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

, Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

 and, particularly, Delibes

Léo Delibes

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...

, whose music Elgar played and conducted at Worcester and greatly admired.

Elgar began composing when still a child, and all his life he drew on his early sketchbooks for themes and inspiration. The habit of assembling his compositions, even large-scale ones, from scraps of themes jotted down randomly remained throughout his life. His early adult works included violin and piano pieces, music for the wind quintet in which he and his brother played between 1878–81, and music of many types for the Powick Asylum band. Diana McVeagh in Grove's Dictionary finds many embryonic Elgarian touches in these pieces, but few of them are regularly played, except Salut d'Amour

Salut d'Amour

Salut d’Amour, Op. 12, is a musical work composed by Edward Elgar in 1888, originally written for violin and piano.-History:Elgar finished the piece in July 1888, when he was engaged to be married to Caroline Alice Roberts, and he called it "Liebesgruss" because of Miss Roberts’ fluency in German...

and (as arranged decades later into The Wand of Youth Suites) some of the childhood sketches. Elgar's sole work of note during his first spell in London in 1889–91, the overture Froissart

Froissart Overture (Elgar)

Froissart, Op 19, is a concert overture by Edward Elgar, inspired by the 14th century chronicles of Jean Froissart, to which Elgar had been attracted through mention of them in Walter Scott's Old Mortality.-History:...

, was a romantic-bravura piece, influenced by Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 and Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, but also showing further Elgarian characteristics. Orchestral works composed during the subsequent years in Worcestershire include the Serenade for Strings

Serenade for Strings (Elgar)

Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 20, is a piece for string orchestra in three short movements, by Edward Elgar.It was written in March 1892 and first performed in private in that year, by the Worcester Ladies' Orchestral Class, with the composer conducting. It received its first public...

and Three Bavarian Dances

Three Bavarian Dances

Three Bavarian Dances, Op 27 is an orchestral work by Edward Elgar.It is an arrangement for orchestra of three of the six songs Elgar wrote under the collective title From the Bavarian Highlands. The original song lyrics were written by the composer’s wife Alice, as a memento of a holiday the...

. In this period and later, Elgar wrote songs and partsongs. W. H. Reed

William Henry Reed

William Henry "Billy" Reed was an English violinist, teacher, minor composer, conductor and biographer of Sir Edward Elgar...

 expressed reservations about these pieces, but praised the partsong The Snow, for female voices, and Sea Pictures

Sea Pictures

Sea Pictures, Op. 37 is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar...

, a cycle of five songs for contralto

Contralto

Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 and orchestra which remains in the repertory.

Elgar's principal large-scale early works were for chorus and orchestra for the Three Choirs and other festivals. These were The Black Knight, King Olaf, The Light of Life, The Banner of St George and Caractacus. He also wrote a Te Deum and Benedictus for the Hereford Festival

Three Choirs Festival

The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...

. Of these, McVeagh comments favourably on his lavish orchestration and innovative use of leitmotif

Leitmotif

A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...

s, but less favourably on the qualities of his chosen texts and the patchiness of his inspiration. McVeagh makes the point that, because these works of the 1890s were for many years little known (and performances remain rare), the mastery of his first great success, the Enigma Variations

Enigma Variations

Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra , Op. 36, commonly referred to as the Enigma Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–1899. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the...

, appeared to be a sudden transformation from mediocrity to genius, but in fact his orchestral skills had been building up throughout the decade.

Peak creative years

Elgar's best-known works were composed within the twenty-one years between 1899 and 1920. Most of them are orchestral. Reed wrote, "Elgar's genius rose to its greatest height in his orchestral works" and quoted the composer as saying that, even in his oratorios, the orchestral part is the most important. The Enigma Variations made Elgar's name nationally. The variation form was ideal for him at this stage of his career, when his comprehensive mastery of orchestration was still in contrast to his tendency to write his melodies in short, sometimes rigid, phrases. His next orchestral works, Cockaigne (In London Town)

Cockaigne (In London Town)

Cockaigne , Op. 40, also known as the Cockaigne Overture, is a concert overture for full orchestra composed by the British composer Edward Elgar in 1900-01.-History:...

, a concert-overture (1900–1901), the first two Pomp and Circumstance

Pomp and Circumstance Marches

The "Pomp and Circumstance Marches" , Op. 39 are a series of marches for orchestra composed by Sir Edward Elgar....

marches (1901), and the gentle Dream Children

Dream Children (Elgar)

Dream Children, Op 43 is a musical work for small orchestra by Sir Edward Elgar. There are two movements:- History :These two pieces were written in 1902, when Elgar was approaching the peak of his fame and popularity. Unusually for Elgar they were not written to any commission...

(1902), are all short: the longest of them, Cockaigne, lasting less than fifteen minutes. In the South (Alassio)

In the South (Alassio)

In the South , Op. 50, is a concert overture composed by Edward Elgar during a family holiday in Italy in the winter of 1903 to 1904.The work is dedicated "To my friend Leo F. Schuster".- History :...

(1903–1904), although designated by Elgar as a concert-overture, is, according to Kennedy, really a tone poem and the longest continuous piece of purely orchestral writing Elgar had essayed. He wrote it after setting aside an early attempt to compose a symphony. The work reveals his continuing progress in writing sustained themes and orchestral lines, although some critics, including Kennedy, find that in the middle part "Elgar's inspiration burns at less than its brightest." In 1905 Elgar completed the Introduction and Allegro for Strings

Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)

Sir Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47, was composed in 1905 for performance in an all-Elgar concert by the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. Scored for string quartet and string orchestra, Elgar composed it to show off the players' virtuosity. Though initial critical...

. This work is based, unlike much of Elgar's earlier writing, not on a profusion of themes but on only three. Kennedy called it a "masterly composition, equalled among English works for strings only by Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

's Tallis Fantasia." Nevertheless, at less than a quarter of an hour, it was not by contemporary standards a lengthy composition. Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

's Seventh Symphony

Symphony No. 7 (Mahler)

Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony was written in 1904-05, with repeated revisions to the scoring. It is sometimes referred to by the title Song of the Night , though this title was not Mahler's own and he disapproved of it. Although the symphony is often described as being in the key of 'E minor,'...

, composed at the same time, runs for well over an hour.

During the next four years, however, Elgar composed three major concert pieces, which, though shorter than comparable works by some of his European contemporaries, are among the most substantial such works by an English composer. These were his First Symphony

Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)

Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 55 is one of his two completed symphonies. The first performance was given by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter in Manchester, England, on 3 December 1908. It was widely known that Elgar had been planning a symphony for more than...

, Violin Concerto

Violin Concerto (Elgar)

Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61, is one of his longest orchestral compositions, and the last of his works to gain immediate popular success....

, and Second Symphony

Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)

Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 2 in E major, Op. 63, was completed on 28 February 1911 and was premiered at the London Musical Festival at the Queen's Hall by the Queen's Hall Orchestra on 24 May 1911 with the composer conducting...

, which all play for between forty-five minutes and an hour. McVeagh says of the symphonies that they "rank high not only in Elgar's output but in English musical history. Both are long and powerful, without published programmes, only hints and quotations to indicate some inward drama from which they derive their vitality and eloquence. Both are based on classical form but differ from it to the extent that ... they were considered prolix and slackly constructed by some critics. Certainly the invention in them is copious; each symphony would need several dozen music examples to chart its progress."
Elgar's Violin Concerto and Cello Concerto

Cello Concerto (Elgar)

Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, by which time his music had gone out of fashion with the concert-going public...

, in the view of Kennedy, "rank not only among his finest works, but among the greatest of their kind". They are, however, very different from each other. The Violin Concerto, composed in 1909 as Elgar reached the height of his popularity, and written for the instrument dearest to his heart, is lyrical throughout and rhapsodical and brilliant by turns. The Cello Concerto, composed a decade later, immediately after World War I, seems, in Kennedy's words, "to belong to another age, another world ... the simplest of all Elgar's major works ... also the least grandiloquent." Between the two concertos came Elgar's symphonic study Falstaff

Falstaff (Elgar)

Falstaff – Symphonic Study in C minor, Op.68, is an orchestral work by the English composer Edward Elgar. Though not so designated by the composer, it is a symphonic poem in the tradition of Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss...

, which has divided opinion even among Elgar's strongest admirers. Donald Tovey viewed it as "one of the immeasurably great things in music", with power "identical with Shakespeare's", while Kennedy criticises the work for "too frequent reliance on sequences

Sequence (music)

In music, a sequence is the immediate restatement of a motif or longer melodic passage at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice. It is one of the most common and simple methods of elaborating a melody in eighteenth and nineteenth century classical music...

" and an over-idealised depiction of the female characters. Reed thought that the principal themes show less distinction than some of Elgar's earlier works. Elgar himself thought Falstaff the highest point of his purely orchestral work.

The major works for voices and orchestra of the twenty-one years of Elgar's middle period are three large-scale works for soloists, chorus and orchestra: The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...

(1900), and the oratorios The Apostles

The Apostles (Elgar)

The Apostles, Op. 49, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar. It was first performed on 14 October 1903.-Overview:...

(1903) and The Kingdom

The Kingdom (Elgar)

The Kingdom, Op. 51, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar.It was first performed at the Birmingham Music Festival on 3 October 1906, with the orchestra conducted by the composer, and soloists Agnes Nicholls, Muriel Foster, John Coates and William Higley. The...

(1906); and two shorter odes, the Coronation Ode

Coronation Ode

Coronation Ode, Op 44 is a work composed by Sir Edward Elgar for soprano, contralto, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, with words by A. C. Benson....

(1902) and The Music Makers (1912). The first of the odes, as a pièce d'occasion, has rarely been revived after its initial success, with the culminating "Land of Hope and Glory". The second is, for Elgar, unusual in that it contains several quotations from his earlier works, as Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

 quoted himself in A Hero's Life. The choral works were all successful, although the first, Gerontius, was and remains the best-loved and most performed. On the manuscript Elgar wrote, quoting John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another. My life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw, and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory." All three of the large-scale works follow the traditional model with sections for soloists, chorus and both together. Elgar's distinctive orchestration, as well as his melodic inspiration, lifts them to a higher level than most of their British predecessors.

Elgar's other works of his middle period include incidental music for Grania and Diarmid

Diarmuid and Grania

Diarmuid and Grania is a play in poetic prose co-written by George Moore and W. B. Yeats in 1901, with incidental music by the English composer Edward Elgar.-Play:...

, a play by George Moore

George Moore (novelist)

George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s...

 and W. B. Yeats (1901), and for The Starlight Express

The Starlight Express

"The Starlight Express" is a children's play by Violet Pearn, based on the imaginative novel "A Prisoner in Fairyland" by Algernon Blackwood, with songs and incidental music written by the English composer Sir Edward Elgar in 1915.- Production :...

, a play based on a story by Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T...

 (1916). Of the former, Yeats called Elgar's music "wonderful in its heroic melancholy". Elgar also wrote a number of songs during his peak period, of which Reed observes, "it cannot be said that he enriched the vocal repertory to the same extent as he did that of the orchestra."

Final years and posthumous completions

After the Cello Concerto, Elgar completed no more large-scale works. He made arrangements of works by Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

, Handel and Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, in distinctively Elgarian orchestration, and once again turned his youthful notebooks to use for the Nursery Suite

Nursery Suite

The Nursery Suite is one of the last compositions by Edward Elgar. Like Elgar's The Wand of Youth suites, it makes use of sketches from the composer's childhood.There are seven movements and a coda:...

(1931). His other compositions of this period have not held a place in the regular repertory. For most of the rest of the twentieth century, it was generally agreed that Elgar's creative impulse ceased after his wife's death. Anthony Payne's elaboration of the sketches for Elgar's Third Symphony led to a reconsideration of this supposition. Elgar left the opening of the symphony complete in full score, and those pages, along with others, show Elgar's orchestration changed markedly from the richness of his pre-war work. The Gramophone described the opening of the new work as something "thrilling ... unforgettably gaunt". Payne also subsequently produced a performing version of the sketches for a sixth Pomp and Circumstance March

Pomp and Circumstance Marches

The "Pomp and Circumstance Marches" , Op. 39 are a series of marches for orchestra composed by Sir Edward Elgar....

, premiered at the Proms

The Proms

The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...

 in August 2006. Elgar's sketches for a piano concerto dating from 1913 were elaborated by the composer Robert Walker and first performed in August 1997 by the pianist David Owen Norris

David Owen Norris

-Life:Norris was born in 1953. He studied music at Keble College, Oxford where he was organ scholar; he is now an Honorary Fellow of the college. After leaving Oxford, he studied composition, and worked at the Royal Opera House as a repetiteur...

. The realisation has since been extensively revised.

Reputation

Views of Elgar's stature have varied in the decades since his music came to prominence at the beginning of the twentieth century. Richard Strauss, as noted, hailed Elgar as a progressive composer; even the hostile reviewer in The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

, unimpressed by the thematic material of the First Symphony in 1908, called the orchestration "magnificently modern". Hans Richter rated Elgar as "the greatest modern composer" in any country, and Richter's colleague Arthur Nikisch

Arthur Nikisch

Arthur Nikisch ; 12 October 185523 January 1922) was a Hungarian conductor who performed internationally, holding posts in Boston, London and - most importantly - Berlin. He was considered an outstanding interpreter of the music of Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Liszt...

 considered the First Symphony "a masterpiece of the first order" to be "justly ranked with the great symphonic models – Beethoven and Brahms." By contrast, the critic W. J. Turner

Walter J. Turner

Walter James Redfern Turner was an Australian-born, English-domiciled writer and critic.Born in Melbourne, the son of a church musician, he was educated at a technical college in that city, but left for England to pursue a career in writing...

, in the mid-twentieth century, wrote of Elgar's "Salvation Army

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....

 symphonies," and Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

 called the Enigma Variations "second-hand Brahms". Elgar's immense popularity was not long-lived. After the success of his First Symphony and Violin Concerto, his Second Symphony and Cello Concerto were politely received but without the earlier wild enthusiasm. His music was identified in the public mind with the Edwardian era, and after the First World War he no longer seemed a progressive or modern composer. In the early 1920s, even the First Symphony had only one London performance in more than three years. Henry Wood and younger conductors such as Boult, Sargent and Barbirolli championed Elgar's music, but in the recording catalogues and the concert programmes of the middle of the century his works were not well-represented.

In 1924, the music scholar Edward J. Dent

Edward Joseph Dent

Edward Joseph Dent, generally known by his initials as E. J. Dent was a British writer on music....

 wrote an article for a German music journal in which he identified four features of Elgar's style that gave offence to a section of English opinion (namely, Dent indicated, the academic and snobbish section): "too emotional", "not quite free from vulgarity", "pompous", and "too deliberately noble in expression". This article was reprinted in 1930 and caused controversy. In the later years of the century there was, in Britain at least, a revival of interest in Elgar's music. The features that had offended austere taste in the inter-war years were seen from a different perspective. In 1955, the reference book The Record Guide

The Record Guide

The Record Guide was an English reference work, listing, describing and evaluating gramophone recordings of classical music in the 1950s. It was the precursor of modern guides such as The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music-Publication history:...

wrote of the Edwardian background during the height of Elgar's career:
By the 1960s, a less severe view was being taken of the Edwardian era. In 1966 the critic Frank Howes wrote that Elgar reflected the last blaze of opulence, expansiveness and full-blooded life, before World War I swept so much away. In Howes's view, there was a touch of vulgarity in both the era and Elgar's music, but "a composer is entitled to be judged by posterity for his best work. ... Elgar is historically important for giving to English music a sense of the orchestra, for expressing what it felt like to be alive in the Edwardian age, for conferring on the world at least four unqualified masterpieces, and for thereby restoring England to the comity of musical nations."
In 1967 the critic and analyst David Cox considered the question of the supposed Englishness of Elgar's music. Cox noted that Elgar disliked folk-songs and never used them in his works, opting for an idiom that was essentially German, leavened by a lightness derived from French composers including Berlioz and Gounod. How then, asked Cox, could Elgar be "the most English of composers"? Cox found the answer in Elgar's own personality, which "could use the alien idioms in such a way as to make of them a vital form of expression that was his and his alone. And the personality that comes through in the music is English." This point about Elgar's transmuting his influences had been touched on before. In 1930 The Times wrote, "When Elgar's first symphony came out, someone attempted to prove that its main tune on which all depends was like the Grail theme in Parsifal. ... but the attempt fell flat because everyone else, including those who disliked the tune, had instantly recognized it as typically 'Elgarian', while the Grail theme is as typically Wagnerian." As for Elgar's "Englishness", his fellow-composers recognised it: Richard Strauss and Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

 made particular reference to it, and Sibelius

Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...

 called him, "the personification of the true English character in music ... a noble personality and a born aristocrat".

Among Elgar's admirers there is disagreement about which of his works are to be regarded as masterpieces. The Enigma Variations are generally counted among them. The Dream of Gerontius has also been given high praise by Elgarians, and the Cello Concerto is similarly rated. Many rate the Violin Concerto equally highly, but some do not. Sackville-West omitted it from the list of Elgar masterpieces in The Record Guide, and in a long analytical article in The Musical Quarterly, Daniel Gregory Mason

Daniel Gregory Mason

Daniel Gregory Mason was an American composer and music critic.-Biography:...

 criticised the first movement of the concerto for a "kind of sing-songiness ... as fatal to noble rhythm in music as it is in poetry." Falstaff also divides opinion. It has never been a great popular favourite, and Kennedy and Reed identify shortcomings in it. In a Musical Times

The Musical Times

The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...

1957 centenary symposium on Elgar led by Vaughan Williams, by contrast, several contributors share Eric Blom

Eric Blom

Eric Walter Blom CBE was a Swiss-born British-naturalised music lexicographer, musicologist, music critic, music biographer and translator. He is best known as the editor of the 5th edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians .-Biography:Blom was born in Berne, Switzerland...

's view that Falstaff is the greatest of all Elgar's works.

The two symphonies divide opinion even more sharply. Mason rates the Second poorly for its "over-obvious rhythmic scheme", but calls the First "Elgar's masterpiece. ... It is hard to see how any candid student can deny the greatness of this symphony." However, in the 1957 centenary symposium, several leading admirers of Elgar express reservations about one or both symphonies. In the same year, Roger Fiske wrote in The Gramophone, "For some reason few people seem to like the two Elgar symphonies equally; each has its champions and often they are more than a little bored by the rival work." The critic John Warrack

John Warrack

John Warrack is an English music critic, writer on music, and oboist. He is the son of Scottish conductor and composer Guy Warrack. From 1954–1961 he was music critic for The Daily Telegraph, and from 1961–1972 he was music critic for The Sunday Telegraph. From 1978–1983 he served as the Artistic...

 wrote, "There are no sadder pages in symphonic literature than the close of the First Symphony's Adagio, as horn and trombones twice softly intone a phrase of utter grief", whereas to Michael Kennedy, the movement is notable for its lack of anguished yearning and angst and is marked instead by a "benevolent tranquillity."

Despite the fluctuating critical assessment of the various works over the years, Elgar's major works taken as a whole have in the twenty-first century recovered strongly from their neglect in the 1950s. The Record Guide in 1955 could list only one currently available recording of the First Symphony, none of the Second, one of the Violin Concerto, two of the Cello Concerto, two of the Enigma Variations, one of Falstaff, and none of The Dream of Gerontius. Since then there have been multiple recordings of all the major works. More than thirty recordings have been made of the First Symphony since 1955, for example, and more than a dozen of The Dream of Gerontius. Similarly, in the concert hall, Elgar's works, after a period of neglect, are once again frequently programmed. The Elgar Society's website, in its diary of forthcoming performances, lists performances of Elgar's works by orchestras, soloists and conductors across Europe, North America and Australia.

Honours, awards and commemorations

Elgar was knighted in 1904, and in 1911 he was appointed a member of the Order of Merit. In 1920 he received the Cross of Commander of the Belgian Order of the Crown

Order of the Crown (Belgium)

The Order of the Crown is an Order of Belgium which was created on 15 October 1897 by King Leopold II in his capacity as ruler of the Congo Free State. The order was first intended to recognize heroic deeds and distinguished service achieved from service in the Congo Free State - many of which acts...

; in 1924 he was made Master of the King's Musick

Master of the Queen's Music

Master of the Queen's Music is a post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England.The post is roughly comparable to that of Poet Laureate...

; the following year he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society

Royal Philharmonic Society

The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...

; and in 1928 he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order

Royal Victorian Order

The Royal Victorian Order is a dynastic order of knighthood and a house order of chivalry recognising distinguished personal service to the order's Sovereign, the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth realms, any members of her family, or any of her viceroys...

 (KCVO). Between 1900 and 1931, Elgar received honorary degrees from the Universities of Cambridge, Durham, Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

, Oxford, Yale (USA), Aberdeen

University of Aberdeen

The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...

, Western Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

 (USA), Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

 and London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

. Foreign academies of which he was made a member were Regia Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome; Accademia del Reale Istituto Musicale, Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

; Académie des Beaux Arts, Paris; Institut de France

Institut de France

The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is the Académie française.The institute, located in Paris, manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and chateaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which...

; and American Academy of Arts

American Academy of Arts

The American Academy of Arts is an independent, non-profit film school located in Escondido, California. It specializes in visual and digital media arts education and is staffed by working Hollywood and independent film professionals...

. In 1931 he was made a Baronet

Baronet

A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...

, of Broadheath in the County of Worcester. In 1933 he was promoted within the Royal Victorian Order to Knight Grand Cross (GCVO). In Kennedy's words, he "shamelessly touted" for a peerage

Peerage

The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...

, but in vain.
The house in Lower Broadheath

Broadheath, Worcestershire

Broadheath with Lower Broadheath is a civil parish officially known as Lower Broadheath, in the Malvern Hills district of Worcestershire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,713...

 where Elgar was born is now the Elgar Birthplace Museum

Elgar Birthplace Museum

The Elgar Birthplace Museum in Lower Broadheath, Worcestershire, England, is a museum dedicated to the English composer Edward Elgar. Elgar was born here on 2 June 1857, and lived here until his family moved to Worcester two years later. The museum comprises the birthplace cottage and an...

, devoted to his life and work. Elgar's daughter, Carice, helped to found the museum in 1936 and bequeathed to it much of her collection of Elgar's letters and documents on her death in 1970. Carice left Elgar manuscripts to musical colleges: The Black Knight to Trinity College of Music

Trinity College of Music

Trinity College of Music is one of the London music conservatories, based in Greenwich. It is part of Trinity Laban.The conservatoire is inheritor of elegant riverside buildings of the former Greenwich Hospital, designed in part by Sir Christopher Wren...

; King Olaf to the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

; The Music Makers to Birmingham University; the Cello Concerto to the Royal College of Music

Royal College of Music

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

; The Kingdom to the Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

; and other manuscripts to the British Museum

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

. The Elgar Society dedicated to the composer and his works was formed in 1951. The University of Birmingham's Special Collections contain an archive of letters written by Elgar.

Elgar's statue at the end of Worcester High Street stands facing the cathedral, only yards from where his father's shop once stood. Another statue of the composer by Rose Garrard

Rose Garrard

.Rose Garrard is an installation, video and performance artist, sculptor, and author. Her artworks have been acquired by collections worldwide including the New South Wales government Art Gallery in Australia....

 is at the top of Church Street in Malvern

Malvern, Worcestershire

Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...

, overlooking the town and giving visitors an opportunity to stand next to the composer in the shadow of the Hills that he so often regarded. In September 2005, a third statue sculpted by Jemma Pearson was unveiled near Hereford

Hereford

Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...

 Cathedral in honour of his many musical and other associations with that city. It depicts Elgar with his bicycle. From 1999 until early 2007, new Bank of England twenty pound notes featured a portrait of Elgar. The change to remove his image generated controversy, particularly because 2007 was the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth. From 2007 the Elgar notes were phased out, ceasing to be legal tender

Legal tender

Legal tender is a medium of payment allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. Paper currency is a common form of legal tender in many countries....

 on 30 June 2010.

There are around 65 roads in the UK named after Elgar, including six in the counties of Herefordshire

Herefordshire

Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...

 and Worcestershire

Worcestershire

Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...

. Among these are eleven Elgar Avenues, including one in Malvern

Malvern, Worcestershire

Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...

, Worcestershire, and another close to the house where Elgar lived, Plâs Gwyn in Hereford

Hereford

Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...

. A street in North Springfield, Virginia

North Springfield, Virginia

North Springfield is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population was 9,173 at the 2000census.-Geography:North Springfield is located at ....

 and a major road in Box Hill

Box Hill, Victoria

Box Hill is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 14 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Whitehorse. At the 2006 Census, Box Hill had a population of 8,616....

, Melbourne, are also named after him. Elgar had three locomotives named in his honour. The first "Sir Edward Elgar" was a Bulldog class locomotive, number 3414; it was built in 1906 and withdrawn from service in 1938. The second was a Great Western Railway Castle Class locomotive in the post WWII 7000 series. Built in 1946 and withdrawn from service in 1964, its original name was replaced by "Sir Edward Elgar" in 1957. The third was a Brush type 47 diesel locomotive, for which nameplates were specially cast in the former Great Western Railway

Great Western Railway

The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...

 style. On 25 February 1984, this locomotive was officially named "Sir Edward Elgar" at Paddington station in London by Simon Rattle

Simon Rattle

Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....

, then conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...

.

Elgar's life and music have inspired works of literature including the novel Gerontius and several plays. Elgar's Rondo, a 1993 stage play by David Pownall

David Pownall

David Pownall FRSL is a British playwright and author of novels and short stories. Some of his plays have been adapted as films, for instance, Music to Murder By , and others were written as radio plays.-Life and career:...

 depicts the dead Jaeger offering ghostly advice on Elgar's musical development. Pownall also wrote a radio play, Elgar's Third (1994); another Elgar-themed radio play is Alick Rowe

Alick Rowe

Alick Rowe was a British writer born in 1939. He died on 30 October 2009 in Chiang Mai, Thailand of a suspected heart attack.He was head boy at Hereford Cathedral School before graduating from St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. From the early 1970s onwards he wrote prolifically for radio and...

's The Dorabella Variation (2003). David Rudkin

David Rudkin

James David Rudkin is an English playwright of Northern Irish descent. Coming from a family of strict evangelical Christians, Rudkin was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and read Mods and Greats at St Catherine's College, Oxford...

's BBC television "Play for Today

Play for Today

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...

" Penda's Fen

Penda's Fen

Penda's Fen is a British television play which was written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke. Commissioned by BBC producer David Rose, it was transmitted as part of the corporation's Play for Today series.-Plot summary:...

(1974) deals with themes including sex and adolescence, spying, and snobbery, with Elgar's music, chiefly The Dream of Gerontius, as its background. In one scene, a ghostly Elgar whispers the secret of the "Enigma" tune to the youthful central character, with an injunction not to reveal it. Elgar on the Journey to Hanley, a novel by Keith Alldritt (1979), tells of the composer's attachment to Dora Penny, later Mrs Powell, (depicted as "Dorabella" in the Enigma Variations), and covers the fifteen years from their first meeting in the mid-1890s to the genesis of the Violin Concerto when, in the novel, Dora has been supplanted in Elgar's affections by Alice Stuart-Wortley.

Perhaps the best-known work depicting Elgar, is Ken Russell

Ken Russell

Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...

's 1962 BBC television film Elgar, made when the composer was still largely out of fashion. This hour-long film contradicted the view of Elgar as a jingoistic and bombastic composer, and evoked the more pastoral and melancholy side of his character and music.

Selected works

The following have been selected as representative of Elgar's works, based on quality, significance and popularity.

Orchestral

• Froissart
  Froissart Overture (Elgar)
  Froissart, Op 19, is a concert overture by Edward Elgar, inspired by the 14th century chronicles of Jean Froissart, to which Elgar had been attracted through mention of them in Walter Scott's Old Mortality.-History:...
  
  , concert overture, Op. 19 (1890)
• Serenade for Strings
  Serenade for Strings (Elgar)
  Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 20, is a piece for string orchestra in three short movements, by Edward Elgar.It was written in March 1892 and first performed in private in that year, by the Worcester Ladies' Orchestral Class, with the composer conducting. It received its first public...
  
  , Op. 20 (1888–1892)
• Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma)
  Enigma Variations
  Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra , Op. 36, commonly referred to as the Enigma Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–1899. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the...
  
  , Op. 36 (1899)
  • includes Variation 9 Nimrod
• Cockaigne (In London Town)
  Cockaigne (In London Town)
  Cockaigne , Op. 40, also known as the Cockaigne Overture, is a concert overture for full orchestra composed by the British composer Edward Elgar in 1900-01.-History:...
  
  , concert overture, Op. 40 (1900–1901)
• Pomp and Circumstance
  Pomp and Circumstance Marches
  The "Pomp and Circumstance Marches" , Op. 39 are a series of marches for orchestra composed by Sir Edward Elgar....
  
  , five marches, all Op. 39 (1901–1930)
  • March No. 1 in D (1901) (The trio contains the tune known as Land of Hope and Glory
    Land of Hope and Glory
    "Land of Hope and Glory" is a British patriotic song, with music by Edward Elgar and lyrics by A. C. Benson, written in 1902.- Composition :...
    
    )
• In the South (Alassio)
  In the South (Alassio)
  In the South , Op. 50, is a concert overture composed by Edward Elgar during a family holiday in Italy in the winter of 1903 to 1904.The work is dedicated "To my friend Leo F. Schuster".- History :...
  
  , concert overture, Op. 50 (1903–1904)
• Introduction and Allegro
  Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)
  Sir Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47, was composed in 1905 for performance in an all-Elgar concert by the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. Scored for string quartet and string orchestra, Elgar composed it to show off the players' virtuosity. Though initial critical...
  
  for strings (quartet and orchestra), Op. 47 (1904–05)
• The Wand of Youth, suites Nos. 1 and 2, Opp. 1a/b (1867–71, rev. 1907/8)
• Symphony No. 1 in A-flat
  Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)
  Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 55 is one of his two completed symphonies. The first performance was given by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter in Manchester, England, on 3 December 1908. It was widely known that Elgar had been planning a symphony for more than...
  
  , Op. 55 (1907–1908)
• Violin Concerto in B minor
  Violin Concerto (Elgar)
  Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61, is one of his longest orchestral compositions, and the last of his works to gain immediate popular success....
  
  , Op. 61 (1909–1910)
• Romance for bassoon and orchestra, Op. 62 (1910)
• Symphony No. 2 in E-flat
  Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)
  Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 2 in E major, Op. 63, was completed on 28 February 1911 and was premiered at the London Musical Festival at the Queen's Hall by the Queen's Hall Orchestra on 24 May 1911 with the composer conducting...
  
  , Op. 63 (1909–1911)
• Falstaff
  Falstaff (Elgar)
  Falstaff – Symphonic Study in C minor, Op.68, is an orchestral work by the English composer Edward Elgar. Though not so designated by the composer, it is a symphonic poem in the tradition of Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss...
  
  , symphonic study, Op. 68 (1913)
• Cello Concerto in E minor
  Cello Concerto (Elgar)
  Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, by which time his music had gone out of fashion with the concert-going public...
  
  , Op. 85 (1918–1919)
• The Severn Suite
  The Severn Suite
  The Severn Suite, Opus 87, is a musical work written by Sir Edward Elgar. It is a late composition, written in 1930, the result of an invitation to write a test piece for the National Brass Band Championship...
  
  , Op. 87 (1930) (for brass band, trans. for orchestra 1932)

Cantatas and Oratorios

• The Black Knight
  The Black Knight (Elgar)
  The Black Knight, Op. 25 is a symphony/cantata for orchestra and chorus written by Edward Elgar in 1889-1893. The librettist borrows from Longfellow's translation of the ballad Der schwarze Ritter by Ludwig Uhland.-Purpose:...
  
  , symphony/cantata for chorus and orchestra, Op. 25 (1889–1892)
• The Light of Life (Lux Christi), oratorio for soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 29 (1896)
• Scenes From The Saga Of King Olaf, cantata for soprano, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 30 (1896)
• Caractacus, cantata for soprano, tenor, baritone and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 35 (1897–1898)
• The Dream of Gerontius
  The Dream of Gerontius
  The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...
  
  , for mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 38 (1899–1900)
• The Apostles
  The Apostles (Elgar)
  The Apostles, Op. 49, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar. It was first performed on 14 October 1903.-Overview:...
  
  , oratorio for soprano, contralto, tenor and three bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 49 (1902–1903)
• The Kingdom
  The Kingdom (Elgar)
  The Kingdom, Op. 51, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar.It was first performed at the Birmingham Music Festival on 3 October 1906, with the orchestra conducted by the composer, and soloists Agnes Nicholls, Muriel Foster, John Coates and William Higley. The...
  
  , oratorio for soprano, contralto, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 51 (1901–1906)
• The Music Makers, ode for contralto or mezzo-soprano soloist, chorus and orchestra, Op. 69 (1912)

Songs

• "The Wind at Dawn
  The Wind at Dawn
  "The Wind at Dawn" is a poem set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar in 1888. The poem was written in 1880 by Caroline Alice Roberts, before she had met Elgar, though they were married in the year after the song was written....
  
  ", poem by C. Alice Roberts
  Caroline Alice Elgar
  Caroline Alice, Lady Elgar was an English author of verse and prose fiction, who married the composer Edward Elgar.- Family :...
  
   (1888)
• Sea Pictures
  Sea Pictures
  Sea Pictures, Op. 37 is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar...
  
  , (Sea Pictures: A Cycle of Five Songs for Contralto), Op. 37. (1897–1899)
• "Land of Hope and Glory
  Land of Hope and Glory
  "Land of Hope and Glory" is a British patriotic song, with music by Edward Elgar and lyrics by A. C. Benson, written in 1902.- Composition :...
  
  ", words by Arthur Christopher Benson
  A. C. Benson
  Arthur Christopher Benson was an English essayist, poet, and author and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge....
  
   (1902)
• Seven Lieder of Edward Elgar
  Seven Lieder of Edward Elgar
  The Seven Lieder of Edward Elgar is a set of songs by the English composer Edward Elgar published together in 1907, by Ascherberg, Hopwood & Crew Ltd.The set was published with German words 'by Ed...
  
  (1907)

Partsongs

• "O Happy Eyes", SATB
  SATB
  In music, SATB is an initialism for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, defining the voices required by a chorus or choir to perform a particular musical work...
  
   unacc., words by C. Alice Elgar
  Caroline Alice Elgar
  Caroline Alice, Lady Elgar was an English author of verse and prose fiction, who married the composer Edward Elgar.- Family :...
  
  , Op. 18 No.1 (1890)
• "My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land", SATB unacc., words by Andrew Lang
  Andrew Lang
  Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...
  
  , dedicated to Rev. J. Hampton (1890)
• "The Snow", SSA acc. 2 violins and piano, words by C. Alice Elgar
  Caroline Alice Elgar
  Caroline Alice, Lady Elgar was an English author of verse and prose fiction, who married the composer Edward Elgar.- Family :...
  
  , dedicated to Mrs. E. B. Fitton, Op. 26 No.1 (1894) (also with orchestral accompaniment, 1903, and various other combinations of voices SATB etc.)
• "Go, Song of Mine", SSAATB unacc., words by Cavalcanti
  Guido Cavalcanti
  Guido Cavalcanti was a Florentine poet, as well as an intellectual influence on his best friend, Dante. His poems in their original Italian are available on Wikisource .-Historical background:...
  
  , tr. D. G. Rossetti, dedicated to Alfred H. Littleton, Op. 57 (1909)
• "The Shower" and "The Fountain", SATB unacc., words by Henry Vaughan
  Henry Vaughan
  Henry Vaughan was a Welsh physician and metaphysical poet.Vaughan and his twin brother the hermetic philosopher and alchemist Thomas Vaughan, were the sons of Thomas Vaughan and his wife Denise of 'Trenewydd', Newton, in Brecknockshire, Wales...
  
  , Op. 71 Nos.1 and 2 (1914)

Church music

• Three motets: "Ave verum corpus", "Ave Maria" and "Ave Maris Stella", Op. 2 (1887)
• Te Deum and Benedictus, Op. 34 (1897)

Chamber music

• Romance
  Romance for violin (Elgar)
  The Romance in E minor for violin and piano is a work by Edward Elgar composed in 1878 or 1879 and published in 1885 as his Opus 1.The Romance was dedicated to Oswin Grainger, an older friend of Elgar's from a Worcester orchestra they played in, who was an amateur musician and grocer by trade...
  
  , violin and piano, Op. 1 (1878)
• Salut d'Amour
  Salut d'Amour
  Salut d’Amour, Op. 12, is a musical work composed by Edward Elgar in 1888, originally written for violin and piano.-History:Elgar finished the piece in July 1888, when he was engaged to be married to Caroline Alice Roberts, and he called it "Liebesgruss" because of Miss Roberts’ fluency in German...
  
  (Liebesgruss), violin and piano, Op. 12 (1888)
• Chanson de Nuit
  Chanson de Nuit
  Chanson de Nuit, Op. 15, No. 1, is a musical work composed by Edward Elgar for violin and piano, and later orchestrated by the composer. Its first publication was in 1897, though it is considered that it was almost certainly written in 1889 or 1890....
  
  and Chanson de Matin
  Chanson de Matin
  Chanson de Matin, Op. 15, No. 2, is a musical work composed by Edward Elgar for violin and piano, and later orchestrated by the composer. Its first publication was in 1899, though it is thought that it was almost certainly written in 1889 or 1890....
  
  , violin and piano, Op. 15 Nos. 1 and 2 (1897/1899).
• Violin Sonata in E minor
  Violin Sonata (Elgar)
  Sir Edward Elgar wrote his Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82, in 1918, at the same time as he wrote his String Quartet in E minor and his Piano Quintet in A minor...
  
  , Op. 82 (1918)
• String Quartet in E minor
  String Quartet (Elgar)
  The String Quartet in E minor, Op. 83, was one of three major chamber music works composed by Sir Edward Elgar in 1918. The others were the Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82, and the Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84. Along with the Cello Concerto in E minor, Op...
  
  , Op. 83 (1918)
• Piano Quintet in A minor
  Piano Quintet (Elgar)
  The Quintet in A minor for Piano and String Quartet, Op. 84 is a chamber work by Edward Elgar.He worked on the Quintet and two other major chamber pieces in the summer of 1918 while staying at Brinkwells near Fittleworth in Sussex. W. H...
  
  , Op. 84 (1918–1919)

Keyboard

• Organ Sonata in G
  Organ Sonata (Elgar)
  The Sonata in G major, Op 28 is Sir Edward Elgar's first sonata composed for the organ and first performed on 8 July 1895. It also exists in an arrangement for full orchestra made after Elgar's death...
  
  , Op. 28
• Concert Allegro
  Concert Allegro (Elgar)
  The Concert Allegro, Op. 46 by Sir Edward Elgar is a piece of music for solo piano. It takes about 10 minutes to perform. It is the only piano work he wrote that was designed for concert performance...
  
  , piano, Op. 46 (1901; unpublished)

Arrangements

• J. S. Bach
  Johann Sebastian Bach
  Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
  
  , Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537
  Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537
  The Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537 is a piece for the organ written by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was composed during the composer's period of residence in Weimar.-History of Composition:...
  
  , tr. for orchestra, Op. 86 (1921–1922)
• Handel
  George Frideric Handel
  George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
  
  , Overture in D minor (Overture to Chandos Anthem "In the Lord put I my Trust", HWV247), tr. for orchestra (1923)

External links

• The Elgar Society (cache), official site.
• The Elgar Foundation and Birthplace Museum, official site.
• Elgar in Hereford, official site.
• "Elgar and the occult" at On An Overgrown Path, January 2011.
• "Elgar, Sir Edward William" at The National Archive
• "Sir Edward Elgar, Bt." at National Portrait Gallery
• "The Growing Significance of Elgar", lecture by Simon Mundy, Gresham College
  Gresham College
  Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...
  
  , 29 June 2007
• "Elgar, Edward, Sir" at Open Directory Project
  Open Directory Project
  The Open Directory Project , also known as Dmoz , is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links. It is owned by Netscape but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings...
  
  
• Works by or about Edward Elgar at Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
   and Google Books (scanned books original editions color illustrated)