Edward Elgar

Lore & Background

Edward Elgar was born in the small village of Lower Broadheath, near Worcester, England, on 2 June 1857. His father, William Henry Elgar, was a piano tuner and shopkeeper; his mother, Ann Greening, had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before Edward's birth, and he was raised as a Roman Catholic. Elgar received a general education until age fifteen and his only formal musical training beyond local lessons was brief violin studies with Adolf Pollitzer in London in 1877–78. He was largely self-taught, learning from books borrowed from the cathedral music library and manuals on music theory. After leaving school in 1872, he worked briefly as a clerk in a solicitor's office before embarking on a musical career, giving lessons and working in his father's shop. He held posts as conductor of the attendants' band at the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum from 1879 for five years, and as professor of violin at the Worcester College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen.

Reader's Guide

Elgar struggled to achieve success until his forties, when the Enigma Variations (1899) became immediately popular in Britain and overseas. He followed with the choral work The Dream of Gerontius (1900), based on a Roman Catholic text that caused some disquiet in the Anglican establishment but became a core repertory work. In his fifties, he composed a symphony and a violin concerto that were immensely successful, though his second symphony and cello concerto took many years to achieve a regular place in the concert repertory. Elgar's music came to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences, and his stock remained low for a generation after his death, reviving significantly in the 1960s with new recordings. He has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously, conducting acoustic recordings of his works between 1914 and 1925, and later making new recordings with the moving-coil microphone introduced in 1923.

Did You Know?

• Elgar was largely self-taught as a composer, learning from books borrowed from the cathedral music library.
• He held the post of conductor of the attendants' band at the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum for five years from 1879.
• Elgar was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.
• He made acoustic recordings of his works between 1914 and 1925, and later recorded with the moving-coil microphone introduced in 1923.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Bt. (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer.

He was Master of the King's Musick from 1924." — Edward Elgar "My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require." — Edward Elgar "In conversation in 1896, quoted in R J Buckley Sir Edward Elgar (London: Bodley Head, 1905), p. 32." — Edward Elgar "Dedication to the Enigma Variations (1899)." — Edward Elgar