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Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, OM, GCVO (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934)
was an English Romantic composer. Several of his first major orchestral works,
including the Enigma Variations and the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, were greeted
with acclaim. He also composed oratorios, chamber music, symphonies and
instrumental concertos. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.
 Early
years
Edward Elgar was born in the small village of Lower Broadheath outside Worcester to
William Elgar, a piano tuner and music dealer, and his wife Anne (née Greening).
The fourth of six children, Edward Elgar had three brothers, Henry, Frederick and
Francis, and two sisters, Lucy and Susannah. His mother, Anne, had converted to
Catholicism shortly before Edward's birth, so Edward was baptised and brought up as
a Roman Catholic.
Surrounded by sheet music and instruments in his father's shop in Worcester's High
Street, the young Elgar became self-taught in music. On warm summer days, he would
take manuscripts into the countryside to study them (he was a passionate and
adventurous early cyclist from the age of 5). Thus there began for him a strong
association between music and nature. As he was later to say, "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."
Having left school at the age of 15, he began work for a local solicitor, but after
a year embarked on a musical career, giving piano and violin lessons. At 22 he took
up the post of bandmaster at the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum in Powick,
three miles south-west of Worcester. He composed here too; some of the pieces for
the asylum orchestra (music in dance forms) were rediscovered and performed locally
in 1996.
In many ways, his years as a young Worcestershire violinist were his happiest. He
played in the first violins at the Worcester and Birmingham Festivals, and one
great experience was to play Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 6 and Stabat Mater under
the composer's baton.
At 29, through his teaching, he met (Caroline) Alice Roberts, daughter of the late
Major-General Sir Henry Roberts and a published author of verse and prose fiction.
Eight years older than Elgar, she became his wife three years later against the
wishes of her family. As an engagement present, Elgar presented her with the short
violin and piano piece Salut d'amour. The Elgars moved to London to be closer to
the centre of British musical life, and Edward started composing in earnest. The
stay was unsuccessful, however, and they were obliged to return to Great Malvern,
where Edward could earn a living teaching.
Growing
reputation
During the 1890s Elgar gradually built up a reputation as a composer, chiefly of
works for the great choral festivals of the Midlands. The Black Knight, King Olaf
(1896), The Light of Life and Caractacus were all modestly successful and he
obtained a long-standing publisher in Novello and Company. He also generously
recommended the young composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to the Three Choirs Festival
for a concert piece, which helped establish the younger man's career.
In 1899, at the age of 42, his first major orchestral work, the Enigma Variations,
was premiered in London under the baton of the eminent German conductor Hans
Richter. It was received with general acclaim, establishing Elgar as the
pre-eminent British composer of his generation. This work is formally titled
Variations on an Original Theme; the word "Enigma" appears over the first six
measures of music, which led to the familiar version of the title. The enigma is
that, although there are fourteen variations on the "original theme", the 'enigma'
theme, which Elgar said 'runs through and over the whole set' is never heard. Many
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. Indeed, the Enigma Variations were well-received in
Germany.
The following year saw the production at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival of
his choral setting of Cardinal Newman's poem The Dream of Gerontius. Despite a
disastrous first performance due to poorly-prepared performers, the work was
established within a few years as one of Elgar's greatest, and it is now regarded
as one of the finest examples of English choral music from any era.
Elgar is probably best known for the five Pomp and Circumstance Marches, composed
between 1901 and 1930. Shortly after he composed the first march, Elgar set the
trio melody to words by A. C. Benson as a Coronation Ode to mark the coronation of
King Edward VII. The suggestion had already been made (allegedly by the future King
himself) that words should be fitted to the broad tune which formed the trio
section of this march. Against the advice of his friends, Elgar suggested that
Benson furnish further words to allow him to include it in the new work. The result
was Land of Hope and Glory, which formed the finale of the ode and was also issued
(with slightly different words) as a separate song.
Between 1902 and 1914 Elgar enjoyed phenomenal success, made four visits to the USA
including one conducting tour, and earned considerable fees from the performance of
his music. Between 1905 and 1908 Elgar held the post of Professor of Music at the
University of Birmingham. His lectures there caused controversy owing to remarks he
made about other English composers and English music in general; he was quoted as
saying "English music is white - it evades everything". The University of
Birmingham's Special Collections contain an archive of letters written by
Elgar.
Elgar's Symphony No. 1 (1908) was given one hundred performances in its first year,
the violin concerto (1910) was commissioned by the world-renowned violinist Fritz
Kreisler, and in 1911, the year of the completion of his Symphony No. 2, he had the
Order of Merit bestowed upon him.
Elgar's musical legacy is primarily orchestral and choral, but he did write for
soloists and smaller instrumental groups. His one work for brass band, The Severn
Suite (later arranged by the composer for orchestra), remains an important part of
the brass band repertoire. This work was dedicated to his friend George Bernard
Shaw. It is occasionally performed in its arrangement by Sir Ivor Atkins for organ
as the composer's second Organ Sonata; Elgar's first, much earlier (1895) Organ
Sonata was written specifically for the instrument in a highly orchestral style,
and remains a frequently-performed part of the English Romantic organ
repertoire.
Later
years
During World War I his music began to fall out of fashion. He himself grew to hate
his 'Pomp and Circumstance' March No.1 with its popular 'Land of Hope and Glory'
tune, which he felt had been made into a jingoistic song, not in keeping with the
tragic loss of life in the war. This was captured in the film Elgar by Ken Russell.
After the death of his wife in 1920 he wrote little of importance. Shortly before
her death he composed the elegiac Cello Concerto, often described as his last
masterpiece.
Elgar lived in the village of Kempsey from 1923 to 1927, during which time he was
made Master of the King's Musick.
He was the first composer to make extensive recordings of his own compositions. HMV
(His Master's Voice) recorded much of his music acoustically from 1914 onwards and
then began a series of electrical recordings in 1926 that continued until 1933,
including his "Enigma Variations," "Falstaff," the first and second symphonies, his
cello and violin concertos, all of the "Pomp and Circumstance" marches, and other
orchestral works. Part of a 1927 rehearsal of the second symphony with the London
Symphony Orchestra was also recorded and later issued.
In the 1932 recording of the violin concerto, the aging composer worked with the
American violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who was then only 16 years old; they worked well
together and Menuhin warmly recalled his association with the composer years later,
when he performed the concerto with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Menuhin
later conducted an award-winning recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto with the
cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and much of the major orchestral music.
Elgar's recordings usually featured such orchestras as the London Symphony
Orchestra, the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra (which reverted in 1928 to its earlier
name, New Symphony Orchestra) and, in 1933, the newly-founded London Philharmonic
Orchestra. Elgar's recordings were released on 78-rpm discs by both HMV and RCA
Victor. In later years, EMI reissued the recordings on LPs and CDs.
In his later years, Elgar befriended young conductors such as Adrian Boult and
Malcolm Sargent who championed his music when it was out of fashion.
At the end of his life Elgar began work on an opera, The Spanish Lady, and accepted
a commission from the BBC to compose a Third Symphony. His final illness prevented
their completion.
He died on 23 February 1934 and is buried at St. Wulstan's Church in Little
Malvern. Within four months, two more great English composers - Gustav Holst and
Frederick Delius - were also dead.
Legacy
The house in Lower Broadheath where Elgar was born is now a museum devoted to his
life and work.
The statue of him 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 is at the top of Church Street in Malvern,
overlooking the town and giving visitors an opportunity to stand next to the
composer in the shadow of the Hills which he so often regarded.
In September 2005, a statue sculpted by Jemma Pearson was unveiled near Hereford
Cathedral in honour of the few years Elgar lived in the city.
From 1999 until early 2007, new Bank of England twenty pound notes featured a
portrait of Elgar: from then, a new series of notes featured a portrait of Adam
Smith. The change generated controversy, particularly because 2007 was the 150th
anniversary of Elgar's birth.
Elgar's sketches for his third symphony were "elaborated" in the 1990s by the
composer Anthony Payne, who also subsequently produced a performing version of the
sketches for a sixth Pomp and Circumstance march, premiered at the Proms in August
2006. In 2007 the Elgar Society commissioned Anthony Payne to complete the
orchestration of the music for Elgar’s Crown of India Suite, Op. 66.
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. The realisation has since been extensively revised.
Elgar's music is associated with two well-known occasions in Britain's annual
calendar: the Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 is played at the Last Night of the
Proms, while at the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph in London, 'Nimrod'
from his 'Enigma Variations' is performed by massed bands.
The hit track Clubbed To Death by Rob Dougan, featured on the soundtrack to the
1999 movie The Matrix, is partially based on the Enigma Variations.
Venetian Snares used samples from Elgar's Cello Concerto In E Minor, Op. 85 on the
track Szamár Madár on his album Rossz Csillag Alatt Született.
Extra-musical
interests
Despite living in Worcester, Elgar was an ardent Wolverhampton Wanderers fan and
may have travelled to home games on his bicycle. Elgar bought two
Wolverhampton-produced Royal Sunbeam bicycles in 1903, which he named Mr Phoebus,
and visited the Sunbeam Works in Upper Villiers Street for 'tuning'.
During the first rehearsal for the young Yehudi Menuhin's forthcoming recording of
the Violin Concerto, the violinist had played Elgar only the first page when the
composer announced that all was going to be well, and that he was going to leave
Menuhin and go "off to the races" at Pitchcroft, Worcester's racecourse. Lord
Menuhin would often tell press interviewers this story; he would describe it as one
of his favourite memories of Elgar.
Honours and
awards
1904 - Elgar was made a knight bachelor. This entitled him to the title 'Sir Edward
Elgar', but no post-nominal letters.
1911 - He was admitted to the Order of Merit. He was now 'Sir Edward Elgar OM'.
1924 - He was made Master of the King's Musick
1925 - He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society
1928 - Elgar was created a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, becoming
'Sir Edward Elgar OM KCVO'.
1931 - He was made a baronet, becoming 'Sir Edward Elgar Bt OM KCVO'. A baronetcy
is an hereditary honour, but is passed on only through the male line. As Elgar had
only a daughter, the baronetcy became extinct on his death.
1933 - Elgar was promoted within the Royal Victorian Order to Knight Grand Cross.
He was now 'Sir Edward Elgar Bt OM GCVO'.
Between 1900 and 1931 Elgar received honorary degrees from the Universities of
Cambridge, Durham, Leeds, Oxford, Yale (USA), Aberdeen, Western Pennsylvania (USA),
Birmingham and London.
Foreign academies of which he was made a member were Regia Accademia di Santa
Cecilia, Rome; Accademia del Reale Istituto Musicale, Florence; Académie des Beaux
Arts, Paris; Institut de France; American Academy of Arts.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Sir Edward
Elgar - Generator - Biography
