Background

Edward William Elgar was born on June 2, 1857, in Broadheath, Cheshire, United Kingdom to the family of William Henry Elgar and Ann Greening. He was the fourth of seven children. His father was a piano tuner by trade and owned a music store where he sold sheet music and musical instruments, as well as being a professional violinist. His mother had a keen interest in the arts and encouraged an interest in music within all of her children.

Education

Elgar spent many hours with his father, and by age 8 he was taking both piano and violin lessons, though he also taught himself to play other instruments. He began composing at the early age of 10 when he composed the music for a play written and performed by the Elgar children. Elgar attended the Lyttleton House School until the age of 15, all the while studying every music book and organ instruction manual he could get his hands on. Elgar and his father were both active members of the Worcester Glee Club and it was here that he accompanied the singers on violin and composed works. It was at the Glee Club that Elgar received his first introduction to conducting.

Career

Edward Elgar learned German in the hope that when he finished school he would further his violin studies at Leipzig Conservatory but his father was unable to afford to send him. Elgar took up a position as a clerk at a local solicitor’s office which he disliked so spent every spare moment reading. It was around this time that he first performed in public as a violinist and organist.

After just a few short months at the solicitor’s office, Elgar decided to embark upon a musical career, teaching piano and violin as well as helping out in his father’s store on occasion. Adolf Pollitzer, from whom Elgar had received a small number of formal lessons earlier, encouraged the young man to pursue a career as a violin soloist but having heard the caliber of violin virtuosi at concerts in London Elgar felt his skill as a violinist was not good enough. As a result, he abandoned the idea and took up conducting instead.

Elgar’s first post as a conductor was once a week at the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum located in Powick near Worcester. The band was made up of the attendees playing various instruments, all of which Elgar became familiar with over the 5 years he worked with the instruments, writing music that suited the odd mix. Elgar was also a professor of the violin at the Worcester College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen. Elgar played a variety of instruments whenever he got the opportunity to do so, including the bassoon as part of the wind quartet his brother Frank was the oboist of. It wasn’t until 1880 that Elgar was able to take his first trip abroad, visiting Paris, and then Leipzig just 2 years later. During his trips, he took every opportunity available to him to attend concerts in which top rate orchestras played the likes of Schumann, Brahms, and Wagner. Schumann became a fast favorite with the young composer-conductor.

During his visit to Leipzig, he visited Helen Weaver, a friend who was attending the Conservatoire, and the two became engaged in 1883. The engagement was broken off the following year and Elgar was very sad, which is reported to have been evident in some of his romantic music compositions in years following. In 1882, seeking to gain more orchestral experience, Elgar took up a position playing violin with William Stockley’s Orchestra in Birmingham and for the next seven years, he would play in every concert performed. In December 1883 the orchestra performed one of Elgar’s compositions for the first time. Though it was a boost to his career to finally have his music performed the road to recognition as a composer was often hard, and despite numerous trips to London to try to sell his compositions, most of them fruitless, Elgar was often low on funds.

It was upon his wife's suggestion that the Elgars moved to London to be closer to the music world and Edward devoted himself to composing full time. Though it took considerable time and effort Elgar began to build a reputation as a composer during the 1890s, with several pieces being performed publicly. Critics began to accept him as a composer of note although their reviews were often polite rather than enthusiastic. He was now in demand as a festival composer but his inability to make any significant income from his composing made Elgar depressed. His friend August Jaeger, in an attempt to cheer Elgar up, told him "Your time of universal recognition will come." Jaeger was correct and in 1899, at the age of 42, Elgar wrote the Enigma Variations which were then premiered in London, conducted by German Hans Richter. His work gained positive reviews, being praised for its originality, charm, and craftsmanship, and finally, Elgar got the recognition he had long sought, being dubbed the British composer of his generation. On the heels of his newfound success music lovers eagerly awaited Elgar’s next works.

In 1904 Elgar was knighted, and from 1905 to 1908 he was the University of Birmingham’s first professor of music. During World War I, he wrote occasional patriotic pieces. After the death of his wife in 1920, he curtailed his music writing severely, and in 1929 he returned to Worcestershire. Friendship with George Bernard Shaw eventually stimulated Elgar to further composition, and at his death, he left unfinished a third symphony, a piano concerto, and an opera.

Elgar’s principal works of a programmatic nature are the overture Cockaigne, or In London Town (1901), and the "symphonic study" Falstaff (1913). Of his five Pomp and Circumstance marches (1901-1907; 1930), the first became particularly famous. Also highly esteemed are his two symphonies (1908 and 1911), the Introduction and Allegro for strings (1905), and his Violin Concerto (1910) and Cello Concerto (1919).

Achievements

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  The first English composer of international stature since Henry Purcell, Elgar liberated his country's music from its insularity. He left to younger composers the rich harmonic resources of late Romanticism and stimulated the subsequent national school of English music. He was knighted at Buckingham Palace in 1904. Elgar is probably most easily recognized for his Pomp and Circumstance Marches which are still played often today, most notably at notable events such as graduations and at Britain's yearly Last Night of the Proms.

Works

More photos

• score

  • Enigma Variations and Pomp and Circumstance Marches

    (Authoritative British editions of the 14 Variations, rich...)

    1899
  • Elgar: Serenade for Strings, Op. 20

    (As with other Elgar works, modern editions of the Serenad...)

    1892
  • Elgar: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85

    (Elgar's Cello Concerto in e minor is one of his best-know...)

    1919
  • Elgar: Salut d'amour, Op. 12 for Violin and Piano

    (Edward Elgar's Salut d'amour is one of those pieces by th...)

    1888
  • Sea Pictures - For Voice and Piano

    (This is the complete score for Sir Edward Elgar 1899 song...)

    1899
  • Edward Elgar - Violin Concerto - Op.61

    (This book presents the complete score for Edward Elgar's ...)

    1911
  • Pomp and Circumstance Marches: Military Marches Nos. 1 - 5

    (Elgar composed these marches between 1901 and 1930. As a ...)

    1930
  • The Dream of Gerontius, Op.38 1900
  • Symphony No.1, Op.55 1908
  • Symphony No.2, Op.63 1911

Religion

Elgar's mother had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before his birth and baptized and raised him in the Catholic faith.

Politics

Edward Elgar wasn't known as a political actor and his political views aren't exactly clear.

Views

Elgar's own idiom in composing was cosmopolitan, yet his interest in the oratorio is grounded in the English musical tradition.

Personality

Edward Elgar was a passionate and adventurous early cyclist who learned to cycle from the very early age of five. The chemistry was Elgar's favorite diversion: he had a laboratory in a converted shed, which he nicknamed 'The Ark.' He invented and claimed to have patented a device for making hydrogen sulfide.

Interests

• cycling, chemistry

• Artists

  John Everett Millais

• Sport & Clubs

  Wolverhampton Wanderers FC

• Music & Bands

  Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Anton Rubinstein, Richard Wagner

Connections

It was at the age of 29 that Elgar met the woman who was to become his wife. Alice Roberts became a pupil of Elgar's and despite being eight years his senior the two married three years later, much to the horror of her parents who considered a musician beneath her. Alice dedicated her life to being his business manager and social secretary, doing everything within her power to get her husband the recognition she felt he deserved, though her tireless efforts brought only mediocre results at best. Their only daughter Carice was born in 1890 at their West Kensington home. In 1891 the family was forced to return to live in Worcester so that Elgar could earn a living once again as a conductor.

Father:

William Henry Elgar

Mother:

Ann Greening

Wife:

Caroline Alice Roberts

Daughter:

Carice Irene Elgar

Friend:

August Jaeger

Friend:

George Shaw

References

• Edward Elgar: Music, Life and Landscapes
  2020
• Elgar the Music Maker
  2007
• Edward Elgar: A Research and Information Guide
  2012
• Edward Elgar and His World
  2011
• Edward Elgar and the Nostalgic Imagination
  2007
• Edward Elgar: A Creative Life
  1984