Sir Edward was born June 2, 1857, in Broadheath, Cheshire, United Kingdom. His parents were William Henry Elgar of Dover and Anne Greening of Herefordshire. Elgar's father was organist of St. George's Roman Catholic Church in Worcester and was one of the violinists in the orchestra for the annual Three Choirs Festival. Elgar himself sometimes deputized for his father at the organ and later followed him as a violinist in the festival orchestra.
Elgar studied the violin and tried his hand at composing. In 1883 he had an intermezzo performed at Birmingham. He was largely self-taught in music and was chiefly attracted by C. P. E. Bach, Tudor church music, Haydn, Mozart, and Giacomo Meyerbeer; in literature, he was drawn to Shakespeare and Voltaire.
Elgar's was a symphonic mind. The alternate opulence and elegance, the spontaneity, energy, and poetic fantasy of his musical thinking were best served in his scorings for full orchestra. Dignity and fastidiousness marked his manner; in conducting his works Elgar was careful to give every phrase its due. It is a truism that the best memorial of a composer is the continued performance of his works, and one can say that in England, as elsewhere, Elgar's major works are regularly given in answer to continued and appreciative public demand.
Though English music-lovers had been tardy in acknowledging Elgar, and G. B. Shaw detested his compositions, there was no lack of honor after the tide had turned. The year 1904 marked this change. That year there was an all-Elgar festival at Covent Garden (no English composer had had such honor done to him); there was also the distinction of being made a member of the literary Athenaeum Club, and, in July, the honor of being knighted. Honorary degrees and a professorship followed. In 1924-- after the war years, the chastening experience of which the chamber works and especially the deeply anguished violoncello concerto poignantly reflect--Elgar became Master of the King's Musick, and in 1931 he was made a baronet.
Orchestrations of J. S. Bach's Organ Fantasy and Fugue in C minor (1921-1922) and of Handel's Overture in D minor (1923), The Nursery Suite (1931), and a brass-band essay called The Severn Suite (1930) are evidence that Elgar had not altogether finished with composition after 1920. At the time of his 75th birthday the British Broadcasting Corporation commissioned him to write another symphony, but this, as well as a projected opera, The Spanish Lady, was left unfinished. He died in Worcester on Feb. 23, 1934.
The Dream of Gerontius
The Apostles (1903)
The Kingdom (1906)
Symphony Northern 1 in A flat major (1908)
Violin Concerto in B minor (1910)
Symphony Northern 2 in E flat major (1911)
Falstaff (1913)
Allegro for Strings (1905)
Violoncello Concerto in E minor (1919)
Land of Hope and Glory
Pomp and Circumstance
The Spanish Lady
Sir Edward was married to Caroline Alice.
The essentially late-romantic style by which his music is now so quickly recognized was the result of a gradual growth. Acclaim and self-confidence were delayed until the age of forty. A formative factor was his marriage in 1889 to Caroline Alice, daughter of Major General Sir Henry Roberts. All Elgar's major works were written during his married life. During the period of his greatest creative activity, Elgar, like the poet John Masefield, owed much to his wife's encouragement. After 1920, when his wife died, Elgar composed nothing of great importance.
