Edward Elgar

Edward Elgar stood among the foremost musical figures of his era, linking the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as Britain’s foremost composer after Handel and Purcell. His works have received innumerable recordings and remain fixtures in concert programs worldwide.

Born on June 2, 1857, in Broadheath, England, Elgar grew up in a household where his father ran a music shop and served as church organist, instructing the boy in piano, organ, and violin. Beyond these lessons, the young musician was almost entirely self-taught. At sixteen he launched into freelance work, never accepting a permanent position for the rest of his life. He conducted locally, performed, taught, and composed, barely making ends meet until his 1889 marriage to Caroline Alice Roberts, a published novelist of independent means. Recognition remained modest at that stage. The couple settled in London, yet Elgar’s prospects advanced little. They eventually returned to Worcester, where the composer wrestled with acute self-doubt and depression. Alice remained steadfast, her unwavering belief gradually lifting his spirits. Further encouragement arrived with the Imperial March, Op. 32, which secured him a publisher and a close editorial friendship with August Jaeger. In 1899 Elgar produced the “Enigma” Variations, Op. 36, one of his most celebrated scores, propelling him to international prominence. The piece served as an enigmatic tribute to Alice and to the circle of friends who had supported him through his uncertain early years. Hans Richter hailed it as a masterpiece; his performances across Britain and Germany secured Elgar’s enduring reputation.

The opening decade of the twentieth century marked Elgar’s most productive phase, yielding some of his most distinguished and eloquent music. Among these achievements were the Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 55 (1907–1908), and the Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61 (1909–1910). The period’s most widely recognized pieces, however, were the first four Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1901–1907); the opening march, bearing the subtitle “Land of Hope and Glory,” became an unofficial second national anthem throughout the British Empire.

Elgar received a severe setback with Jaeger’s death in 1909—the same “Nimrod” portrayed in the “Enigma” Variations. Output declined, and the devastation of World War I deepened his somber outlook. His later music grew more private, at times anguished. Nevertheless, he completed some of his finest chamber works and the masterly Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 (1919), whose profound sense of loss and sorrow reflected the final illness of Alice, who died in 1920.

Following her death, Elgar produced little of consequence for some years, yet he left a historical legacy in the recording studios once electrical techniques emerged. The resulting series of authoritative performances of his orchestral music has been preserved for posterity. In the early 1930s he began a third symphony, left incomplete at his death in Worcester on February 23, 1934. Anthony Payne prepared a widely acclaimed completion in the late 1990s, after which the work was recorded.