View source for Edward Elgar

{{Short description|English composer (1857–1934)}}
{{redirect-distinguish-for|Elgar|Edward Elgar Publishing|other uses|Elgar (disambiguation)}}
{{featured article}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{bots|deny=Citation bot}}
<!-- Before adding an infobox, please consider first discussing it on the article Talk page -->
[[File:Edward Elgar.jpg|thumb|275px|alt=image of a middle aged man in late Victorian clothes, viewed in right semi-profile. He has a prominent Roman nose and large moustache|Elgar, {{circa|1900}}]]
'''Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|OM|GCVO}} ({{IPAc-en|audio=Pronunciation of Elgar.ogg|ˈ|ɛ|l|ɡ|ɑr}}<!-- See [[MOS:RHOTIC]] and [[Help:IPA/English#Dialect variation]] for why the pronunciation is presented in this way. -->;<ref>[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/elgar "Elgar"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060557/https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/elgar |date=19 March 2021 }}. ''[[Collins English Dictionary]]''.</ref> 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the ''[[Enigma Variations]]'', the ''[[Pomp and Circumstance Marches]]'', concertos for [[Violin Concerto (Elgar)|violin]] and [[Cello Concerto (Elgar)|cello]], and two [[symphony|symphonies]]. He also composed choral works, including ''[[The Dream of Gerontius]]'', chamber music and songs. He was appointed [[Master of the King's Musick]]<!-- Note Musick is not a typo. It was the official spelling of the title until changed during Elgar's tenure --> in 1924.

Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, his [[Roman Catholic]]ism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society of [[Victorian era|Victorian]] and [[Edwardian era|Edwardian]] Britain, he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition. He nevertheless married the daughter of a senior [[British Army]] officer. She inspired him both musically and socially, but he struggled to achieve success until his forties, when after a series of moderately successful works his ''Enigma Variations'' (1899) became immediately popular in Britain and overseas. He followed the Variations with a choral work, ''The Dream of Gerontius'' (1900), based on a Roman Catholic text that caused some disquiet in the [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] establishment in Britain, but it became, and has remained, a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere. His later full-length religious choral works were well received but have not entered the regular repertory.

In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a violin concerto that were immensely successful. His second symphony and his cello concerto did not gain immediate public popularity and took many years to achieve a regular place in the concert repertory of British orchestras. Elgar's music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. His stock remained low for a generation after his death. It began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. Some of his works have, in recent years, been taken up again internationally, but the music continues to be played more in Britain than elsewhere.

Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the [[Gramophone record|gramophone]] seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of [[acoustic recording]]s of his works. The introduction of the [[moving-coil microphone]] in 1923 made far more accurate sound reproduction possible, and Elgar made new recordings of most of his major orchestral works and excerpts from ''The Dream of Gerontius''.

==Biography==
[[File:Elgar-birthplace.jpg|thumb|alt=a brick country cottage with a large front garden|Elgar's birthplace, The Firs, [[Lower Broadheath]], Worcestershire]]

===Early years===
Edward Elgar was born in the small village of [[Lower Broadheath]], near [[Worcester, England|Worcester]], England, on 2 June 1857. His father, William Henry Elgar (1821–1906), was raised in [[Dover]] and had been apprenticed to a London music publisher. In 1841 William moved to Worcester, where he worked as a [[Piano tuning|piano tuner]] and set up a shop selling sheet music and musical instruments.<ref name=dnb>{{cite encyclopedia|author-link=Michael Kennedy (music critic)|last=Kennedy|first=Michael|title=Elgar, Sir Edward William, baronet (1857–1934)|encyclopedia=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/32988}}</ref> In 1848 he married Ann Greening (1822–1902), daughter of a farm worker.<ref name=grove>[[Diana McVeagh|McVeagh, Diana]], [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/display/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008709 "Elgar, Edward".] ''Grove Music Online''. Retrieved 20 April 2010 {{subscription}}. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240323113507/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/display/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008709 |date=dmy}}</ref>

Edward was the fourth of their seven children.{{refn|His siblings were Henry John ("Harry", 1848–1864), Lucy Ann ("Loo", 1852–1925), Susannah Mary ("Pollie", 1854–1925), Frederick Joseph ("Jo", 1859–1866), Francis Thomas ("Frank", 1861–1929), and Helen Agnes ("Dot", 1864–1939).<ref>Moore (1984), p. 14</ref>|group= n}} Ann Elgar had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before Edward's birth, and he was baptised and brought up as a Roman Catholic, to the disapproval of his father.{{refn|William Elgar was evidently sceptical of ''any'' branch of the church: he wrote of "the absurd superstition and play-house mummery of the Papist; the cold and formal ceremonies of the Church of England; or the bigotry and rank hypocrisy of the Wesleyan".<ref>''Quoted'' in Moore (1984), p. 6</ref>|group= n}} William Elgar was a violinist of professional standard and held the post of organist of [[St George's Church, Worcester|St George's Roman Catholic Church, Worcester]], from 1846 to 1885. At his instigation, masses by [[Luigi Cherubini|Cherubini]] and [[Johann Nepomuk Hummel|Hummel]] were first heard at the [[Three Choirs Festival]] by the orchestra in which he played the violin.<ref name=mt00>"Edward Elgar", ''[[The Musical Times]]'', 1 October 1900, pp. 641–648</ref>

All the Elgar children received a musical upbringing. By the age of eight, Elgar was taking piano and violin lessons, and his father, who tuned the pianos at many grand houses in Worcestershire, would sometimes take him along, giving him the chance to display his skill to important local figures.<ref name=dnb/>
[[File:William-and-Ann-Elgar.jpg|thumb|left|alt=images of an elderly man in Victorian costume, seen in right profile, and of an elderly woman also in Victorian clothing, smiling towards the camera|Elgar's parents, William and Ann Elgar]]
Elgar's mother was interested in the arts and encouraged his musical development.<ref name=grove/> He inherited from her a discerning taste for literature and a passionate love of the countryside.<ref>Moore (1984), p. 11 and Kennedy (ODNB)</ref> His friend and biographer [[William Henry Reed|W. H. "Billy" Reed]] wrote that Elgar's early surroundings had an influence that "permeated all his work and gave to his whole life that subtle but none the less true and sturdy English quality".<ref>Reed, p. 1</ref>{{refn|Elgar himself later said, "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",<ref>In conversation in 1896, ''quoted'' by Buckley, p. 32</ref> and "The trees are singing my music – or have I sung theirs?"<ref>Beck, Frank, [http://www.elgar.org/3gerontt.htm "Elgar – His Music: ''The Dream of Gerontius'' – A Musical Analysis"], The Elgar Society. Retrieved 6 June 2010.</ref>|group= n}} He began composing at an early age; for a play written and acted by the Elgar children when he was about ten, he wrote music that forty years later he rearranged with only minor changes and orchestrated as the suites titled ''[[The Wand of Youth]]''.<ref name=grove/>

Until he was fifteen, Elgar received a general education at Littleton (now Lyttleton){{refn|1=It is spelt "Littleton" by all the Elgar authorities cited; however, some current sources, for example [http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1389994&resourceID=5 English Heritage], spell it "Lyttleton".|group= n}} House school, near Worcester. His only formal musical training beyond piano and violin lessons from local teachers consisted of more advanced violin studies with [[Adolf Pollitzer]], during brief visits to London in 1877–78. Elgar said, "my first music was learnt in the [[Worcester Cathedral|Cathedral]]&nbsp;... from books borrowed from the music library, when I was eight, nine or ten."<ref name=ODNBquote>''Quoted'' by Kennedy (ODNB)</ref> He worked through manuals of instruction on organ playing and read every book he could find on the theory of music.<ref name=mt00/> He later said that he had been most helped by [[Hubert Parry]]'s articles in the ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]''.<ref>Reed, p. 11</ref>

Elgar began to learn German, in the hope of going to the [[University of Music and Theatre Leipzig|Leipzig Conservatory]] for further musical studies, but his father could not afford to send him. Years later, a profile in ''[[The Musical Times]]'' considered that his failure to get to Leipzig was fortunate for Elgar's musical development: "Thus the budding composer escaped the dogmatism of the schools."<ref name=mt00/> However, it was a disappointment to Elgar that on leaving school in 1872 he went not to Leipzig but to the office of a local solicitor as a clerk. He did not find an office career congenial, and for fulfilment he turned not only to music but to literature, becoming a voracious reader.{{refn|A profile in ''The Musical Times'' reported that Elgar "read a great deal at this formulative period of his life.&nbsp;... In this way he made the acquaintance of [[Philip Sidney|Sir Philip Sidney]]'s ''[[Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia|Arcadia]]'', [[Richard Baker (chronicler)|Richard Baker]]'s ''Chronicles'', [[Michael Drayton]]'s ''[[Poly-Olbion|Polyolbion]]''", and the works of [[Voltaire]]."<ref>"Edward Elgar", ''The Musical Times'', 1 October 1900, pp. 641–648; and "Elgar, the man", ''[[The Observer]]'', 25 February 1934, p. 19</ref>|group= n}} Around this time, he made his first public appearances as a violinist and organist.<ref>Moore (1984), pp. 57, 67</ref>

After a few months, Elgar left the solicitor to embark on a musical career, giving piano and violin lessons and working occasionally in his father's shop.<ref name=dnb/> He was an active member of the Worcester [[Glee club]], along with his father, and he accompanied singers, played the violin, composed and arranged works, and conducted for the first time. Pollitzer believed that, as a violinist, Elgar had the potential to be one of the leading soloists in the country,<ref>"Edward Elgar", ''[[The Guardian]]'', 24 February 1934, p. 16</ref> but Elgar himself, having heard leading virtuosi at London concerts, felt his own violin playing lacked a full enough tone, and he abandoned his ambitions to be a soloist.<ref name=dnb/> At twenty-two he took up the post of conductor of the attendants' band at the [[Powick Hospital|Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum]] in [[Powick]], {{convert|3|mi|km|abbr=off|spell=on|0}} from Worcester.<ref name=mt00/> The band consisted of: piccolo, flute, clarinet, two cornets, euphonium, three or four first and a similar number of second violins, occasional viola, cello, double bass and piano.<ref>Young (1973), p. 47</ref> Elgar coached the players and wrote and arranged their music, including [[quadrille]]s and polkas, for the unusual combination of instruments. ''The Musical Times'' wrote, "This practical experience proved to be of the greatest value to the young musician.&nbsp;... He acquired a practical knowledge of the capabilities of these different instruments.&nbsp;... He thereby got to know intimately the tone colour, the ins and outs of these and many other instruments."<ref name=mt00/> He held the post for five years, from 1879, travelling to Powick once a week.<ref name=dnb/> Another post he held in his early days was professor of the violin at the [[New College Worcester|Worcester College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen]].<ref name=mt00/>

Although rather solitary and introspective by nature, Elgar thrived in Worcester's musical circles.<ref name=grove/> He played in the violins at the Worcester and [[Birmingham Triennial Music Festival|Birmingham]] Festivals, and one great experience was to play [[Antonín Dvořák|Dvořák]]'s [[Symphony No. 6 (Dvořák)|Symphony No. 6]] and ''[[Stabat Mater (Dvořák)|Stabat Mater]]'' under the composer's baton.<ref name=maine>[[Basil Maine|Maine, Basil]], [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/32988 "Elgar, Sir Edward William"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130626095210/http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/32988 |date=26 June 2013 }}, ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'' archive, Oxford University Press, 1949. Retrieved 20 April 2010 {{subscription}}.</ref> Elgar regularly played the bassoon in a wind quintet, alongside his brother Frank, an oboist (and conductor who ran his own wind band).<ref name=mt00/> Elgar arranged numerous pieces by [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], [[Joseph Haydn|Haydn]], and others for the quintet, honing his arranging and compositional skills.<ref name=mt00/>

[[File:schumann-brahms-rubinstein-wagner.jpg|thumb|left|alt=composite image of four head and shoulders images of nineteenth century men. Two are clean shaven, one has a full beard and one has side-whiskers.|[[Robert Schumann|Schumann]] and [[Johannes Brahms|Brahms]], ''top'', [[Anton Rubinstein|Rubinstein]] and [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], ''bottom'', whose music inspired Elgar in [[Leipzig]]]]
In his first trips abroad, Elgar visited Paris in 1880 and Leipzig in 1882. He heard [[Camille Saint-Saëns|Saint-Saëns]] play the organ at the [[Église de la Madeleine|Madeleine]] and attended concerts by first-rate orchestras. In 1882 he wrote, "I got pretty well dosed with [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]] (my ideal!), [[Johannes Brahms|Brahms]], [[Anton Rubinstein|Rubinstein]] & [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], so had no cause to complain."<ref name=ODNBquote/> In Leipzig he visited a friend, Helen Weaver, who was a student at the Conservatoire. They became engaged in the summer of 1883, but for unknown reasons the engagement was broken off the next year.<ref name=dnb/> Elgar was greatly distressed, and some of his later cryptic dedications of romantic music may have alluded to Helen and his feelings for her.{{refn|Kennedy (ODNB) mentions the 'Romanza' variation (no.&nbsp;13) in the ''Enigma Variations'' and the Violin Concerto as possible examples, the former being headed "****" and the latter being inscribed as enshrining an unnamed soul.|group= n}} Throughout his life, Elgar was often inspired by close women friends; Helen Weaver was succeeded by [[Lady Mary Trefusis|Mary Lygon]], [[Dorabella Cipher#Background|Dora Penny]], Julia Worthington, Alice Stuart Wortley and finally Vera Hockman, who enlivened his old age.<ref>Moore (1984), pp. 96, 264, 348, 512, 574, and 811</ref>

In 1882, seeking more professional orchestral experience, Elgar was employed as a violinist in [[Birmingham]] in [[William Stockley's Orchestra]],<ref>Moore (1984), pp. 95–96</ref> for whom he played every concert for the next seven years<ref>Young (1995), p. 87</ref> and where he later said he "learned all the music I know".<ref>Moore (1984), p. 325</ref> On 13 December 1883 he took part with Stockley in a performance at [[Birmingham Town Hall]] of one of his first works for full orchestra, the ''Sérénade mauresque'' – the first time one of his compositions had been performed by a professional orchestra.<ref>Reed, pp. 17−18</ref> Stockley had invited him to conduct the piece but later recalled "he declined, and, further, insisted upon playing in his place in the orchestra. The consequence was that he had to appear, fiddle in hand, to acknowledge the genuine and hearty applause of the audience."<ref>''Quoted'' in "Edward Elgar", ''[[The Musical Times]]'', 1 October 1900, pp. 641–648</ref> Elgar often went to London in an attempt to get his works published, but this period in his life found him frequently despondent and low on money. He wrote to a friend in April 1884, "My prospects are about as hopeless as ever&nbsp;... I am not wanting in energy I think, so sometimes I conclude that 'tis want of ability.&nbsp;... I have no money&nbsp;– not a cent."<ref>Kennedy (1987a), p. 15</ref>

===Marriage===
[[File:Elgar-Alice-c1891.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Nineteenth century photograph of a man in his 30s and a middle-aged woman standing side by side. He has a large moustache, and is looking at the woman; she is looking straight at the camera.|Edward and Alice Elgar, c.&nbsp;1891]]
When Elgar was 29, he took on a new pupil, [[Caroline Alice Elgar|Caroline Alice Roberts]], known as Alice, daughter of the late [[Major-General (United Kingdom)|Major-General]] [[Henry Gee Roberts|Sir Henry Roberts]], and published author of verse and prose fiction. Eight years older than Elgar, Alice became his wife three years later. Elgar's biographer [[Michael Kennedy (music critic)|Michael Kennedy]] writes, "Alice's family was horrified by her intention to marry an unknown musician who worked in a shop and was a [[Roman Catholic]]. She was disinherited."<ref name=dnb/> They were married on 8 May 1889, at [[Brompton Oratory]].<ref name=maine/> From then until her death, she acted as his business manager and social secretary, dealt with his mood swings, and was a perceptive musical critic.<ref>"Some of Elgar's Friends", ''The Musical Times'', April 1934, p. 319</ref><ref>Moore (1984), p. 587</ref> She did her best to gain him the attention of influential society, though with limited success.<ref>Moore (1984), p. 134</ref> In time, he would learn to accept the honours given him, realising that they mattered more to her and her social class and recognising what she had given up to further his career.{{refn|When Elgar was knighted in 1904, his daughter Carice said, "I am so glad for Mother's sake that Father has been knighted. You see – it puts her back where she was".<ref>Moore (1984), p. 440</ref>|group= n}} In her diary, she wrote, "The care of a genius is enough of a life work for any woman."<ref>Kennedy (1987a), p. 147</ref> As an engagement present, Elgar dedicated his short violin-and-piano piece ''[[Salut d'Amour]]'' to her.{{refn|''Salut d'Amour'' became one of Elgar's best-selling works, but initially he earned no royalties, having sold the copyright to the publisher Schott for a flat fee of 2 guineas; Schott later decided to pay him royalties.<ref name=dnb/><ref name=grove/>|group= n}} With Alice's encouragement, the Elgars moved to London to be closer to the centre of British musical life, and Elgar started devoting his time to composition. Their only child, Carice Irene, was born at their home in [[West Kensington]] on 14 August 1890. Her name, revealed in Elgar's dedication of ''Salut d'Amour'', was a contraction of her mother's names Caroline and Alice.<ref>Reed, p. 33</ref>

Elgar took full advantage of the opportunity to hear unfamiliar music. In the days before miniature scores and recordings were available, it was not easy for young composers to get to know new music.<ref>Anderson, Robert, "Elgar's Musical Style", ''The Musical Times'', December 1993, pp. 689–690, 692. {{JSTOR|1002931}} Retrieved 23 October 2010 {{subscription}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060558/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1002931 |date=19 March 2021 }}</ref> Elgar took every chance to do so at the [[Crystal Palace Concerts]]. He and Alice attended day after day, hearing music by a wide range of composers. Among these were masters of [[orchestration]] from whom he learned much, such as [[Hector Berlioz|Berlioz]] and Richard Wagner.<ref name=grove/> His own compositions made little impact on London's musical scene. [[August Manns]] conducted Elgar's orchestral version of ''Salut d'amour'' and the Suite in D at the Crystal Palace, and two publishers accepted some of Elgar's violin pieces, organ [[voluntary (music)|voluntaries]], and [[part song]]s.<ref name=reed23>Reed, p. 23</ref> Some tantalising opportunities seemed to be within reach but vanished unexpectedly.<ref name=reed23/> For example, an offer from the [[Royal Opera House]], Covent Garden, to run through some of his works was withdrawn at the last second when [[Arthur Sullivan|Sir Arthur Sullivan]] arrived unannounced to rehearse some of his own music. Sullivan was horrified when Elgar later told him what had happened.{{refn|Sullivan said to Elgar, "But, my dear boy, I hadn't the slightest idea of it – why on earth didn't you come and tell me? I'd have rehearsed it myself for you".<ref>Reed, p. 24</ref>|group= n}} Elgar's only important commission while in London came from his home city: the Worcester Festival Committee invited him to compose a short orchestral work for the 1890 Three Choirs Festival.<ref>Reed, p. 25</ref> The result is described by [[Diana McVeagh]] in the ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', as "his first major work, the assured and uninhibited ''[[Froissart Overture (Elgar)|Froissart]]''." Elgar conducted the first performance in Worcester in September 1890.<ref name=grove/> For lack of other work, he was obliged to leave London in 1891 and return with his wife and child to Worcestershire, where he could earn a living conducting local musical ensembles and teaching. They settled in Alice's former home town, [[Great Malvern]].<ref name=grove/>

===Growing reputation===
{{listen|type=music
|filename=Serenade for Strings -mvt-1- Elgar.ogg
|title=Serenade for Strings (Op. 20, mv 1)
|description=Elgar's [[Serenade for Strings (Elgar)|Serenade for Strings]], movement 1, performed by the [[United States Army Band]] Strings ensemble
}}
During the 1890s, Elgar gradually built up a reputation as a composer, chiefly of works for the great choral festivals of the [[English Midlands]]. ''[[The Black Knight (Elgar)|The Black Knight]]'' (1892) and ''[[Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf|King Olaf]]'' (1896), both inspired by [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow|Longfellow]], ''The Light of Life'' (1896) and ''Caractacus'' (1898) were all modestly successful, and he obtained a long-standing publisher in [[Novello and Co]].<ref name=mtobit>''The Musical Times'', obituary of Elgar, April 1934, pp. 314–318</ref> Other works of this decade included the ''[[Serenade for Strings (Elgar)|Serenade for Strings]]'' (1892) and ''[[Three Bavarian Dances]]'' (1897). Elgar was of enough consequence locally to recommend the young composer [[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor]] to the Three Choirs Festival for a concert piece, which helped establish the younger man's career.{{refn|Elgar, in recommending Coleridge-Taylor for a commission from the festival, said, "He is far and away the cleverest fellow going among the young men."<ref>[[Jessica Duchen|Duchen, Jessica]]. [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/talking-classical-501427.html "Talking classical"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060520/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/talking-classical-501427.html |date=19 March 2021 }}, ''The Independent'', 5 October 2011.</ref>|group= n}} Elgar was catching the attention of prominent critics, but their reviews were polite rather than enthusiastic. Although he was in demand as a festival composer, he was only just getting by financially and felt unappreciated. In 1898, he said he was "very sick at heart over music" and hoped to find a way to succeed with a larger work. His friend [[August Jaeger]] tried to lift his spirits: "A day's attack of the blues&nbsp;... will not drive away your desire, your necessity, which is to exercise those creative faculties which a kind providence has given you. Your time of universal recognition will come."<ref>Kennedy (1987a), p. 50</ref>

[[File:A-J-Jaeger.jpg|thumb|right|alt=A Victorian man of middle age, with a moustache, seated, reading a newspaper, viewed in profile from his left|[[August Jaeger]], Elgar's publisher and friend, and "Nimrod" of the ''[[Enigma Variations]]'']]
In 1899, that prediction suddenly came true. At the age of forty-two, Elgar produced the ''[[Enigma Variations]]'', which were premiered in London under the baton of the eminent German conductor [[Hans Richter (conductor)|Hans Richter]]. In Elgar's own words, "I have sketched a set of Variations on an original theme. The Variations have amused me because I've labelled them with the nicknames of my particular friends&nbsp;... that is to say I've written the variations each one to represent the mood of the 'party' (the person)&nbsp;... and have written what I think they would have written – if they were asses enough to compose".<ref>Kennedy (1987a), p. 55</ref> He dedicated the work "To my friends pictured within". Probably the best known variation is "Nimrod", depicting Jaeger. Purely musical considerations led Elgar to omit variations depicting Arthur Sullivan and Hubert Parry, whose styles he tried but failed to incorporate in the variations.<ref>McVeagh (1987), p. 51; Hughes, p. 72</ref> The large-scale work was received with general acclaim for its originality, charm and craftsmanship, and it established Elgar as the pre-eminent British composer of his generation.<ref name=grove/>

The work is formally titled ''Variations on an Original Theme''; the word "Enigma" appears over the first six bars of music, which led to the familiar version of the title. The enigma is that, although there are fourteen variations on the "original theme", there is another overarching theme, never identified by Elgar, which he said "runs through and over the whole set" but is never heard.{{refn|It is not known whether Elgar meant a musical theme or a more general non-musical theme such as that of friendship. Many attempts have been made to find well-known tunes that can be played in counterpoint with Elgar's main musical theme of the piece, from [[Auld Lang Syne]] to a theme from [[Symphony No. 38 (Mozart)|Mozart's ''Prague'' Symphony]].<ref>Whitney, Craig R., [https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/07/arts/new-answer-to-a-riddle-wrapped-in-elgar-s-enigma-variations.html?pagewanted=1 "New Answer to a Riddle Wrapped in Elgar's 'Enigma' Variations"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060521/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/07/arts/new-answer-to-a-riddle-wrapped-in-elgar-s-enigma-variations.html?pagewanted=1 |date=19 March 2021 }}, ''The New York Times'', 7 November 1991; Portnoy, Marshall A., "The Answer to Elgar's 'Enigma{{'"}}, ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'', vol. 71, no. 2 (1985), pp. 205–210. {{JSTOR|948136}} Retrieved 24 October 2010 {{subscription}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060521/https://www.jstor.org/stable/948136 |date=19 March 2021 }}; and [[Jack Westrup|Westrup, J. A.]], "Elgar's Enigma", ''Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 86th Session (1959–1960)'', pp. 79–97. Retrieved 24 October 2010 {{subscription}}</ref>|group= n}} 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]].<ref name=dnb/><ref name=grove/> The ''Enigma Variations'' were well received in Germany and Italy,<ref>Atkins, Ivor, "Elgar's 'Enigma' Variations", ''The Musical Times'', April 1934, pp. 328–330</ref> and remain to the present day a worldwide concert staple.{{refn|For example, according to the [http://www.elgar.org/4welcome.htm Elgar Society]'s website, in April and May 2010, the Variations were programmed in New Orleans, New York, [[Vancouver]], [[Denver]], Moscow, Washington D.C. and [[Kraków]].|group= n}}

===National and international fame===
[[File:JHNewman.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=head and shoulders portrait of an elderly man looking directly at the painter. He wears the red cassock and skull cap of a Roman Catholic cardinal|[[John Henry Newman|Cardinal Newman]], author of the text of ''The Dream of Gerontius'']]
Elgar's biographer [[Basil Maine]] commented, "When Sir Arthur Sullivan died in 1900 it became apparent to many that Elgar, although a composer of another build, was his true successor as first musician of the land."<ref name=maine/> Elgar's next major work was eagerly awaited.<ref>Reed, p. 59</ref> For the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival of 1900, he set Cardinal [[John Henry Newman]]'s poem ''[[The Dream of Gerontius]]'' for soloists, chorus and orchestra. Richter conducted the premiere, which was marred by a poorly prepared chorus, which sang badly.<ref>Reed, p. 60</ref> Critics recognised the mastery of the piece despite the defects in performance.<ref name=dnb/> It was performed in [[Düsseldorf]], Germany, in 1901 and again in 1902, conducted by [[Julius Buths]], who also conducted the European premiere of the ''Enigma Variations'' in 1901. The German press was enthusiastic. ''The Cologne Gazette'' said, "In both parts we meet with beauties of imperishable value.&nbsp;... Elgar stands on the shoulders of Berlioz, Wagner, and [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]], from whose influences he has freed himself until he has become an important individuality. He is one of the leaders of musical art of modern times." ''The Düsseldorfer Volksblatt'' wrote, "A memorable and epoch-making first performance! Since the days of Liszt nothing has been produced in the way of oratorio&nbsp;... which reaches the greatness and importance of this sacred cantata."<ref>"The German Press on Dr. Elgar's 'Dream of Gerontius{{' "}}, ''The Musical Times'', 1 February 1902, p. 100</ref> Richard Strauss, then widely viewed as the leading composer of his day,<ref name=reed61>Reed, p. 61</ref> was so impressed that in Elgar's presence he proposed a toast to the success of "the first English progressive musician, Meister Elgar."<ref name=reed61/>{{refn|Strauss and Elgar remained on friendly terms for the rest of Elgar's life, and Strauss paid him a warm obituary tribute in 1934.<ref name="mt322"/>| group= n}} Performances in Vienna, Paris and New York followed,<ref name=grove/><ref>"First Performances in Foreign Countries", ''The Musical Times'', April 1934, p. 318</ref> and ''The Dream of Gerontius'' soon became equally admired in Britain. According to Kennedy, "It is unquestionably the greatest British work in the oratorio form&nbsp;... [it] opened a new chapter in the English choral tradition and liberated it from its Handelian preoccupation."<ref name=dnb/> Elgar, as a Roman Catholic, was much moved by Newman's poem about the death and redemption of a sinner, but some influential members of the Anglican establishment disagreed. His colleague, [[Charles Villiers Stanford]] complained that the work "stinks of incense".<ref>Grogan, Christopher, "Elgar, Newman and 'The Dream of Gerontius'", ''Music & Letters'', Vol. 77, No. 4 (November 1996), pp. 629–632</ref> The [[Dean (Christianity)|dean]] of [[Gloucester Cathedral|Gloucester]] banned ''Gerontius'' from his cathedral in 1901, and at Worcester the following year, the dean insisted on expurgations before allowing a performance.<ref>Lewis, Geraint, "A Cathedral in Sound", ''Gramophone'', September 2008, p. 50. Retrieved 1 June 2010.</ref>

[[File:Clara-butt-crop.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=Head and shoulders shot of an Edwardian woman with dark hair, looking towards the camera|[[Clara Butt]], first singer of Elgar's "Land of Hope and Glory"]]
Elgar is probably best known for the first of the five ''[[Pomp and Circumstance Marches]]'', which were composed between 1901 and 1930.<ref name=kpc>Kennedy (1970), pp. 38–39</ref> It is familiar to millions of television viewers all over the world every year who watch the [[Last Night of the Proms]],<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/09_september/07/proms.shtml "Last Night of the Proms set to reach largest ever global audience"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060540/https://edigitalsurvey.com/l.php?id=INS-642345567&v=7038&x=1600&y=1000&d=24&c=null&ck=1&p=%2Fpressoffice%2Fpressreleases%2Fstories%2F2009%2F09_september%2F07%2Fproms.shtml&fu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fpressoffice%2Fpressreleases%2Fstories%2F2009%2F09_september%2F07%2Fproms.shtml&xdm=edr&xdm_o=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk&xdm_c=edr0 |date=19 March 2021 }}, BBC, 7 September 2009. Retrieved 5 November 2010</ref> where it is traditionally performed. When the theme of the slower middle section (technically called the "[[Ternary form|trio]]") of the first march came into his head, he told his friend Dora Penny, "I've got a tune that will knock 'em&nbsp;– will knock 'em flat".<ref>[[Michael Kennedy (music critic)|Kennedy, Michael]], Liner note (orig. 1977) to EMI CD CDM 5-66323-2</ref> When the first march was played in 1901 at a London Promenade Concert, it was conducted by [[Henry Wood]], who later wrote that the audience "rose and yelled&nbsp;... the one and only time in the history of the Promenade concerts that an orchestral item was accorded a double encore."<ref>Wood, p. 154</ref> To mark the [[coronation of Edward VII and Alexandra]], Elgar was commissioned to set [[A. C. Benson]]'s ''Coronation Ode'' for a gala concert at the Royal Opera House on 30 June 1902. The approval of the [[Edward VII|king]] was confirmed, and Elgar began work. The [[contralto]] [[Clara Butt]] had persuaded him that the trio of the first ''Pomp and Circumstance'' march could have words fitted to it, and Elgar invited Benson to do so. Elgar incorporated the new vocal version into the Ode. The publishers of the score recognised the potential of the vocal piece, "[[Land of Hope and Glory]]", and asked Benson and Elgar to make a further revision for publication as a separate song.<ref>Moore (1984), pp. 364–367</ref> It was immensely popular and is now considered an unofficial British national anthem.<ref name=dnb/> In the United States, the trio, known simply as "Pomp and Circumstance" or "The Graduation March", has been adopted since 1905 for virtually all high school and university graduations.<ref name=grad>[http://www.elgar.org/3pomp-b.htm "Why Americans graduate to Elgar"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706025349/http://www.elgar.org/3pomp-b.htm |date=6 July 2011 }}, The Elgar Society. Retrieved 5 June 2010.</ref><ref>Hoffman, Miles, [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1273081 "''Pomp and Circumstance'': Familiar Standard Marches Ahead of Competitors"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060555/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1273081 |date=19 March 2021 }}, NPR Music. Retrieved 25 October 2010.</ref>

In March 1904 a three-day festival of Elgar's works was presented at Covent Garden, an honour never before given to any English composer. ''[[The Times]]'' commented, "Four or five years ago if any one had predicted that the Opera-house would be full from floor to ceiling for the performance of an oratorio by an English composer he would probably have been supposed to be out of his mind."<ref name=times150304>"Concerts", ''The Times'', 15 March 1904, p. 8</ref> The king and [[Alexandra of Denmark|queen]] attended the first concert, at which Richter conducted ''The Dream of Gerontius'',<ref name=times150304/> and returned the next evening for the second, the London premiere of ''[[The Apostles (Elgar)|The Apostles]]'' (first heard the previous year at the Birmingham Festival).<ref>"The Elgar Festival", ''The Times'', 16 March 1904, p. 12</ref> The final concert of the festival, conducted by Elgar, was primarily orchestral, apart for an excerpt from ''Caractacus'' and the complete ''[[Sea Pictures]]'' (sung by Clara Butt). The orchestral items were ''Froissart'', the ''Enigma Variations'', ''[[Cockaigne (In London Town)|Cockaigne]]'', the first two (at that time the only two) ''Pomp and Circumstance'' marches, and the premiere of a new orchestral work, ''[[In the South (Alassio)|In the South]]'', inspired by a holiday in Italy.<ref>"The Elgar Festival", ''The Times'', 17 March 1904, p. 8</ref>

[[File:Mason Science College.png|thumb|right|alt=drawing of exterior of Victorian neo-gothic building|[[Mason College]], which housed the Faculty of Arts at the [[University of Birmingham]] when Elgar was Peyton Professor of Music]]
Elgar was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] at Buckingham Palace on 5 July 1904.<ref>"Birthday Honours", ''The Times'', 24 June 1904, p. 12</ref> The following month, he and his family moved to Plâs Gwyn,<ref>[https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/738652 "Elgar Court, once known as Plas Gwyn"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605021920/http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/738652 |date=5 June 2011 }}, Geograph. Retrieved 29 October 2010</ref> a large house on the outskirts of [[Hereford]], overlooking the [[River Wye]], where they lived until 1911.<ref name=dnb/> Between 1902 and 1914, Elgar was, in Kennedy's words, at the zenith of popularity.<ref name=dnb/> He made four visits to the US, including one conducting tour, and earned considerable fees from the performance of his music. Between 1905 and 1908, he held the post of Peyton Professor of Music at the [[University of Birmingham]].<ref name=grove/> He had accepted the post reluctantly, feeling that a composer should not head a school of music.<ref>Moore (1984), p. 446</ref> He was not at ease in the role,<ref>Reed, p. 92</ref> and his lectures caused controversy, with his attacks on the critics<ref>Reed, p. 89</ref>{{refn|Elgar's principal target was [[John Alexander Fuller Maitland|J.A. Fuller Maitland]], music critic of ''The Times'', whose patronising obituary of Arthur Sullivan repelled Elgar;<ref>Fuller Maitland, J. A., "Sir Arthur Sullivan", ''[[The Cornhill Magazine]]'', March 1901, pp. 300–309</ref> in his Birmingham lectures he alluded to it as "the shady side of musical criticism&nbsp;... that foul unforgettable episode."<ref>Young (1971), p. 264</ref>|group= n}} and on English music in general: "Vulgarity in the course of time may be refined. Vulgarity often goes with inventiveness&nbsp;... but the commonplace mind can never be anything but commonplace. An Englishman will take you into a large room, beautifully proportioned, and will point out to you that it is white – all over white – and somebody will say, 'What exquisite taste'. You know in your own mind, in your own soul, that it is not taste at all, that it is the want of taste, that is mere evasion. English music is white, and evades everything." He regretted the controversy and was glad to hand on the post to his friend [[Granville Bantock]] in 1908.<ref>Reed, p. 97</ref> His new life as a celebrity was a mixed blessing to the highly strung Elgar, as it interrupted his privacy, and he often was in ill-health. He complained to Jaeger in 1903, "My life is one continual giving up of little things which I love."<ref>Kennedy (1987a), p. 144</ref> Both [[W. S. Gilbert]] and [[Thomas Hardy]] sought to collaborate with Elgar in this decade. Elgar refused, but would have collaborated with [[George Bernard Shaw|Bernard Shaw]] had Shaw been willing.<ref>Anderson, pp. 115–116</ref>

Elgar paid three visits to the USA between 1905 and 1911. His first was to conduct his music and to accept a doctorate from [[Yale University]].<ref name=grove/>{{refn|This was the occasion on which the American tradition of playing the trio of the first Pomp and Circumstance March at graduation ceremonies originated. On that occasion Elgar met [[Horatio Parker]], composer and [[Dean (education)|dean]] of the Department of Music at Yale, who then played "Pomp and Circumstance" on the organ.<ref>Moore (1987), p. 462</ref> It may have been this meeting that lead to an invitation to contribute some songs to a specially designed series of music instruction books for children of which Parker was principal editor.<ref>''The Progressive Music Series, Books One, Two, Three & Four'', Silver, Burdett & Co., 1914</ref> For that series Elgar wrote three little songs: ''The Merry-go-round'', ''The Brook'', and ''The Windlass Song''.|group=n}} His principal composition in 1905 was the ''[[Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)|Introduction and Allegro for Strings]]'', dedicated to [[Samuel Sanford]]. It was well received but did not catch the public imagination as ''The Dream of Gerontius'' had done and continued to do. Among keen Elgarians, however, ''The Kingdom'' was sometimes preferred to the earlier work: Elgar's friend [[Leo Frank Schuster|Frank Schuster]] told the young [[Adrian Boult]]: "compared with ''The Kingdom'', ''Gerontius'' is the work of a raw amateur."<ref>Kennedy (1987b), p. 29</ref>

As Elgar approached his fiftieth birthday, he began work on his first symphony, a project that had been in his mind in various forms for nearly ten years.<ref>Reed, p. 96</ref> His [[Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)|First Symphony]] (1908) was a national and international triumph. Within weeks of the premiere it was performed in New York under [[Walter Damrosch]], Vienna under [[Ferdinand Löwe]], St Petersburg under [[Alexander Siloti]], and Leipzig under [[Arthur Nikisch]]. There were performances in Rome, Chicago, Boston, Toronto and fifteen British towns and cities. In just over a year, it received a hundred performances in Britain, America and continental Europe.<ref name="mt1209">"Elgar's Symphony", ''The Musical Times'', 1 February 1909, p. 102</ref>

[[File:Kreisler.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=photograph of a middle aged man with a small moustache and bow-tie, looking towards the camera|[[Fritz Kreisler]], dedicatee of Elgar's Violin Concerto]]
The [[Violin Concerto (Elgar)|Violin Concerto]] (1910) was commissioned by [[Fritz Kreisler]], one of the leading international violinists of the time. Elgar wrote it during the summer of 1910, with occasional help from W. H. Reed, the leader of the [[London Symphony Orchestra]] (LSO), who helped the composer with advice on technical points. Elgar and Reed formed a firm friendship, which lasted for the rest of Elgar's life. Reed's biography, ''Elgar As I Knew Him'' (1936), records many details of Elgar's methods of composition.<ref>Reed, p. 102</ref> The work was presented by the [[Royal Philharmonic Society]], with Kreisler and the LSO, conducted by the composer. Reed recalled, "the Concerto proved to be a complete triumph, the concert a brilliant and unforgettable occasion."<ref name=reed103>Reed, p. 103</ref> So great was the impact of the concerto that Kreisler's rival [[Eugène Ysaÿe]] spent much time with Elgar going through the work. There was great disappointment when contractual difficulties prevented Ysaÿe from playing it in London.<ref name=reed103/>

The Violin Concerto was Elgar's last popular triumph. The following year he presented his [[Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)|Second Symphony]] in London, but was disappointed at its reception. Unlike the First Symphony, it ends not in a blaze of orchestral splendour but quietly and contemplatively. Reed, who played at the premiere, later wrote that Elgar was recalled to the platform several times to acknowledge the applause, "but missed that unmistakable note perceived when an audience, even an English audience, is thoroughly roused or worked up, as it was after the Violin Concerto or the First Symphony."<ref name=reed105>Reed, p. 105</ref> Elgar asked Reed, "What is the matter with them, Billy? They sit there like a lot of stuffed pigs."<ref name=reed105/> The work was, by normal standards, a success, with twenty-seven performances within three years of its premiere, but it did not achieve the international ''furore'' of the First Symphony.<ref name=mason/>

[[File:Edward Elgar 1917.jpeg|thumb|upright|alt=photograph of a man in late middle age, with a large Roman nose, a receding hairline, and a large moustache. He is shown in left profile|Elgar aged about 60]]
===Last major works===
In June 1911, as part of the celebrations surrounding the [[Coronation of the British monarch|coronation]] of King [[George V]], Elgar was appointed to the [[Order of Merit]],<ref>[http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/28505/supplements/4593 Supplement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107150433/http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/28505/supplements/4593 |date=7 November 2012 }}, ''[[The London Gazette]]'', no. 2769, p. 4448, 19 June 1911. Retrieved 27 October 2010.</ref> an honour limited to twenty-four holders at any time. The following year, the Elgars moved back to London, to a large house in [[Netherhall Gardens]], [[Hampstead]], designed by [[Richard Norman Shaw|Norman Shaw]]. There Elgar composed his last two large-scale works of the pre-war era, the choral ode, ''The Music Makers'' (for the Birmingham Festival, 1912) and the symphonic study ''[[Falstaff (Elgar)|Falstaff]]'' (for the Leeds Festival, 1913). Both were received politely but without enthusiasm. Even the dedicatee of ''Falstaff'', the conductor [[Landon Ronald]], confessed privately that he could not "make head or tail of the piece",<ref>Kennedy (1971), p. 82</ref> while the musical scholar [[Percy Scholes]] wrote of ''Falstaff'' that it was a "great work" but, "so far as public appreciation goes, a comparative failure".<ref>[[Percy Scholes|Scholes, Percy A.]], "Elgar's 'Falstaff' Reconsidered", ''The Musical Times'', 1 August 1929, p. 696</ref>

When World War I broke out, Elgar was horrified at the prospect of the carnage, but his patriotic feelings were nonetheless aroused.<ref>Reed, p. 115</ref> He composed "A Song for Soldiers", which he later withdrew. He signed up as a special constable in the local police and later joined the Hampstead Volunteer Reserve of the army.<ref>Reed, pp. 115 and 118</ref> He composed patriotic works, ''[[Carillon (Elgar)|Carillon]]'', a recitation for speaker and orchestra in honour of Belgium,<ref>Reed, pp. 115–116</ref> and ''[[Polonia (Elgar)|Polonia]]'', an orchestral piece in honour of Poland.<ref>Reed, pp. 117–118</ref> "Land of Hope and Glory", already popular, became still more so, and Elgar wished in vain to have new, less nationalistic, words sung to the tune.<ref name=grove/>

[[File:Binyon-kipling.jpg|thumb|left|alt=composite image of two photographs of two younger men, the first has a pencil moustache and is looking into the camera; the second has a large moustache and spectacles and is seen in semi-profile from his right|[[Laurence Binyon]] (top) and [[Rudyard Kipling]], whose verses Elgar set during World War I]]
Elgar's other compositions during the war included [[incidental music]] for a children's play, ''[[The Starlight Express]]'' (1915); a ballet, ''[[The Sanguine Fan]]'' (1917); and ''[[The Spirit of England]]'' (1915–1917, to poems by [[Laurence Binyon]]), three choral settings very different in character from the romantic patriotism of his earlier years.<ref name=grove/> His last large-scale composition of the war years was ''[[The Fringes of the Fleet]]'', settings of verses by [[Rudyard Kipling]], performed with great popular success around the country, until Kipling for unexplained reasons objected to their performance in theatres.<ref>Reed, p. 121</ref> Elgar conducted a recording of the work for the [[Gramophone Company]].<ref>HMV discs 02734-7. See Rust, p. 45</ref>

Towards the end of the war, Elgar was in poor health. His wife thought it best for him to move to the countryside, and she rented "Brinkwells", a house near [[Fittleworth]] in Sussex, from the painter [[Rex Vicat Cole]]. There Elgar recovered his strength and, in 1918 and 1919, he produced four large-scale works. The first three of these were [[chamber music|chamber pieces]]: the [[Violin Sonata (Elgar)|Violin Sonata in E&nbsp;minor]], the [[Piano Quintet (Elgar)|Piano Quintet in A minor]], and the [[String Quartet (Elgar)|String Quartet in E minor]]. On hearing the work in progress, Alice Elgar wrote in her diary, "E. writing wonderful new music".<ref name=oliver>[[Michael Oliver (writer, broadcaster)|Oliver, Michael]], Review, ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', June 1986, p. 73</ref> All three works were well received. ''The Times'' wrote, "Elgar's sonata contains much that we have heard before in other forms, but as we do not at all want him to change and be somebody else, that is as it should be."<ref>"Sir E. Elgar's Violin Sonata", ''The Times'', 22 March 1919, p. 9</ref> The quartet and quintet were premiered at the [[Wigmore Hall]] on 21 May 1919. ''[[The Guardian|The Manchester Guardian]]'' wrote, "This quartet, with its tremendous climaxes, curious refinements of dance-rhythms, and its perfect symmetry, and the quintet, more lyrical and passionate, are as perfect examples of chamber music as the great oratorios were of their type."<ref>"Elgar's New Chamber Music", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 22 May 1919, p. 10</ref>

{{listen|type=music|filename=Edward Elgar - cello concerto in e minor, op. 85 - iv. allegro.ogg|title=Cello Concerto – IV. Allegro|description=Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra.}}
By contrast, the remaining work, the [[Cello Concerto (Elgar)|Cello Concerto in E minor]], had a disastrous premiere, at the opening concert of the LSO's 1919–20 season in October 1919. Apart from the Elgar work, which the composer conducted, the rest of the programme was conducted by [[Albert Coates (musician)|Albert Coates]], who overran his rehearsal time at the expense of Elgar's. Lady Elgar wrote, "that brutal selfish ill-mannered bounder&nbsp;... that brute Coates went on rehearsing."<ref name=webber>Lloyd-Webber, Julian, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3665153/How-I-fell-in-love-with-E-Es-darling.html "How I fell in love with E E's darling"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016094341/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3665153/How-I-fell-in-love-with-E-Es-darling.html |date=16 October 2019 }}, ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 17 May 2007.</ref> The critic of ''[[The Observer]]'', [[Ernest Newman]], wrote, "There have been rumours about during the week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever the explanation, the sad fact remains that never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself.&nbsp;... The work itself is lovely stuff, very simple – that pregnant simplicity that has come upon Elgar's music in the last couple of years – but with a profound wisdom and beauty underlying its simplicity."<ref>Newman, Ernest, "Music of the Week", ''The Observer'', 2 November 1919</ref> Elgar attached no blame to his soloist, [[Felix Salmond]], who played the work for him again later.<ref name="Reed, p. 131">Reed, p. 131</ref> In contrast with the First Symphony and its hundred performances in just over a year, the Cello Concerto did not have a second performance in London for more than a year.<ref>"Elgar's Cello Concerto", ''The Observer'', 16 January 1921, p. 15</ref>

===Last years===
[[File:Elgar-by-Rothenstein.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=drawing of an ageing man in left profile; he has receding white hair and a large moustache|Elgar in 1919, by [[William Rothenstein]]]]Although in the 1920s Elgar's music was no longer in fashion,<ref name=dnb/> his admirers continued to present his works when possible. Reed singles out a performance of the Second Symphony in March 1920 conducted by "a young man almost unknown to the public", Adrian Boult, for bringing "the grandeur and nobility of the work" to a wider public. Also in 1920, Landon Ronald presented an all-Elgar concert at the [[Queen's Hall]].<ref>Reed, p. 130</ref> Alice Elgar wrote with enthusiasm about the reception of the symphony, but this was one of the last times she heard Elgar's music played in public.<ref>Reed, p. 13</ref> After a short illness, she died of lung cancer on 7 April 1920, at the age of seventy-two.<ref>Moore (1984), pp. 750–751</ref>

Elgar was devastated by the loss of his wife.<ref name="Reed, p. 131"/> With no public demand for new works, and deprived of Alice's constant support and inspiration, he allowed himself to be deflected from composition. His daughter later wrote that Elgar inherited from his father a reluctance to "settle down to work on hand but could cheerfully spend hours over some perfectly unnecessary and entirely unremunerative undertaking", a trait that became stronger after Alice's death.<ref>Moore (1984), p. 17</ref> For much of the rest of his life, Elgar indulged himself in his several hobbies.<ref name=dnb/> Throughout his life he was a keen [[amateur chemist]], sometimes using a laboratory in his back garden.<ref>[http://www.classicfm.co.uk/music/musical-map-britain/plas-gwyn-hereford/ "Plas Gwyn, Hereford"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060534/https://www.classicfm.com/ |date=19 March 2021 }}, Classic FM. Retrieved 25 October 2010.</ref> He even patented the "Elgar Sulphuretted Hydrogen Apparatus" in 1908.<ref>[http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2010/July/ColumnThecrucible.asp Royal Society of Chemistry]. Retrieved 18 October 2014</ref><ref>[[Michael Steinberg (music critic)|Michael Steinberg]], [https://archive.org/details/symphonylistener00stei/page/155 <!-- quote=elgar sulphuretted hydrogen apparatus. --> ''The Symphony: A Listener's Guide'', p. 155]. Retrieved 18 October 2014</ref><ref>[http://faculty.cua.edu/may/elgar.pdf faculty.cua.edu] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081003105702/http://faculty.cua.edu/may/Elgar.pdf |date=3 October 2008 }}. Retrieved 18 October 2014</ref> He enjoyed [[Association football|football]], supporting [[Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.]], for whom he composed an anthem,<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11411360 "Elgar's Wolverhampton Wanderers striker anthem sung"], [[BBC News]], 25 September 2010 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060536/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-11411360 |date=19 March 2021 }}. Retrieved 13 July 2018</ref> ''"He Banged the Leather for Goal"'',<ref>Alleyne, Richard, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/8026215/Sir-Edward-Elgar-wrote-football-chant-along-with-his-classical-music.html "Sir Edward Elgar wrote football chant along with his classical music"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060534/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/8026215/Sir-Edward-Elgar-wrote-football-chant-along-with-his-classical-music.html |date=19 March 2021 }}, ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 26 September 2010</ref> and in his later years he frequently attended horseraces. His protégés, the conductor [[Malcolm Sargent]] and violinist [[Yehudi Menuhin]], both recalled rehearsals with Elgar at which he swiftly satisfied himself that all was well and then went off to the races.<ref>"Malcolm Sargent", BBC LP RE10 1967 (includes recording of Sargent talking about Elgar)</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20030415212012/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/menuhiny1.shtml "Yehudi Menuhin".] BBC Four. Retrieved 1 May 2010</ref> In his younger days, Elgar had been an enthusiastic cyclist, buying [[Sunbeam Cycles|Royal Sunbeam bicycles]] for himself and his wife in 1903 (he named his "Mr. [[Phoebus]]").<ref>Moore (1984), p. 323</ref> As an elderly widower, he enjoyed being driven about the countryside by his chauffeur.<ref name=dnb/> In November and December 1923, he took a voyage to Brazil, journeying up the [[Amazon River|Amazon]] to [[Manaus]], where he was impressed by its opera house, the [[Amazon Theatre|Teatro Amazonas]]. Almost nothing is recorded about Elgar's activities or the events that he encountered during the trip, which gave the novelist [[James Hamilton-Paterson]] considerable latitude when writing ''Gerontius'', a fictional account of the journey.<ref name=service>Service, Tom, [https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/mar/25/elgar-brazil-amazon-gerontius "Beyond the Malverns: Elgar in the Amazon"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060601/https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/mar/25/elgar-brazil-amazon-gerontius |date=19 March 2021 }}, ''The Guardian'', 25 March 2010. Retrieved 5 May 2010</ref>

After Alice's death, Elgar sold the Hampstead house, and after living for a short time in a flat in [[St James's]] in the heart of London, he moved back to Worcestershire, to the village of [[Kempsey, Worcestershire|Kempsey]], where he lived from 1923 to 1927.<ref>Reed, p. 134</ref> He did not wholly abandon composition in these years. He made large-scale symphonic arrangements of works by [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]] and [[George Frideric Handel|Handel]] and wrote his ''Empire March'' and eight songs ''[[Pageant of Empire (Elgar)|Pageant of Empire]]'' for the 1924 [[British Empire Exhibition]].<ref>Reed, pp. 207–209</ref> Shortly after these were published, he was appointed [[Master of the Queen's Music|Master of the King's Musick]] on 13 May 1924, following the death of [[Walter Parratt|Sir Walter Parratt]].<ref>[http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/32935/pages/3841 ''The London Gazette''], no. 32935, p. 3841, 13 May 1924. Retrieved 27 October 2010.</ref>

From 1926 onwards, Elgar made a series of recordings of his own works. Described by the music writer Robert Philip as "the first composer to take the gramophone seriously",<ref name=philip>Philip, Robert, "The recordings of Edward Elgar (1857–1934): Authenticity and Performance Practice", ''Early Music'', November 1984, pp. 481–489</ref> he had already recorded much of his music by the early acoustic-recording process for [[Gramophone Company|His Master's Voice (HMV)]] from 1914 onwards, but the introduction of electrical microphones in 1925 transformed the gramophone from a novelty into a realistic medium for reproducing orchestral and choral music.<ref name=philip/> Elgar was the first composer to take full advantage of this technological advance.<ref name=philip/> [[Fred Gaisberg]] of HMV, who produced Elgar's recordings, set up a series of sessions to capture on disc the composer's interpretations of his major orchestral works, including the ''Enigma Variations'', ''Falstaff'', the first and second symphonies, and the cello and violin concertos. For most of these, the orchestra was the LSO, but the ''Variations'' were played by the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra. Later in the series of recordings, Elgar also conducted two newly founded orchestras, Boult's [[BBC Symphony Orchestra]] and [[Thomas Beecham|Sir Thomas Beecham]]'s [[London Philharmonic Orchestra]].

Elgar's recordings were released on 78-rpm discs by both HMV and [[RCA Records|RCA Victor]]. After World War II, the 1932 recording of the Violin Concerto with the teenage Menuhin as soloist remained available on 78 and later on [[LP record|LP]], but the other recordings were out of the catalogues for some years. When they were reissued by EMI on LP in the 1970s, they caused surprise to many by their fast tempi, in contrast to the slower speeds adopted by many conductors in the years since Elgar's death.<ref name=philip/> The recordings were reissued on CD in the 1990s.<ref>"Elgar Edition", ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', June 1992; February 1993; and August 1993</ref>

{{listen|type=music|filename=Pomp and circumstances No. 1.ogg |title=Trio of ''Pomp and Circumstance Marches'' No. 1|description=Conducted by Elgar in 1931 at the opening of [[EMI]]'s studios}}
In November 1931, Elgar was filmed by [[Pathé]] for a newsreel depicting a recording session of ''Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1'' at the opening of EMI's [[Abbey Road Studios]] in London. It is believed to be the only surviving sound film of Elgar, who makes a brief remark before conducting the LSO, asking the musicians to "play this tune as though you've never heard it before."<ref>{{YouTube|kgBjUv_50kY}}. Retrieved 18 February 2023</ref> A memorial plaque to Elgar at Abbey Road was unveiled on 24 June 1993.<ref>[http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/greenplaques/displaybyname.cfm "Green plaques scheme"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203015135/http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/greenplaques/displaybyname.cfm |date=3 December 2013 }}, City of Westminster. Retrieved 15 March 2014</ref>

A late piece of Elgar's, the ''[[Nursery Suite]]'', was an early example of a studio premiere: its first performance was in the Abbey Road studios. For this work, dedicated to the wife and daughters of the [[George VI|Duke of York]], Elgar once again drew on his youthful sketch-books.<ref name=grove/>{{refn|The elder daughter was Princess Elizabeth of York (later Queen [[Elizabeth II]]).| group= n}}

[[File:Elgar's grave, Little Malvern.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=photograph of grave in churchyard|Elgar family grave at [[St Wulstan's Roman Catholic Church]], [[Little Malvern]]]]
In his final years, Elgar experienced a musical revival. The BBC organised a festival of his works to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday, in 1932.<ref>Reed, p. 142</ref> He flew to Paris in 1933 to conduct the Violin Concerto for Menuhin. While in France, he visited his fellow composer [[Frederick Delius]] at his house at [[Grez-sur-Loing]].<ref name=maine/> He was sought out by younger musicians such as Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent and [[John Barbirolli]], who championed his music when it was out of fashion.<ref>Moore (1979), pp. 42–47, 56–59, 96–98</ref><ref>Aldous, p. 124</ref> He began work on an opera, ''The Spanish Lady'', and accepted a commission from the [[BBC]] to compose a [[Symphony No. 3 (Elgar/Payne)|Third Symphony]]. His final illness prevented their completion. He fretted about the unfinished works. He asked Reed to ensure that nobody would "tinker" with the sketches and attempt a completion of the symphony,<ref>Reed, p. 145</ref> but at other times he said, "If I can't complete the Third Symphony, somebody will complete it – or write a better one."<ref name=payne>Payne, Anthony (1998), Liner notes to NMC compact disc D053</ref> After Elgar's death, [[Percy M. Young]], in co-operation with the BBC and Elgar's daughter Carice, produced a version of ''The Spanish Lady'',<ref>[http://www.elgar.org/3splady.htm ''The Spanish Lady''], The Elgar Society. Retrieved 2 June 2010.</ref> which was issued on CD. The Third Symphony sketches were elaborated by the composer [[Anthony Payne]] into a complete score in 1997.<ref name=payne/>

Inoperable [[colorectal cancer]] was discovered during an operation on 8 October 1933. He told his consulting doctor, [[Arthur Thomson (physician)|Arthur Thomson]], that he had no faith in an [[afterlife]]: "I believe there is nothing but complete oblivion."<ref>Moore (1984) p. 818</ref> Elgar died on 23 February 1934 at the age of seventy-six and was buried next to his wife at [[St Wulstan's Roman Catholic Church]] in [[Little Malvern]].<ref>Young (1973), p. 246</ref> <!--NO KENNEDY 1968 IN THE SOURCES at the funeral there were no flowers, no visible signs of mourning and no music: only the song of the birds.<ref>Kennedy (1968) p. 269</ref>-->

==Music==
{{Further|List of compositions by Edward Elgar}}

===Influences, antecedents and early works===
Elgar was contemptuous of folk music<ref name=k10>Kennedy (1970), p. 10</ref> and had little interest in or respect for the early English composers, calling [[William Byrd]] and his contemporaries "museum pieces". Of later English composers, he regarded [[Henry Purcell|Purcell]] as the greatest, and he said that he had learned much of his own technique from studying Hubert Parry's writings.<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 8</ref> The continental composers who most influenced Elgar were Handel, Dvořák and, to some degree, Brahms. In Elgar's [[chromaticism]], the influence of Wagner is apparent, but Elgar's individual style of orchestration owes much to the clarity of nineteenth-century French composers, Berlioz, [[Jules Massenet|Massenet]], Saint-Saëns and, particularly, [[Léo Delibes|Delibes]], whose music Elgar played and conducted at Worcester and greatly admired.<ref name=k10/><ref name=cox/>

Elgar began composing when still a child, and all his life he drew on his early sketchbooks for themes and inspiration. The habit of assembling his compositions, even large-scale ones, from scraps of themes jotted down randomly remained throughout his life.<ref>[https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/elgar/56393.stm "Anthony Payne on Elgar's Symphony No 3"], BBC News, 13 February 1998. Retrieved 22 April 2010.</ref> His early adult works included violin and piano pieces, music for the wind quintet in which he and his brother played between 1878 and 1881, and music of many types for the Powick Asylum band. Diana McVeagh in ''Grove's Dictionary'' finds many embryonic Elgarian touches in these pieces, but few of them are regularly played, except ''[[Salut d'Amour]]'' and (as arranged decades later into ''[[The Wand of Youth]]'' Suites) some of the childhood sketches.<ref name=grove/> Elgar's sole work of note during his first spell in London in 1889–1891, the overture ''[[Froissart Overture (Elgar)|Froissart]]'', was a romantic-bravura piece, influenced by [[Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]] and Wagner, but also showing further Elgarian characteristics.<ref name=grove/> Orchestral works composed during the subsequent years in Worcestershire include the ''[[Serenade for Strings (Elgar)|Serenade for Strings]]'' and ''[[Three Bavarian Dances]]''. In this period and later, Elgar wrote songs and [[part song]]s. W. H. Reed expressed reservations about these pieces, but praised the part song ''The Snow'', for female voices, and ''[[Sea Pictures]]'', a cycle of five songs for contralto and orchestra which remains in the repertory.<ref name="Reed, p. 149">Reed, p. 149</ref>

Elgar's principal large-scale early works were for chorus and orchestra for the Three Choirs and other festivals. These were ''The Black Knight'', ''King Olaf'', ''The Light of Life'', ''The Banner of St George'' and ''Caractacus''. He also wrote a ''Te Deum'' and ''Benedictus'' for the Hereford Festival. Of these, McVeagh comments favourably on his lavish orchestration and innovative use of [[leitmotif]]s, but less favourably on the qualities of his chosen texts and the patchiness of his inspiration. McVeagh makes the point that, because these works of the 1890s were for many years little known (and performances remain rare), the mastery of his first great success, the ''[[Enigma Variations]]'', appeared to be a sudden transformation from mediocrity to genius, but in fact his orchestral skills had been building up throughout the decade.<ref name=grove/>

===Peak creative years===
[[File:Elgar-LSO-1911.jpg|thumb|300px|alt=large orchestra and their conductor seen on the platform of Victorian concert hall in long shot|Elgar and the [[London Symphony Orchestra]] at the [[Queen's Hall]]]]
Elgar's best-known works were composed within the twenty-one years between 1899 and 1920. Most of them are orchestral. Reed wrote, "Elgar's genius rose to its greatest height in his orchestral works" and quoted the composer as saying that, even in his oratorios, the orchestral part is the most important.<ref>Reed, pp. 148–150</ref> The ''Enigma Variations'' made Elgar's name nationally. The variation form was ideal for him at this stage of his career, when his comprehensive mastery of orchestration was still in contrast to his tendency to write his melodies in short, sometimes rigid, phrases.<ref name=grove/> His next orchestral works, ''[[Cockaigne (In London Town)|Cockaigne]]'', a concert-overture (1900–1901), the first two ''[[Pomp and Circumstance Marches|Pomp and Circumstance]]'' marches (1901), and the gentle ''[[Dream Children (Elgar)|Dream Children]]'' (1902), are all short: the longest of them, ''Cockaigne'', lasting less than fifteen minutes. ''[[In the South (Alassio)|In the South]]'' (1903–1904), although designated by Elgar as a concert-overture, is, according to Kennedy, really a [[tone poem]] and the longest continuous piece of purely orchestral writing Elgar had essayed. He wrote it after setting aside an early attempt to compose a symphony.<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 30</ref> The work reveals his continuing progress in writing sustained themes and orchestral lines, although some critics, including Kennedy, find that in the middle part "Elgar's inspiration burns at less than its brightest."<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 32</ref> In 1905 Elgar completed the ''[[Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)|Introduction and Allegro for Strings]]''. This work is based, unlike much of Elgar's earlier writing, not on a profusion of themes but on only three. Kennedy called it a "masterly composition, equalled among English works for strings only by [[Ralph Vaughan Williams|Vaughan Williams]]'s ''[[Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis|Tallis Fantasia]]''."<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 42</ref>

During the next four years Elgar composed three major concert pieces, which, though shorter than comparable works by some of his European contemporaries, are among the most substantial such works by an English composer. These were his [[Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)|First Symphony]], [[Violin Concerto (Elgar)|Violin Concerto]], and [[Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)|Second Symphony]], which all play for between forty-five minutes and an hour.{{refn|In a series of transfers of the composer's electrical recordings available in 2010, the timings are: Symphony No. 1: 46:28 (''Naxos Historical'' CD 8.111256); Symphony No. 2: 48:30 (''Naxos Historical'' CD 8.111260); Violin Concerto: 49:57 (''Naxos Historical'' CD 8.110902).| group= n}} McVeagh says of the symphonies that they "rank high not only in Elgar's output but in English musical history. Both are long and powerful, without published programmes, only hints and quotations to indicate some inward drama from which they derive their vitality and eloquence. Both are based on classical form but differ from it to the extent that&nbsp;... they were considered prolix and slackly constructed by some critics. Certainly the invention in them is copious; each symphony would need several dozen music examples to chart its progress."<ref name=grove/>

[[File:Elgar-cello-concerto-manuscript.jpg|thumb|left|Fragment of manuscript of the opening of the second movement of the [[Cello Concerto (Elgar)|Cello Concerto]]|alt=manuscript music score, faded with age]]
Elgar's Violin Concerto and [[Cello Concerto (Elgar)|Cello Concerto]], in the view of Kennedy, "rank not only among his finest works, but among the greatest of their kind".<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 43</ref> They are, however, very different from each other. The Violin Concerto, composed in 1909 as Elgar reached the height of his popularity, and written for the instrument dearest to his heart,<ref name="Reed, p. 149"/> is lyrical throughout and rhapsodical and brilliant by turns.<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 45</ref> The Cello Concerto, composed a decade later, immediately after World War I, seems, in Kennedy's words, "to belong to another age, another world&nbsp;... the simplest of all Elgar's major works&nbsp;... also the least grandiloquent."<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 50</ref> Between the two concertos came Elgar's symphonic study ''[[Falstaff (Elgar)|Falstaff]]'', which has divided opinion even among Elgar's strongest admirers. [[Donald Tovey]] viewed it as "one of the immeasurably great things in music", with power "identical with Shakespeare's",<ref>[[Donald Tovey|Tovey, Donald F.]], "Elgar, Master of Music", ''Music and Letters'', January 1935, p. 1</ref> while Kennedy criticises the work for "too frequent reliance on [[Sequence (music)|sequences]]" and an over-idealised depiction of the female characters.<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 35</ref> Reed thought that the principal themes show less distinction than some of Elgar's earlier works.<ref>Reed, p. 151</ref> Elgar himself thought ''Falstaff'' the highest point of his purely orchestral work.<ref>Reed, p. 113</ref>

The major works for voices and orchestra of the twenty-one years of Elgar's middle period are three large-scale works for soloists, chorus and orchestra: ''[[The Dream of Gerontius]]'' (1900), and the oratorios ''[[The Apostles (Elgar)|The Apostles]]'' (1903) and ''[[The Kingdom (Elgar)|The Kingdom]]'' (1906); and two shorter odes, the ''[[Coronation Ode]]'' (1902) and ''[[The Music Makers (Elgar)|The Music Makers]]'' (1912). The first of the odes, as a ''pièce d'occasion'', has rarely been revived after its initial success, with the culminating "Land of Hope and Glory". The second is, for Elgar, unusual in that it contains several quotations from his earlier works, as Richard Strauss quoted himself in ''[[Ein Heldenleben]]''.<ref>Burn, Andrew, [http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.557710&catNum=557710&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English Notes to Naxos recording of ''The Music Makers''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210321063942/https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.557710&catNum=557710&filetype=About+this+Recording&language=English |date=21 March 2021 }} (CD 8.557710)</ref> The choral works were all successful, although the first, ''Gerontius'', was and remains the best-loved and most performed.<ref>Reed, p. 58</ref> On the manuscript Elgar wrote, quoting [[John Ruskin]], "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another. My life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw, and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory."<ref name=grove/> All three of the large-scale works follow the traditional model with sections for soloists, chorus and both together. Elgar's distinctive orchestration, as well as his melodic inspiration, lifts them to a higher level than most of their British predecessors.<ref>Reed, p. 150</ref>

Elgar's other works of his middle period include incidental music for ''[[Diarmuid and Grania|Grania and Diarmid]]'', a play by [[George Moore (novelist)|George Moore]] and [[W. B. Yeats]] (1901), and for ''[[The Starlight Express]]'', a play based on a story by [[Algernon Blackwood]] (1916). Of the former, Yeats called Elgar's music "wonderful in its heroic melancholy".<ref>McVeagh (2007), p. 78</ref> Elgar also wrote a number of songs during his peak period, of which Reed observes, "it cannot be said that he enriched the vocal repertory to the same extent as he did that of the orchestra."<ref name="Reed, p. 149"/>

===Final years and posthumous completions===
After the Cello Concerto, Elgar completed no more large-scale works. He made arrangements of works by Bach, Handel and [[Frédéric Chopin|Chopin]], in distinctively Elgarian orchestration,<ref name=grove/> and once again turned his youthful notebooks to use for the ''[[Nursery Suite]]'' (1931). His other compositions of this period have not held a place in the regular repertory.<ref name=dnb/> For most of the rest of the twentieth century, it was generally agreed that Elgar's creative impulse ceased after his wife's death. Anthony Payne's elaboration of the sketches for Elgar's Third Symphony into a complete score led to a reconsideration of this supposition. Elgar left the opening of the symphony complete in full score, and those pages, along with others, show Elgar's orchestration changed markedly from the richness of his pre-war work. ''[[The Gramophone]]'' described the opening of the new work as something "thrilling&nbsp;... unforgettably gaunt".<ref>[[Rob Cowan|Cowan, Rob]], Review, ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', March 2000, p. 61</ref> Its first public performance was given by the [[BBC Symphony Orchestra]] under [[Andrew Davis (conductor)|Andrew Davis]] in London on 15 February 1998.<ref>Robin Golding (2000) Liner notes to Naxos compact disc 8.554719</ref> Payne also subsequently produced a performing version of the sketches for a sixth ''Pomp and Circumstance March'', premiered at [[the Proms]] in August 2006.<ref>Clements, Andrew, [https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/aug/04/classicalmusicandopera1 "BBCSO/Davis"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060536/https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/aug/04/classicalmusicandopera1 |date=19 March 2021 }}, ''[[The Guardian]]'', 4 August 2006. Retrieved 27 October 2010.</ref> 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.<ref>[[Edward Greenfield|Greenfield, Edward]], "Session report – New from Elgar", ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', March 2005, p. 16</ref>

===Reputation===
[[File:Edward Elgar, by Percival Hedley, 1905.jpg|upright|alt=Black bust of white man with large moustache|thumb|Elgar, by Percival Hedley, 1905]]
Views of Elgar's stature have varied in the decades since his music came to prominence at the beginning of the twentieth century. Richard Strauss, as noted, hailed Elgar as a progressive composer; even the hostile reviewer in ''The Observer'', unimpressed by the thematic material of the First Symphony in 1908, called the orchestration "magnificently modern".<ref>"Music – The Elgar Symphony", ''[[The Observer]]'', 13 December 1908, p. 9</ref> Hans Richter rated Elgar as "the greatest modern composer" in any country, and Richter's colleague Arthur Nikisch considered the First Symphony "a masterpiece of the first order" to be "justly ranked with the great symphonic models – Beethoven and Brahms."<ref name=mt322/> By contrast, the critic [[Walter J. Turner|W. J. Turner]], in the mid-twentieth century, wrote of Elgar's "[[Salvation Army]] symphonies",<ref name=cox>Cox, pp. 15–16</ref> and [[Herbert von Karajan]] called the ''Enigma Variations'' "second-hand Brahms".<ref>[[Michael Kennedy (music critic)|Kennedy, Michael]], "Holst", ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', December 1990, p. 82</ref> Elgar's immense popularity was not long-lived. After the success of his First Symphony and Violin Concerto, his Second Symphony and Cello Concerto were politely received but without the earlier wild enthusiasm. His music was identified in the public mind with the [[Edwardian era]], and after the First World War he no longer seemed a progressive or modern composer. In the early 1920s, even the First Symphony had only one London performance in more than three years.<ref name=dnb/> Wood and younger conductors such as Boult, Sargent and Barbirolli championed Elgar's music, but in the recording catalogues and the concert programmes of the middle of the century his works were not well represented.<ref name=grove/><ref name=esw>Sackville-West, pp. 253–257</ref>

In 1924, the music scholar [[Edward Joseph Dent|Edward J. Dent]] wrote an article for a German music journal in which he identified four features of Elgar's style that gave offence to a section of English opinion (namely, Dent indicated, the academic and snobbish section): "too emotional", "not quite free from vulgarity", "pompous", and "too deliberately noble in expression".<ref name=howes>Howes, pp. 165–167</ref> This article was reprinted in 1930 and caused controversy.<ref>Hale, Alfred M., "The Elgar Protest", ''[[The Musical Times]]'', April 1931, p. 350; King, C. W. and [[Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji|Kaikhosru Sorabji]], "The Elgar Protest", ''The Musical Times'', May 1931, pp. 443–444; Lorenz, Robert, John Levy and John F. Porte, "The Elgar Protest", ''The Musical Times'', June 1931, pp. 542–543; Veritas, "Mr. Maine and Elgar", ''The Musical Times'', March 1932, p. 259; [[Basil Maine|Maine, Basil]], "Mr. Maine and Elgar", ''The Musical Times'', April 1932, p. 354; and Veritas, "Mr. Maine and Elgar", ''The Musical Times'', May 1932, p. 450</ref> In the later years of the century there was, in Britain at least, a revival of interest in Elgar's music. The features that had offended austere taste in the inter-war years were seen from a different perspective. In 1955, the reference book ''[[The Record Guide]]'' wrote of the Edwardian background during the height of Elgar's career:
{{Blockquote|Boastful self-confidence, emotional vulgarity, material extravagance, a ruthless philistinism expressed in tasteless architecture and every kind of expensive yet hideous accessory: such features of a late phase of Imperial England are faithfully reflected in Elgar's larger works and are apt to prove indigestible today. But if it is difficult to overlook the bombastic, the sentimental, and the trivial elements in his music, the effort to do so should nevertheless be made, for the sake of the many inspired pages, the power and eloquence and lofty pathos, of Elgar's best work.&nbsp;... Anyone who doubts the fact of Elgar's genius should take the first opportunity of hearing ''The Dream of Gerontius'', which remains his masterpiece, as it is his largest and perhaps most deeply felt work; the symphonic study, ''Falstaff''; the Introduction and Allegro for Strings; the ''Enigma Variations''; and the Violoncello Concerto.<ref name=esw/>}}

By the 1960s, a less severe view was being taken of the Edwardian era. In 1966 the critic [[Frank Howes]] wrote that Elgar reflected the last blaze of opulence, expansiveness and full-blooded life, before World War I swept so much away. In Howes's view, there was a touch of vulgarity in both the era and Elgar's music, but "a composer is entitled to be judged by posterity for his best work.&nbsp;... Elgar is historically important for giving to English music a sense of the orchestra, for expressing what it felt like to be alive in the Edwardian age, for conferring on the world at least four unqualified masterpieces, and for thereby restoring England to the comity of musical nations."<ref name=howes/>

[[File:Sibelius-strauss-RVW-stravinsky.jpg|thumb|right|Composers who admired Elgar included (top) [[Jean Sibelius|Sibelius]] (l) and [[Richard Strauss]] and (below) [[Ralph Vaughan Williams|Vaughan Williams]] (l) and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]]|alt=head and shoulders portraits of four men. One is bald; one is balding and luxuriantly moustached; one is a drawing of a young man in full face, with a full head of hair, in collar and tie; the fourth shows a young man, balding and bespectacled looking towards the camera]]
In 1967 the critic and analyst [[David Cox (composer)|David Cox]] considered the question of the supposed Englishness of Elgar's music. Cox noted that Elgar disliked folk-songs and never used them in his works, opting for an idiom that was essentially German, leavened by a lightness derived from French composers including Berlioz and Gounod. How then, asked Cox, could Elgar be "the most English of composers"? Cox found the answer in Elgar's own personality, which "could use the alien idioms in such a way as to make of them a vital form of expression that was his and his alone. And the personality that comes through in the music is English."<ref name=cox/> This point about Elgar's transmuting his influences had been touched on before. In 1930 ''The Times'' wrote, "When Elgar's first symphony came out, someone attempted to prove that its main tune on which all depends was like the Grail theme in Parsifal.&nbsp;... but the attempt fell flat because everyone else, including those who disliked the tune, had instantly recognized it as typically 'Elgarian', while the Grail theme is as typically Wagnerian."<ref>"Pre-war Symphonies", ''The Times'', 1 February 1930, p. 10</ref> As for Elgar's "Englishness", his fellow-composers recognised it: Richard Strauss and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] made particular reference to it,<ref name=mt322/> and [[Jean Sibelius|Sibelius]] called him "the personification of the true English character in music&nbsp;... a noble personality and a born aristocrat".<ref name=mt322>Sibelius, Jean, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss and Arthur Nikisch, "Tribute and Commentary", ''The Musical Times'', April 1934, p. 322</ref>
Among Elgar's admirers there is disagreement about which of his works are to be regarded as masterpieces. The ''Enigma Variations'' are generally counted among them.<ref>Reed, p. 180; Kennedy (ODNB), McVeagh (Grove), Sackville-West, p. 254; and in a centenary symposium in 1957 a variety of composers, scholars and performers, include ''Enigma'' among their favourite Elgar works. See Vaughan Williams, Ralph, [[John Ireland (composer)|John Ireland]], [[Julius Harrison]], [[Arthur Bliss]], [[Herbert Howells]], [[Gordon Jacob]], [[Jack Westrup]], [[Edmund Rubbra]], [[Steuart Wilson]], [[Patrick Hadley]], [[Herbert Sumsion]], Frank Howes, [[Eric Blom]], [[George Dyson (composer)|George Dyson]], [[Thomas Armstrong (musician)|Thomas Armstrong]], W. Greenhouse Allt, [[Edric Cundell]], [[Ernest Bullock]], R. J. F. Howgill, Maurice Johnstone and Eric Warr, "Elgar Today", ''The Musical Times'', June 1957, pp. 302–306.</ref> ''The Dream of Gerontius'' has also been given high praise by Elgarians,<ref name=dg>Sackville-West; McVeagh (Grove), Kennedy (ODNB), Reed ("perhaps the greatest work of its kind in English music", p. 61), and Vaughan Williams, Ralph, and others, "Elgar Today", ''The Musical Times'', June 1957, pp. 302–306.</ref> and the Cello Concerto is similarly rated.<ref name=dg/> Many rate the Violin Concerto equally highly, but some do not. Sackville-West omitted it from the list of Elgar masterpieces in ''The Record Guide'',<ref>Sackville West, p. 254</ref> and in a long analytical article in ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'', [[Daniel Gregory Mason]] criticised the first movement of the concerto for a "kind of sing-songiness&nbsp;... as fatal to noble rhythm in music as it is in poetry".<ref name=mason>Mason, Daniel Gregory, "A Study of Elgar", ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'', April 1917, pp. 288–303</ref> ''Falstaff'' also divides opinion. It has never been a great popular favourite,<ref>"Elgar", ''Music and Letters'', April 1934, p. 109</ref> and Kennedy and Reed identify shortcomings in it.<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 35; and Reed, p. 151</ref> In a ''Musical Times'' 1957 centenary symposium on Elgar led by Vaughan Williams, by contrast, several contributors share [[Eric Blom]]'s view that ''Falstaff'' is the greatest of all Elgar's works.<ref name=sympo>Vaughan Williams, Ralph, and others, "Elgar Today",''The Musical Times'', June 1957, pp. 302–306</ref>

The two symphonies divide opinion even more sharply. Mason rates the Second poorly for its "over-obvious rhythmic scheme", but calls the First "Elgar's masterpiece.&nbsp;... It is hard to see how any candid student can deny the greatness of this symphony."<ref name=mason/> However, in the 1957 centenary symposium, several leading admirers of Elgar express reservations about one or both symphonies.<ref name=sympo/> In the same year, [[Roger Fiske]] wrote in ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|The Gramophone]]'', "For some reason few people seem to like the two Elgar symphonies equally; each has its champions and often they are more than a little bored by the rival work."<ref>[[Roger Fiske|Fiske, Roger]], "Elgar, Symphony No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 63", ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', July 1957, p. 9</ref> The critic [[John Warrack]] wrote, "There are no sadder pages in symphonic literature than the close of the First Symphony's Adagio, as horn and trombones twice softly intone a phrase of utter grief",<ref>[[John Warrack|Warrack, John]], "Three English Masters", ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', March 1984, p. 21</ref> whereas to Michael Kennedy, the movement is notable for its lack of anguished yearning and ''angst'' and is marked instead by a "benevolent tranquillity".<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 56</ref>

Despite the fluctuating critical assessment of the various works over the years, Elgar's major works taken as a whole have in the twenty-first century recovered strongly from their neglect in the 1950s. ''The Record Guide'' in 1955 could list only one currently available recording of the First Symphony, none of the Second, one of the Violin Concerto, two of the Cello Concerto, two of the ''Enigma Variations'', one of ''Falstaff'', and none of ''The Dream of Gerontius''. Since then there have been multiple recordings of all the major works. More than thirty recordings have been made of the First Symphony since 1955, for example, and more than a dozen of ''The Dream of Gerontius''.<ref>Farach-Colton, Andrew, "Vision of the Hereafter", ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', February 2003, p. 39</ref> Similarly, in the concert hall, Elgar's works, after a period of neglect, are once again frequently programmed. The [[Elgar Society]]'s website, in its diary of forthcoming performances, lists performances of Elgar's works by orchestras, soloists and conductors across Europe, North America and Australasia.<ref>[http://www.elgar.org/4welcome.htm "An Elgar Musical Diary"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706015905/http://www.elgar.org/4welcome.htm |date=6 July 2011 }}, The Elgar Society. Retrieved 5 June 2010.</ref>

==Honours, awards and commemorations==
[[File:Statue of Edward Elgar in Worcester.jpg|thumb|alt=outdoor statue of man in lounge suit and academic gown|Statue, [[Worcester, England|Worcester]] High Street]]
Elgar was knighted in 1904, and in 1911 he was appointed a member of the [[Order of Merit (United Kingdom)|Order of Merit]]. In 1920 he received the Cross of Commander of the Belgian [[Order of the Crown (Belgium)|Order of the Crown]]; in 1924 he was made [[Master of the King's Musick]];<!-- Note: "Musick" is not a typo. It was the correct spelling of the title until changed in 1975. --> the following year he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society; and in 1928 he was appointed a [[Knight Commander]] of the [[Royal Victorian Order]] (KCVO). Between 1900 and 1931, Elgar received honorary degrees from the Universities of [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], [[Durham University|Durham]], [[University of Leeds|Leeds]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], [[Yale]] (USA), [[University of Aberdeen|Aberdeen]], [[University of Pittsburgh|Western Pennsylvania]] (USA), Birmingham and [[University of London|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]]; and the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences|American Academy]]. In 1931 he was created a [[Baronet]], of Broadheath in the County of Worcester.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33729 |date=26 June 1931 |page=4152 }}</ref> In 1933 he was promoted within the Royal Victorian Order to Knight Grand Cross (GCVO).<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33946 |date=2 June 1933 |page=3805 }}; and [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/public/home.html?url=%2Fapp%3Fservice%3Dexternalpagemethod%26page%3DArticleDisplay%26method%3Dview%26sp%3DS%2Foupww%2Fwhowaswho%2FU209040&failReason=Err_UserPass_None+Err_IP_BadCred+Err_Athens_None+Err_Shib_None+Err_Referrer_BadCred+Err_LibCard_None "Elgar, Sir Edward"], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724151422/http://www.ukwhoswho.com/public/home.html?url=%2Fapp%3Fservice=externalpagemethod&page=ArticleDisplay&method=view&sp=S%2Foupww%2Fwhowaswho%2FU209040&failReason=Err_UserPass_None+Err_IP_BadCred+Err_Athens_None+Err_Shib_None+Err_Referrer_BadCred+Err_LibCard_None |date=24 July 2011 }} ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007. Retrieved 3 June 2010 (requires subscription)</ref> In Kennedy's words, he "shamelessly touted" for a [[peerage]], but in vain.<ref name=dnb/> In ''Who's Who'', post-First World War, he claimed to have been awarded "several [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russian]] and German decorations (lapsed)".<ref>{{cite book|title=Who's Who, 1934|publisher=A and C Black|page=1050}} None are among the collection at the Elgar Birthplace museum. The Imperial Russian and German monarchies which would have awarded them had fallen by end 1918.</ref> Elgar was offered, but declined, the office of [[Mayor of Hereford]] (despite not being a member of its city council) when he lived in the city in 1905.<ref name=y131/> The same year he was made an honorary freeman of the city of Worcester.<ref name=y131>Young (1973), p. 131</ref>

The house in Lower Broadheath where Elgar was born is now the [[Elgar Birthplace Museum]], devoted to his life and work. Elgar's daughter, Carice, helped to found the museum in 1936 and bequeathed to it much of her collection of Elgar's letters and documents on her death in 1970. Carice left Elgar manuscripts to musical colleges: ''The Black Knight'' to [[Trinity College of Music]]; ''King Olaf'' to the [[Royal Academy of Music]]; ''The Music Makers'' to Birmingham University; the Cello Concerto to the [[Royal College of Music]]; ''The Kingdom'' to the [[Bodleian Library]]; and other manuscripts to the [[British Library|British Museum]].<ref>''The Musical Times'', December 1970, p. 1211</ref> The Elgar Society dedicated to the composer and his works was formed in 1951.<ref>[https://elgarsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/50annum.pdf "Half Century"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120074640/http://www.elgarsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/50annum.pdf |date=20 January 2023 }}, Elgar Society, 2001</ref>

Elgar's statue 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 by [[Rose Garrard]] is at the top of Church Street in [[Malvern, Worcestershire|Malvern]], overlooking the town and giving visitors an opportunity to stand next to the composer in the shadow of the Hills that he so often regarded. In September 2005, a third statue sculpted by Jemma Pearson was unveiled near [[Hereford Cathedral]] in honour of his many musical and other associations with the city. It depicts Elgar with his bicycle. From 1999 until early 2007, new [[British banknotes|Bank of England twenty pound notes]] featured a portrait of Elgar. The change to remove his image generated controversy, particularly because 2007 was the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth. From 2007 the Elgar notes were phased out, ceasing to be [[legal tender]] on 30 June 2010.<ref>Adams, Stephen, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/7861063/20-Elgar-note-withdrawal-a-national-disgrace.html "£20 Elgar note withdrawal 'a national disgrace'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100702022429/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/7861063/20-Elgar-note-withdrawal-a-national-disgrace.html |date=2 July 2010 }}, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 29 June 2010</ref> There are around 65 roads in the UK named after Elgar, including six in the counties of [[Herefordshire]] and [[Worcestershire]].<ref name=bbc_bridge>Sinclair, Max, [https://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/content/articles/2005/07/25/elgar_bridge_feature.shtml ''Elgar and the Bridge''], BBC Hereford and Worcester. Retrieved 2 June 2010.</ref> Elgar had three locomotives named in his honour.{{refn|The first was a [[GWR 3300 Class|''Bulldog'' class]] locomotive of the [[Great Western Railway]] (GWR): it was built in May 1906 as no. 3704, renumbered 3414 in December 1912, named "A. H. Mills" in July 1914, renamed "Sir Edward Elgar" in August 1932, and withdrawn from service in October 1938.<ref>{{harvnb|le Fleming|1954|pp=G26, G27}}</ref> The second was a [[GWR 4073 Class|"Castle" class]] locomotive, also of the GWR: it was built in June 1946 as no. 7005 "Lamphey Castle",<ref>{{harvnb|le Fleming|1953|p=H18}}</ref> renamed "Sir Edward Elgar" in August 1957 and withdrawn from service in September 1964.<ref>{{harvnb|Sterndale|Parker|Smith|Reed|1974|pp=M94, M101}}</ref> The third was a [[British Rail]] {{brc|50}} diesel locomotive: it was built in March 1968 as no. D407, renumbered 50 007 in the mid-1970s, named "Hercules" in April 1978, and renamed "Sir Edward Elgar" in February 1984.<ref>{{harvnb|Marsden|1984|pp=50–51}}</ref> The new nameplates were specially cast in the former GWR style.<ref name=bbc_bridge /> On 25 February 1984, this locomotive was officially named "Sir Edward Elgar" at [[London Paddington station|Paddington]] station in London by [[Simon Rattle]], then conductor of the [[City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra]].<ref>"The Times Diary", ''The Times'', 21 February 1984, p. 12</ref>|group= n}}

[[File:Elgar-Bicycle-Statue-by-Oliver-Dixon.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Modern statue of man with moustache in Edwardian cycling clothes holding the handlebar of an ordinary bicycle|Statue of Elgar with bicycle in Hereford]]
Elgar's life and music have inspired works of literature including the novel ''Gerontius''<ref name=service/> and several plays. ''Elgar's Rondo'', a 1993 stage play by [[David Pownall]] depicts the dead Jaeger offering ghostly advice on Elgar's musical development.<ref>Morrison, Richard, "Making notes of horror in the air", ''The Times'', 20 October 1993</ref> Pownall also wrote a radio play, ''Elgar's Third'' (1994);<ref>Kay, Jackie, "Radio: Where the dead have been", ''The Guardian'', 13 March 1994</ref> another Elgar-themed radio play is [[Alick Rowe]]'s ''The Dorabella Variation'' (2003).<ref>Billen, Stephanie, "OTV: Radio", ''The Observer'', 22 June 2003</ref> [[David Rudkin]]'s BBC television "[[Play for Today]]" ''[[Penda's Fen]]'' (1974)<ref>[http://www.vertigomagazine.co.uk/showarticle.php?sel=bac&siz=1&id=358 "Vertigo Magazine – Penda's Fen"]. Retrieved 18 November 2010; and [http://www.elidor.freeserve.co.uk/pendasfen.htm "Penda's Fen (BBC Birmingham, 1973)"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120904102026/http://www.elidor.freeserve.co.uk/pendasfen.htm |date=4 September 2012 }} accessed 18 November 2010</ref> deals with themes including sex and adolescence, spying, and snobbery, with Elgar's music, chiefly ''The Dream of Gerontius'', as its background. In one scene, a ghostly Elgar whispers the secret of the "Enigma" tune to the youthful central character, with an injunction not to reveal it. ''Elgar on the Journey to Hanley'', a novel by [[Keith Alldritt]] (1979), tells of the composer's attachment to Dora Penny, later Mrs Powell, (depicted as "Dorabella" in the ''Enigma Variations'').<ref>[[Stephen Banfield|Banfield, Stephen]], "Fictional Elgar", ''[[The Musical Times]]'', October 1979, p. 830 {{JSTOR|962271}} {{subscription}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319060537/https://www.jstor.org/stable/962271 |date=19 March 2021 }}</ref>

Perhaps the best-known work depicting Elgar is [[Ken Russell]]'s 1962 BBC television film ''[[Elgar (film)|Elgar]]'', made when the composer was still largely out of fashion. This hour-long film contradicted the view of Elgar as a jingoistic and bombastic composer, and evoked the more pastoral and melancholy side of his character and music.<ref>Riley, Matthew, "Rustling Reeds and Lofty Pines: Elgar and the Music of Nature", ''[[19th-Century Music]]'', vol. 26, no. 2 (Autumn 2002), pp. 155–177</ref>

The 2025 film ''[[The Choral]],'' written by [[Alan Bennett]], is built around a fictional 1916 performance of ''The Dream of Gerontius'' by the choral society of a Yorkshire town.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bratby |first=Richard |date=13 November 2025 |title=Was Elgar really a snob? |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/was-elgar-a-snob-as-the-choral-suggests/?group=2cards&card=1#comments-container |access-date=15 November 2025 |website=[[The Spectator]]}}</ref>

==Notes and references==
'''Notes'''
{{Reflist|group=n}}
'''References'''
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book |last=Aldous |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Aldous |title=Tunes of Glory: The Life of Malcolm Sargent |location=London |publisher=Hutchinson |year=2001 |isbn=0-09-180131-1}}
* {{cite book |last=Anderson |first=Robert |title=Elgar in Manuscript |location=London |publisher=[[British Library]] |year=1990 |isbn=0-7123-0203-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Buckley |first=R. J. |title=Sir Edward Elgar |location=London |publisher=John Lane The Bodley Head |year=1905 |oclc=558906223}}
* {{cite book |chapter=Edward Elgar |title=The Symphony: Elgar to the Present Day |last=Cox |first=David |editor=Simpson, Robert |editor-link=Robert Simpson (composer) |publisher=Pelican Books |location=Harmondsworth |year=1967 |oclc=221594461}}
* {{cite book |chapter=Edward Elgar |title=The Music Lover's Companion |last=Howes |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Howes |editor1=Hughes, Gervase |editor1-link=Gervase Hughes |editor2=van Thal, Herbert |editor2-link=Herbert van Thal |location=London |publisher=Eyre & Spottiswoode |year=1971 |oclc=481972079}}
* {{cite book |last=Hughes |first=Gervase |author-link=Gervase Hughes |title=The Music of Arthur Sullivan |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |year=1960 |oclc=16739230}}
* {{cite book |last=Kennedy |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Kennedy (music critic) |title=Elgar: Orchestral Music |location=London |publisher=BBC |year=1970 |oclc=252020259}}
* {{cite book |last=Kennedy |first=Michael |title=Barbirolli – Conductor Laureate |location=London |publisher=MacGibbon and Kee |year=1971 |isbn=0-261-63336-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Kennedy |first=Michael |edition=third |title=Portrait of Elgar |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1987a |isbn=0-19-284017-7}}
* {{cite book |last=Kennedy |first=Michael |title=Adrian Boult |location=London |publisher=Hamish Hamilton |year=1987b |isbn=0-333-48752-4}}
* {{cite book |last=le Fleming |first=H. M. |editor-last=White |editor-first=D. E. |title=The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part seven: Dean's Larger Tender Engines |date=October 1954 |publisher=[[Railway Correspondence and Travel Society]] |location=Kenilworth<!-- |isbn=0-901115-18-5 too early for ISBN -->}}
* {{RCTS-LocosGWR-8|edition=1st}}{{sfn whitelist|CITEREFle_Fleming1953}}
* {{cite book |last=McVeagh |first=Diana M.|author-link=Diana McVeagh|title=Elgar the Music Maker |url=https://archive.org/details/elgarmusicmaker0000mcve |url-access=registration |location=London |publisher=Boydell Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-84383-295-9}}
* {{cite book |last=Marsden |first=Colin J. |title=BR Locomotive Numbering |date=November 1984 |publisher=[[Ian Allan Publishing]] |location=Shepperton |isbn=0-7110-1445-0 |id=EX/1184}}
* {{cite book |last=Moore |first=Jerrold N. |author-link=Jerrold Northrop Moore |title=Music and Friends: Letters to Adrian Boult |location=London |publisher=Hamish Hamilton |year=1979 |isbn=0-241-10178-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Moore |first=Jerrold N. |title=Edward Elgar: a Creative Life |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1984 |isbn=0-19-315447-1}}
* {{cite book |last=Reed |first=W.H. |author-link=William Henry Reed |title=Elgar |location=London |publisher=Dent |year=1946 |oclc=8858707}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Rust |editor-first=Brian |editor-link=Brian Rust |title=Gramophone Records of the First World War – An HMV Catalogue 1914–18 |location=Newton Abbot |publisher=[[David & Charles]] |year=1975 |isbn=0-7153-6842-7}}
* {{cite book |last=Sackville-West |first=Edward |author-link=Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville |author2=[[Desmond Shawe-Taylor (music critic)|Shawe-Taylor, Desmond]] |title=The Record Guide |location=London |publisher=Collins |year=1955 |oclc=474839729}}
* {{cite book |last1=Sterndale |first1=A.C. |last2=Parker |first2=L.T. |last3=Smith |first3=C. |last4=Reed |first4=P.J.T. |last5=Tabor |first5=F.J. |last6=Davies |first6=F.K. |last7=Allcock |first7=N.J. |last8=Lucking |first8=J.H. |editor-last=White |editor-first=D.E. |title=The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part twelve: A Chronological and Statistical Survey |date=May 1974 |publisher=[[Railway Correspondence and Travel Society]] |location=Kenilworth}}
* {{cite book |last=Wood |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Wood |title=My Life of Music |location=London |publisher=Victor Gollancz |year=1938 |oclc=2600343}}
* {{cite book |last=Young |first=Percy M. |year=1971 |author-link=Percy M. Young |title=Sir Arthur Sullivan |location=London |publisher=J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd |isbn=0-460-03934-2 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/sirarthursulliva0000unse}}
* {{cite book |last=Young |first=Percy M. |year=1973 |title=Elgar O. M.: A Study of a Musician |location=London |publisher=Collins |oclc=869820}}
* {{cite book |last=Young |first=Percy M. |year=1995 |title=Elgar, Newman, and the Dream of Gerontius: In the Tradition of English Catholicism |location=Aldershot |publisher=Scolar Press |isbn=0-859-67877-6}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite journal |last=Adams |first=Byron |author-link=Byron Adams |year=2000 |title=The 'Dark Saying' of the Enigma: Homoeroticism and the Elgarian Paradox |journal=[[19th-Century Music]] |volume=23 |issue=3 |doi=10.2307/746879 |doi-access= |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Adams |editor-first=Byron |title=Edward Elgar and His World |location=Princeton and Oxford |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-691-13445-1 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Alldritt |first=Keith |author-link=Keith Alldritt |title=Elgar and the Journey to Hanley – a novel |isbn=0-233-97064-9 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Burley |first=Rosa |first2=Frank C. |last2=Carruthers |title=Edward Elgar: the record of a friendship |location=London |publisher=Barrie & Jenkins Ltd. |year=1972 |isbn=0-214-65410-9 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last1=Csizmadia |first1=Florian |title=Leitmotivik und verwandte Techniken in den Chorwerken von Edward Elgar: Analysen und Konexte |date=2017 |publisher=Dr. Köster |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3895749032 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Davies |first=Ken |title=The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part fourteen: Names and their Origins – Railmotor Services – War Service – The Complete Preservation Story |date=April 1993 |publisher=[[Railway Correspondence and Travel Society|RCTS]] |location=Lincoln |isbn=0-901115-75-4 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Grimley |editor1-first=Daniel |editor2-first=Julian |editor2-last=Rushton |editor2-link=Julian Rushton |title=The Cambridge Companion to Elgar |series=[[Cambridge Companions to Music]] |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-521-82623-3 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Harper-Scott |first=J. P. E. |author-link=J. P. E. Harper-Scott |title=Edward Elgar, Modernist |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2006 |isbn=0-521-86200-0 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Harper-Scott |first=J. P. E. |title=Elgar: an Extraordinary Life |location=London |publisher=Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music |year=2007 |isbn=1-86096-770-1 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Harper-Scott |editor1-first=J. P. E. |editor2-last=Rushton |editor2-first=Julian |editor2-link=Julian Rushton |title=Elgar Studies |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |isbn=0-521-86199-3 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last=Jacobs |first=Arthur |author-link=Arthur Jacobs |title=Elgar's Solo Songs |journal=[[The Musical Times]] |volume=90 |issue=1278 |jstor=933694 |date=August 1949 |pages=267–269 |publisher=Musical Times Publications Ltd |doi=10.2307/933694 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Kent |first=Christopher |year=2012 |title=Edward Elgar: A Research and Information Guide |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |location=Abingdon-on-Thames |isbn=978-1-135-27189-3 |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=23T0Qip-Jz8C}} |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last=McGuire |first=Charles Edward |year=2008 |title=Edward Elgar: "Modern" or "Modernist?" Construction of an Aesthetic Identity in the British Press, 1895–1934 |journal=[[The Musical Quarterly]] |volume=91 |issue=1–2 |doi=10.1093/musqtl/gdn026 |issn=0148-2076 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last=McGuire |first=Charles Edward |year=2000 |title=Elgar, Judas, and the Theology of Betrayal |journal=[[19th-Century Music]] |volume=23 |issue=3 |pages=236–272 |doi=10.2307/746880 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=McGuire |first=Charles Edward |title=Elgar's Oratorios: The Creation of an Epic Narrative |location=Aldershot |publisher=Ashgate Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-7546-0271-0 |issn=0148-2076 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Moore |first=Jerrold N. |author-link=Jerrold Northrop Moore |title=Elgar: A Life in Photographs |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1972 |isbn=0-19-315425-0 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Moore |first=Jerrold N. |title=Elgar: Child of Dreams |orig-year=First published by Modas Books (Tunbridge Wells), 1980<!--0-85936-120-9--> |location=London |publisher=Faber & Faber |year=2004 |isbn=0-571-22337-0 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Mundy |first=Simon |title=Elgar: His life and times |location=Tunbridge Wells |publisher=Modas Books |year=1980 |isbn=0-85936-120-9 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Payne |first=Anthony |author-link=Anthony Payne |title=Elgar's Third Symphony: The Story of the Reconstruction |location=London |publisher=Faber & Faber |year=1999 |isbn=0-57119-538-5 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Reed |first=W. H. |author-link=William Henry Reed |title=Elgar as I knew him |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1989 |isbn=0-19-282257-8 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last=Thomson |first=Aidan |year=2005 |title=Elgar and Chivalry |journal=[[19th-Century Music]] |volume=28 |issue=3 |issn=0148-2076 |doi=10.1525/ncm.2005.28.3.254 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last=Ward |first=Yvonne M. |year=2002 |title=Edward Elgar, A.C. Benson and the creation of Land of Hope and Glory |journal=[[The Court Historian]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |oclc=43272438 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Young |first=Percy M. |author-link=Percy M. Young |title=Alice Elgar: Enigma of a Victorian Lady |location=London |publisher=Dobson |year=1978 |isbn=0-234-77482-7 |ref=none}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
* {{IMSLP|id=Elgar, Edward}}
* {{ChoralWiki}}
* [http://www.elgar.org The Elgar Society], official site.
* [http://www.elgarfoundation.org/ The Elgar Foundation and Birthplace Museum], official site.
* [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P9100 "Elgar, Sir Edward William"] at [[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]]
* [http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-growing-significance-of-elgar "The Growing Significance of Elgar"], lecture by Simon Mundy, [[Gresham College]], 29 June 2007
* {{NPG name}}

{{S-start}}
{{s-court}}
{{S-bef|before=[[Walter Parratt|Sir Walter Parratt]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Master of the Queen's Musick<!-- Note: Musick is not a typo, but the correct spelling of the title until change in 1975. -->|Master of the King's Musick]]|years=1924–1934}}
{{S-aft|after=[[Walford Davies|Sir Henry Walford Davies]]}}
{{s-reg|uk-bt}}
{{s-new|creation}}
{{s-ttl|title=Baronet<br />'''(of Broadheath)'''|years=1931–1934}}
{{s-non|reason=Extinct}}
{{s-end}}

{{Edward Elgar}}
{{Romantic music}}
{{LSO principal conductors}}
{{Musical nationalism}}
{{subject bar|auto=y|d=y|Classical music|Music|Biography|United Kingdom}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elgar, Edward}}
[[Category:Edward Elgar| ]]
[[Category:1857 births]]
[[Category:1934 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century English classical composers]]
[[Category:19th-century British conductors (music)]]
[[Category:20th-century English classical composers]]
[[Category:20th-century English conductors (music)]]
[[Category:20th-century English male musicians]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Birmingham]]
[[Category:Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Brass band composers]]
[[Category:British ballet composers]]
[[Category:English male conductors (music)]]
[[Category:Burials in Worcestershire]]
[[Category:Catholic liturgical composers]]
[[Category:English classical composers of church music]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Order of the Crown (Belgium)]]
[[Category:Composers awarded knighthoods]]
[[Category:Composers for carillon]]
[[Category:Composers for pipe organ]]
[[Category:Deaths from colorectal cancer in England]]
[[Category:English male classical composers]]
[[Category:English Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:English Romantic composers]]
[[Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order]]
[[Category:Principal conductors of the London Symphony Orchestra]]
[[Category:Masters of the King's Music]]
[[Category:Members of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia]]
[[Category:Members of the Order of Merit]]
[[Category:Metropolitan Special Constabulary officers]]
[[Category:Musicians from Worcester, England]]
[[Category:Musicians from Worcestershire]]
[[Category:Oratorio composers]]
[[Category:People from Malvern, Worcestershire]]
[[Category:People of the Victorian era]]
[[Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists]]
[[Category:People from Fittleworth]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Victor Records artists]]
[[Category:Choral composers]]