Edward Elgar was born in Broadheath, a village near Worcester, England, on June 2, 1857. Although his father was a piano tuner and the owner of a music shop, Elgar had little formal musical education, and was largely self-taught. His mother encouraged his earliest forays into composition, and, from the age of 16, he worked locally as a music teacher.
In 1889, Elgar married one of his pupils, Caroline Alice Roberts. After a brief, and largely unsuccessful, attempt to establish himself in London, Elgar returned with Alice (as his wife was known) to Worcestershire, where he acquired a modest reputation as a writer of cantatas. It was Alice who reputedly spotted the originality of a tiny musical phrase that Elgar was improvising, and encouraged him to use it as the basis for the work that finally brought him fame.
The official title of this orchestral piece was Variations on an Original Theme, but it became known as the “Enigma Variations”—the “enigma” being the identity of the original, larger theme that is actually never stated. The conductor Hans Richter instantly recognised the “Enigma Variations” as a masterpiece, and conducted its first performance in London in 1899- The music marks the belated arrival of Elgar’s fully-fledged style—in which nobility, nostalgia, and a quiet passion are fused into an intimate and deeply felt poetry.
Elgar’s next major work, the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius (1900), further developed his mature style. Although its first performance in Birmingham was a failure, a more successful performance in Düsseldorf, Germany, the following year, confirmed Elgar’s status as the most gifted English composer of his generation. Richard STRAUSS, who attended the Düsseldorf performance, toasted Elgar as the “first English progressive composer.”
Other works were received more favourably in Britain: the concert-overture Cockaigne (1901) and the first two parts of a series of five concert marches collectively titled Pomp and Circumstance (1901–30). These popular marches echoed the pageantry of the British Empire, and Elgar became a national hero. He was showered with honours, a knighthood, and the Order of Merit among them, and in 1905 he was appointed Professor of Music at Birmingham University. His success, however, was not limited to Britain. In 1904, he travelled to the U.S. to receive a Yale doctorate, and was to return on three later occasions to conduct his work.
World War I changed everything for Elgar. The years of conflict profoundly depressed him, radically altering both his outlook on life and his music, which had been so closely tied to the ethos of the turn of the century. A small group of works, including his deeply reflective, gentle Cello Concerto (1919), echoed his new, melancholy mood. The Cello Concerto’s performance was the last witnessed by Lady Elgar, who died early in 1920. After her death, Elgar wrote very little new music.
In 1923, Elgar returned to live in Worcester, where he completed his oratorio trilogy, and began work on his unfinished Symphony No. 3, and an opera based on Ben Jonson’s The Devil Is an Ass. He also worked enthusiastically at recording his own music for the gramophone—one of the first composers to do so— including a performance of the Violin Concerto (written in 1910), starring a 16-year-old violinist, Yehudi MENUHIN. Elgar died on February 23, 1934.
Alan Blackwood
SEE ALSO:
BRITTEN, BENJAMIN; LATE ROMANTICISM; ORCHESTRAL MUSIC; TIPPETT, MICHAEL; VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, RALPH.
FURTHER READING
Kennedy, M. Portrait of Elgar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995);
Nice, David. Edward Elgar: An Essential Guide to His Life and Works (London: Pavilion, 1996).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
The Apostles; Cello Concerto; Cockaigne; The Dream of Gerontius; “Enigma Variations”; Falstaff; Pomp and Circumstance; Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2; Violin Concerto.