Edward Elgar Free Sheet Music Program Notes Recordings and Biography

On a June evening in 1899, a London audience heard the premiere of a new work by a little-known provincial composer. The piece was titled Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36. But the composer, Edward Elgar, had embedded a puzzle within it. He claimed that through and over the whole set of variations, another and larger theme “goes” but is not played. What was this hidden melody? Elgar took the secret to his grave, sparking a mystery that has fascinated musicians and cryptographers for over a century. This single, brilliant act of musical invention, the Enigma Variations, transformed the struggling, self-taught musician from the countryside into the most celebrated English composer of his generation.

Early Life and Self-Education

Sir Edward William Elgar was born on June 2, 1857, in the small village of Broadheath, outside Worcester, England. His background was modest; his father, William, was a piano tuner and owned a music shop. The young Elgar grew up surrounded by sheet music, instruments, and the sound of local music-making. Though he received some basic violin and piano lessons, he was, in essence, entirely self-taught as a composer. He devoured the scores in his father’s shop, studying the works of the great masters on his own and mastering orchestration from textbooks.

This outsider status would define much of his life and career. He was not a product of the London-based Royal Academy of Music or Royal College of Music. Furthermore, he was a Roman Catholic in a staunchly Protestant nation. For years, he worked as a freelance musician in the Worcester area, teaching, conducting the local asylum’s band, and composing minor works for local festivals. He was a capable, respected local musician, but national recognition seemed an impossible dream.

The Struggle for Recognition and the Role of Alice

In 1889, Elgar married Caroline Alice Roberts, the daughter of a high-ranking British army officer. Alice’s family disowned her for marrying a poor, Catholic musician, but she became his most fervent believer. She was his business manager, his copyist, and his unwavering emotional support. It was Alice who insisted they move to London to try and crack the city’s elite musical establishment.

The attempt failed. The London critics were dismissive, and the couple was forced to return to the provinces, their finances in poor shape. Elgar was prone to fits of depression and self-doubt, often lamenting his lack of formal training and social standing. During these years, he worked tirelessly, honing his craft and searching for a breakthrough.

The Breakthrough: 'Enigma' and 'Gerontius'

The breakthrough came in 1899 with the Enigma Variations. The work consists of a theme and fourteen variations, each a musical portrait of one of Elgar’s friends or acquaintances ("friends pictured within"). The most famous of these is Variation IX, “Nimrod,” a noble and deeply moving tribute to his close friend and publisher at Novello & Co., August Jaeger. Jaeger had been a constant source of encouragement during Elgar’s darkest days. “Nimrod” has since become a piece of national solemnity in Britain, played at funerals and remembrance services. The work was an immediate triumph, lauded for its brilliant orchestration, emotional depth, and originality.

A year later, Elgar produced his choral masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius (1900). This massive oratorio, setting a poem by Cardinal John Henry Newman about a soul's journey after death, was deeply personal to Elgar’s Catholic faith. Its premiere in Birmingham was a disaster, plagued by an under-rehearsed choir. But the work was soon performed in Germany, where it was championed by the great composer Richard Strauss, who declared it a "masterpiece of the first rank." His endorsement secured Elgar’s international reputation.

The Edwardian Laureate

With the dawn of the 20th century and the reign of King Edward VII, Elgar became the unofficial musical laureate of the Edwardian Era. His music seemed to perfectly capture the confidence, pageantry, and grandeur of imperial Britain at its peak. This was most famously expressed in his Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1901-1907). The trio section of March No. 1 was so popular that, at the suggestion of the King himself, Elgar set it to words as “Land of Hope and Glory,” an anthem that rivals “God Save the King” in popularity.

Honors were showered upon him. He was knighted in 1904, received the prestigious Order of Merit in 1911, and was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. During this period, he composed a string of major orchestral works, including two powerful symphonies and the monumental Violin Concerto (1910), one of the longest and most demanding in the repertoire. He had finally achieved the success that had so long eluded him.

War, Loss, and a Final Masterpiece

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 shattered the optimistic world that Elgar’s music had come to represent. The composer, like the nation, was profoundly changed by the conflict's brutal reality. His music turned inward, becoming more somber, elegiac, and reflective. The swagger and pomp of his earlier works gave way to a deep sense of loss.

This period culminated in his final great work, the Cello Concerto in E minor (1919). The concerto opens not with a grand statement, but with a sorrowful, searching recitative from the solo cello. The entire piece is imbued with an autumnal, melancholic quality—a farewell to the Edwardian age and a lament for a world that had been lost forever. It is a work of intense introspection and profound sadness.

Tragedy struck a year later when his beloved wife, Alice, died in 1920. Her death devastated Elgar. He wrote, "the life and light and joy and help of my life has gone." With his greatest champion gone, his creative inspiration largely vanished. He composed very little for the rest of his life, preferring to enjoy country life, attend horse races, and experiment with the new medium of gramophone recording. Sir Edward Elgar died from cancer on February 23, 1934.

Legacy

Sir Edward Elgar holds a unique place in history as the man who reawakened English classical music. For 200 years since the death of Henry Purcell, England had produced no composer of major international stature. Elgar, the self-taught outsider from the provinces, changed that. He crafted a musical language that was unmistakably English yet universal in its appeal, combining the harmonic richness of Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner with a noble, lyrical quality all his own. His work stands as a musical portrait of an era, from the confident pageantry of empire to the deep, private sorrow of a man who had known both struggle and triumph.

Section 4: References and Further Reading

• Kennedy, Michael. Portrait of Elgar. 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 1987.

• Moore, Jerrold Northrop. Edward Elgar: A Creative Life. Oxford University Press, 1984.

• Young, Percy M. Elgar, O.M.: A Study of a Musician. Collins, 1955.

• Elgar: The Man Behind the Mask (2004). A documentary film directed by John Bridcut.