His father, William Henry Elgar (1821–1906), was raised in Dover and had been apprenticed to a London music publisher. 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.īiography Elgar's birthplace, The Firs, Lower Broadheath Early years Įdward Elgar was born in the small village of Lower Broadheath, near Worcester, England, on 2 June 1857. Between 19, he conducted a series of acoustic 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.Įlgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. It began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. His stock remained low for a generation after his death. Elgar's music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. 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. In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a violin concerto that were immensely successful. His later full-length religious choral works were well received but have not entered the regular repertory. 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 Anglican establishment in Britain, but it became, and has remained, a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere. 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 nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British Army officer. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer in Protestant Britain, his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters and in the class-conscious society of Victorian and Edwardian Britain, he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.Īlthough Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, OM, GCVO ( / ˈ ɛ l ɡ ɑːr/ ⓘ 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. For other uses, see Elgar (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Edward Elgar Publishing.
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