Edward Elgar Overview

Edward Elgar was born in the small village of Lower Broadheath outside Worcester, England to William Elgar, a music dealer, and his wife Anne (née Greening). Elgar was the fourth of their seven children: Henry John (known as Harry, 15 October... [more]

Edward Elgar was born in the small village of Lower Broadheath outside Worcester, England to William Elgar, a music dealer, and his wife Anne (née Greening). Elgar was the fourth of their seven children: Henry John (known as Harry, 15 October 1848– 5 May 1864), Lucy Ann (Loo, born 29 May 1852), Susannah Mary (Pollie, 28 December 1854), Edward William (Ted, 2 June 1857), Frederick Joseph (Jo, 28 August 1859- 1866), Francis Thomas (Frank, 1 October 1861), and Helen Agnes (Dott or Dot, 1 January 1864). His mother, Anne, had converted to Catholicism shortly before Edward's birth, so Edward was baptised and brought up as a Roman Catholic. Elgar was an early riser, and would often turn to reading Voltaire, Drayton historical classics, Longfellow and other works encouraged by his mother. By the age of eight, he was taking piano and violin lessons, and would often listen to his father playing the organ at St. George's church, and soon also took it up. His prime interest, however, was the violin, and his first written music was for that instrument. Surrounded by sheet music, instruments, and music textbooks in his father's shop in Worcester's High Street, the young Elgar became self-taught in music theory. On warm summer days, he would take manuscripts into the countryside to study them (he was a passionate and adventurous early cyclist from the age of 5). Thus there began for him a strong association between music and nature. As he was later to say, "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." At the age of 15, Elgar had hoped to go to Leipzig, Germany to study music, but lacking the funds he instead left school and began working for a local solicitor. Around this time he made his first public appearances as a violinist and organist. After a few months, he left the solicitor and embarked on a musical career, giving piano and violin lessons, and working occasionally in his father's shop. Elgar was an active member of the Worcester Glee Club, along with his father, and he accompanied singers, played violin, composed and arranged works, and even conducted for the first time. At 22 he took up the post of bandmaster at the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum in Powick, three miles south-west of Worcester, a progressive institution which believed in the recuperative powers of music. He composed here too; some of the pieces for the asylum orchestra (music in dance forms) were rediscovered and performed locally in 1996. In many ways, his years as a young Worcestershire violinist were his happiest. He played in the first violins at the Worcester and Birmingham Festivals, and one great experience was to play Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 6 and Stabat Mater under the composer's baton. As part of a wind quintet and for his musical friends, he arranged dozens of pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, and other masters, honing his arranging and compositional skills, and applying them to his earliest pieces. Although somewhat solitary and introspective by nature, Elgar thrived in Worcester's musical circles. Elgar's Salut d'Amour is one of his most well-known works. In his first trips abroad in 1880-82, Elgar visited Paris and Leipzig, attended concerts by first rate orchestras, and was exposed to the music of Richard Wagner, then the rage. Returning to his more provincial milieu increased his desire for a wider fame. He 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 ... I am not wanting in energy I think, so sometimes I conclude that 'tis want of ability...I have no money--not a cent." [show less]