Edward Elgar Research Paper
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, OM, GCVO (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 andcello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick 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 …show more content…
However, his only formal musical training beyond piano and violin lessons from local teachers was more advanced violin studies with Adolf Pollitzer, during brief visits to London in 1877–78. Elgar said "my first music was learnt in the Cathedral ... from books borrowed from the music library, when I was eight, nine or ten."[10] He worked through manuals of instruction on organ playing and read every book he could find on the theory of music.[5] He later said that he had been most helped by Hubert Parry's articles in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.[11] Elgar began to learn German, in the hope of going to the 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."[5] 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.[n 5] Around this time, he made his first public appearances as a violinist and …show more content…
The following year he presented his 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."[69] Elgar asked Reed, "What is the matter with them, Billy? They sit there like a lot of stuffed pigs."[69] 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
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, OM, GCVO (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 andcello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick 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 …show more content…
However, his only formal musical training beyond piano and violin lessons from local teachers was more advanced violin studies with Adolf Pollitzer, during brief visits to London in 1877–78. Elgar said "my first music was learnt in the Cathedral ... from books borrowed from the music library, when I was eight, nine or ten."[10] He worked through manuals of instruction on organ playing and read every book he could find on the theory of music.[5] He later said that he had been most helped by Hubert Parry's articles in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.[11] Elgar began to learn German, in the hope of going to the 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."[5] 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.[n 5] Around this time, he made his first public appearances as a violinist and …show more content…
The following year he presented his 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."[69] Elgar asked Reed, "What is the matter with them, Billy? They sit there like a lot of stuffed pigs."[69] 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