This book takes you by the hand and provides you with a friendly introduction not just to the enigmatic music, but also to the passionate and private person. In true Classic FM syle, the jargon that sometimes surrounds classical music has gone, to give you a fun, accessible read.

Includes a FREE 47 minute CD of extracts from some of Elgar's best loved works.

224 pages 978 0 340 93911 6

Introduction
A Friendly Word Before We Get Started
The Friendly Guide to What Was Composed When
The Story of Elgar: The Cast List
When Elgar... more

Despite the volume of literature already written about Elgar there is one aspect of his creative work which has been comparatively neglected. This concerns the period 1917-1921 when the Elgars rented an ancient cottage, Brinkwells, deep in rural Sussex. Here, against the backdrop of the last months of the Great War, Elgar wrote his mature chamber music and most of one of his finest works, the Cello Concerto.

But Brinkwells had its own history and artistic ambience too, and to separate Elgar and his music from the influence of this environment is to tell only part of the story.

He rented the cottage... more

How did the son of a provincial piano tuner rise to international fame?

Was the English countrysisde the principle inspiration for Elgar's music?

Was this moustachioed, red-blooded imperialist all that he seemed?

In this fascinating and accessible history, Harper-Scott takes a combative swipe at many of the critical myths and prejudices that have attached themselves to the figure of Elgar, revealing both a surprisingly elusive personality and a deeper, often darker message within his works.

154 pages, 31 illustrations

ABRSM 98 1 86096 770 2

"The new Diana McVeagh book on Elgar is first-rate," wrote Gerald Finzi of her earlier study of the composer, published in 1955.

In the completely new Elgar the Music Maker she harvests five decades of thoughts about his music, scrutinizing the biographical details that have since been discovered and using them to assess the ways in which they affect the compositions.

Diana McVeagh explores Elgar's complex personality and his compositional methods, his style and his relationship to his contemporaries, yet it is the music - still played, recorded, loved and discussed as much as ever - that remains her prime... more

June 2007 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Edward Elgar. Here, to mark the occasion, is a collection of new essays by a distinguished group of contributors. They deal with Elgar the Man and Composer, as well as with issues connected to Elgar's lasting legacy and to the performance of his music.

Elgar was a man of many contradictions. He was born an outsider, into a family of lower-middle class, Catholic, origins. Yet his fame, and ability to write music that struck a chord in the national consciousness, led him to adopt a sycophantic attitude towards the Royal Family and high society, even though he... more

Princeton University Press 978 0 691 13446 8

Acknowledgments
Permissions

Of Worcester and London: An Introduction
by BYRON ADAMS

PART I: WORCESTER
1. Measure of a Man: Catechizing Elgar's Catholic Avatars
by CHARLES EDWARD MCGUIRE
2. Elgar the Escapist?
by MATTHEW RILEY
3. Elgar and the Persistence of Memory
by BYRON ADAMS
4. "The Spirit-Stirring Drum": Elgar and Populism
by DANIEL M. GRIMLEY

PART II: DOCUMENTS
5. Early Reviews of The Apostles in British Periodicals
SELECTED, INTRODUCED, AND... more

In April 1928, Elgar visited the dockyard city of Portsmouth to conduct Caractacus at the Guildhall. It was Elgar's only appearance in Portsmouth, and he came at the invitation of Ernest Birch, a dynamic, meticulous organist and choirmaster who single-handedly founded a new Choir which outshone other local bodies, especially after the imprimatur of Elgar's visit.

The occasion was a success, although no doubt Birch was disconcerted by Elgar's insistence on a shopping trip to Woolworth's before the rehearsal.

The Portsmouth North End Choral Society, Elgar, and Caractacus is based almost entirely on local documentary sources... more