Book Description
Edward Elgar is among the greatest of all English composers, and this major biography, the culmination of twenty years' work, is probably the most complete and perceptive study of the composer to date. Drawing on the vast amount of source material, much of it previously unpublished, Jerrold Northrop Moore presents Elgar's life and works as inseparable parts of a single creative career. This classic study, unavailable for many years, is here reissued as a Clarendon Paperback. ... Read more

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The definitive biography of an enigmatic composer.
Kudos to Oxford for bringing this classic back into print! Jerrold Northrop Moore worked for more than 20 years to write this definitive biography of one of Britain's greatest composers.

Using primary sourcesthat range from Elgar's musical sketches and scores to letters, diaries andcontemporary reviews, Moore shows how a self-taught violin teacher from aprovincial English town created such masterpieces as the Enigma Variations,the Cello Concerto and the Dream of Gerontius. All this at a time when thevogue for Brahms and other Continental composers made it hard for evenwell-connected British ones like Arthur Sullivan to get their orchestralworks heard.

Moore describes in fascinating detail how Elgar shaped andreshaped each major work, sometimes over a period of years--the SecondSymphony took almost a decade to compose. He also explores Elgar's complexpersonality. Uneasy about his middle-class origins, he often played therole of a bluff, country gentleman, but his music is more like that of aBritish Tchaikovsky--extravagant and restless, with a powerful emotionalcharge.

As Elgar's story unfolds, the whole artistic life of lateVictorian and Edwardian Britain is conjured up. Moore traces the composer'sfriendships with Hans Richter, Richard Strauss, Fritz Kreisler, GeorgeBernard Shaw and Augustus Jaeger, the editor at Novello's who recognizedand nurtured Elgar's genius. ... Read more

Book Description

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating, important, and influential figures in the history of British music. He rose from humble beginnings and achieved fame with music that to this day is beloved by audiences in England, and his work has secured an enduring legacy worldwide. Leading scholars examine the composer's life in Edward Elgar and His World, presenting a comprehensive portrait of both the man and the age in which he lived.

Elgar's achievement is remarkably varied and wide-ranging, from immensely popular works like the famous Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1--a standard feature of American graduations--to sweeping masterpieces like his great oratorio The Dream of Gerontius. The contributors explore Elgar's Catholicism, which put him at odds with the prejudices of Protestant Britain; his glorification of British colonialism; his populist tendencies; his inner life as an inspired autodidact; the aristocratic London drawing rooms where his reputation was made; the class prejudice with which he contended throughout his career; and his anguished reaction to World War I. Published in conjunction with the 2007 Bard Music Festival and the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth, this elegant and thought-provoking volume illuminates the greatness of this accomplished English composer and brings vividly to life the rich panorama of Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

The contributors are Byron Adams, Leon Botstein, Rachel Cowgill, Sophie Fuller, Daniel M. Grimley, Nalini Ghuman Gwynne, Deborah Heckert, Charles Edward McGuire, Matthew Riley, Alison I. Shiel, and Aidan J. Thomson.

Book Description

Product Description
"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 focus. Each of Elgar's works is discussed, balancing information and appraisal, from his juvenilia to his unfinished Third Symphony. Diana McVeagh provides a compelling and accessible companion to the music of one of England's greatest composers. Musicians, scholars and CD collectors alike will find much to enjoy in Elgar the Music Maker. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A wise reappraisal of an often misunderstood composer.
When I started to explore Elgar's music in the 1970s, Diana McVeagh's earlier book about him helped to light the way, so I was keenly interested to see what she would have to say now. I am happy to say that this book is a marvel of perceptive listening. McVeagh covers the full course of Elgar's musical development, surveying all of the major works as well as numerous songs and pieces for violin and piano, and she has valuable, new observations about many of them.

Despite the book's brevity--it runs to just 240 pages, including two detailed indexes--the author finds room for a thorough appraisal of the works she believes are Elgar's best. For example, she devotes 17 pages to "The Dream of Gerontius," the choral masterpiece that is just beginning to get the attention here that it deserves. She shows that many of the hallmarks of Elgar's musical idiom appeared early. In the fervent Romance for violin and piano, written when he was just 21, McVeagh hears a foreshadowing of both "King Olaf" and the Violin Concerto. She also uncovers overlooked gems by the mature composer, such as "The Herald," a memorable part song for male voices of 1925.

With its focus firmly on the music, this book is the perfect complement to the biographies by Robert Anderson, Michael Kennedy and Jerrold Northrop Moore. McVeagh's study unfolds chronologically, and she describes the main events of Elgar's life, but her chief biographical concern is in the way the contradictory aspects of his personality shaped his music. "The pull between outward certainty and inward despondency is what makes his mature music endlessly fascinating and rewarding ... The great achievement of his music is how he integrated the uncertainties within it."

If you have just heard the Enigma Variations and want to know more about Elgar, this is an ideal introduction. If, like me, you have been listening to his music for years, you will enjoy the fresh perspectives these pages offer on your favorite works. Either way, I think you will find McVeagh's book delightful.
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Book Description
This new biography of Elgar draws on letters and documents which have become available over the last twenty-five years. Michael Kennedy, a leading scholar of British music as well as a distinguished musical biographer, uses the new material (including Elgar's vast personal correspondence) to analyze the composer's complex personality. Elgar's letters reveal his unpredictable swings of mood, from gaiety and a fondness for puns to morose self-pity and a feeling that he was "not wanted." ... Read more

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An Excellent Introduction
I have had a longtime interest in the music of Sir Edward Elgar but I never knew very much about the composer or a great deal about his music, for that matter, other than his main works. With the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth I thought it was time to learn more about his, and this book by Michael Kennedy was everything that I wanted.

Mr. Kennedy's biography is well-written and nicely illustrated.He does not go into a lot of technical detail about Elgar's music which is appropriate in a general life and I can get additional detail, if I want it, from the internet.The author provides an excellent portrait of Elgar with all of his subject's complexities. The general view of Edward Elgar is that he was a proper Englishman and his music reflected the glory of empire and the so-called Edwardian period.Nothing could be more false.Elgar enjoyed and was influenced more by German music than anything else and he was very insecure about his stature as a composer, probably because he came to composition without much formal training.He often threatened to give up music altogether as a way of gaining sympathy and he would have bouts of psychosomatic illnesses, such as problems with his eyes and throat.

Mr. Kennedy's book provided me with an excellent introduction to all of Elgar's music and led me to investigate other works such as The Black Knight, the String Quartet and Quintet.He also relates events in Elgar's life but does not push the reader to any critical point-of-view or speculation.I came to some of my own conclusions: it seemed to me that Elgar's daughter Carice was rather neglected by her parents (for example, they did not attend her confirmation) in favor of her father's moods and temperament.One could also speculate about Elgar's relationship with Alice Wortly (his Windflower who was the Muse for his Violin Concerto and Second Symphony) and his late-in-life affection for Vera Hockman.I enjoyed reading about the recording of the Violin Concerto with the 16-year-old Yehudi Menuhin and with how much regard Elgar held this recording.

This is a very appealing and highly readable book that is an excellent introduction to Edward Elgar's life.After reading the book, I have pursued further reading - a more in-depth study of the Enigma Variations and the Cello Concerto - but this is a great volume to have and keep as a reference.
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Book Description
Elgar's Variations for Orchestra, commonly known as the 'Enigma' Variations, marked an epoch both in his career, and in the renaissance of English music at the turn of the century. The first extended study of the work,this Cambridge Music Handbook contains historical information concerning the conception and writing of the work, an extended musical discussion requiring only a little technical knowledge of music, and a fascinating survey of the "solutions" to the mystery implied by the title of Elgar's most famous work. ... Read more

Book Description
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 always felt ill at ease with them.Elgar was a depressive with a problematic marriage, who craved recognition, but in many ways he regretted the piece of music which made him famous. 'Pomp and Circumstance' made him the leading English composer of his age, but also contributed to the jingoism which he so disliked during the First World War.

Yet, unquestionably, he was the greatest musical genius that England had produced in centuries.This Anniversary Portrait, by some of the scholars and musicians that understand him best, offers interesting new light on a wide range of aspects of Edward Elgar's life and work. Richard Strauss`s famous toast to Elgar in 1902- ` to the welfare and success of the first English progressivist`- looks startling today. Is not Elgar the last embodiment of a fading Empire, a composer of late romantic music that even for its period was behind the times? That cliched view has become ever more inadequate over a period when Elgar`s music has increasingly been performed and acknowledged internationally. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting set of essays on a great composer
This book contains several rewarding essays on Sir Edward Elgar that help provide a fuller picture of the composer of several well-known pieces (the Pomp & Circumstance March #1 being in the super-well-known category). Each reader is likely to find a different set of essays to be most interesting; mine are those by Diana McVeagh, Stephen Hough and Mark Elder. One problem is that the authors are not identified. Some, such as Hough, Janet Baker and Yehudi Menuhin are well-known, but the others are known mostly to persons already well familiar with the composer, and some will be new to most readers. Many chapters have notes, but the one by Hans Keller does not despite his quoting three sources. ... Read more

Book Description
The first full-length analytical study of Edward Elgar's music, this book argues that Elgar was a modernist composer, and that his music constitutes a pessimistic twentieth-century assessment of the nature of human being. Focusing on Elgar's music rather than his life, Harper-Scott blends the hermeneutic and existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger with music-analytical methods derived from Heinrich Schenker and James Hepokoski. In the course of engaging with debates centred on duotonality in musical structures, sonata deformations, meaning in music, the nature of tragedy, and the quest narrative, the book rejects poststructuralist and literary-theoretical interpretations of music, radically interprets Schenkerian theory, and tentatively outlines a new space - a Heideggerian 'clearing' - in which music of all periods can be understood to operate, be experienced, and be understood. The book includes a detailed glossary which provides the reader with clear definitions of important and difficult terms. ... Read more

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First performed in 1919, The Concerto for Violincello and Orchestra was Elgar's last major completed work. It has become one of the best loved and most frequently performed concertos for cello.For this new edition of Elgar's arrangements for cello and piano, having consulted the composer's hitherto unrecongnised composition sketch, John Pickard (General Editor of the Elgar Society Edition) has taken careful account of differences with the printed full score, to provide the clearest possible version for cellists preparing to perform the work. ... Read more

Book Description
These two landmark volumes - prepared by leading authorities in the field - locate bureaucracy in its proper historical and theoretical context. They demonstrate that far from being a spent force bureaucratic organizations and processes are, and will continue to be, of central importance in the new millennium. Volume I outlines both the changing historical forms of bureaucracy and its operation in contemporary political systems before moving on to examine the detail of bureaucratic structures and processes. Volume II discusses bureaucrats in action and the political dimensions of bureaucratic power. In addition it explores the various critiques of bureaucracy before analyzing the recent agendas for bureaucratic reform and the strengths and weaknesses of alternative structures. These two authoritative volumes will be essential reading for political scientists, historians, organizational and administrative theorists and students of public sector management old and new. ... Read more

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This digital document is a journal article from European Journal of Political Economy, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Book Description
This record of Elgar's intimate friendship with Alice Stuart Wortley--daughter of the painter Millais and wife of an MP--and her family chronicles a period of great artistic accomplishment set against a brilliant background of Edwardian theater, Royal Academy dinners, and private concerts.
Containing some of Elgar's finest letters, many never before published, the volume also draws on diaries, manuscript notes, and personal recollections to fill gaps in the correspondence, creating a rich and full portrait of a fascinating society and a great artist at the height of his powers. ... Read more