Elgar: where to start with his music

From the elegiac Nimrod to the poignant Cello Concerto and his magnificent choral works, there is far more to this British composer than pomp and circumstance

If Britain has a national composer, it is Edward Elgar (1857-1934). His music is often seen as epitomising the smug Victorian world into which he was born, but though he wrote his quota of “patriotic” pieces, he was much more than a flag-waving imperialist; his influences and musical outlook were profoundly European rather than home-grown. Elgar was the most significant composer Britain has produced since Henry Purcell, and his finest music – the symphonies and concertos – easily stands comparison with that of his late-romantic contemporaries Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2HEZrLy