Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Elgar and his British contemporaries
- 3 Elgar and his publishers
- 4 Magic by mosaic: some aspects of Elgar's compositional methods
- 5 Elgar's musical language: the shorter instrumental works
- 6 The early choral works
- 7 Elgar's later oratorios: Roman Catholicism, decadence and the Wagnerian dialectic of shame and grace
- 8 Roman Catholicism and being musically English: Elgar's church and organ music
- 9 ‘A smiling with a sigh’: the chamber music and works for strings
- 10 In search of the symphony: orchestral music to 1908
- 11 The later orchestral music (1910–34)
- 12 Elgar's unwumbling: the theatre music
- 13 Elgar and recording
- 14 Broadcasting's ally: Elgar and the BBC
- 15 Elgar in German criticism
- 16 Functional music: imperialism, the Great War, and Elgar as popular composer
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
3 - Elgar and his publishers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Elgar and his British contemporaries
- 3 Elgar and his publishers
- 4 Magic by mosaic: some aspects of Elgar's compositional methods
- 5 Elgar's musical language: the shorter instrumental works
- 6 The early choral works
- 7 Elgar's later oratorios: Roman Catholicism, decadence and the Wagnerian dialectic of shame and grace
- 8 Roman Catholicism and being musically English: Elgar's church and organ music
- 9 ‘A smiling with a sigh’: the chamber music and works for strings
- 10 In search of the symphony: orchestral music to 1908
- 11 The later orchestral music (1910–34)
- 12 Elgar's unwumbling: the theatre music
- 13 Elgar and recording
- 14 Broadcasting's ally: Elgar and the BBC
- 15 Elgar in German criticism
- 16 Functional music: imperialism, the Great War, and Elgar as popular composer
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
‘Elgar Brothers’, the music shop at 10 High Street, Worcester, became a mounting embarrassment to Elgar as his composing confidence increased and he aspired to a higher social position. Retail trade might have been acceptable as background to his Helen Weaver engagement. But there were rumours also of a connection with Sarah-Anne Wilkinson Newholme made while staying with Dr Charles Buck in Yorkshire, then of an attempted engagement to Gertrude Walker, musical daughter of the rector and squire at Abbots Norton, with whom Elgar shared many a concert platform, and who went on to breed dogs and become local secretary of the British Shakespeare Society. Above all there was Alice Roberts, a major-general's daughter born in India, whose social concerns in her early writings became rather, after her marriage to Elgar on 8 May 1889, a determination to raise her composer husband out of the sphere he was born in. Occasionally Elgar's mother might visit the home of the couple; occasionally the father would be summoned to tend a piano; but there is no record of the parents being invited together. To anticipate the Gerontius premiere, F. G. Edwards of the Musical Times planned a major article on Elgar. Alice Elgar, in a letter to Edwards of 18 September 1900, put her foot down firmly on certain matters, and notably the ‘shop’; ‘Then as E. has nothing to do with the business in Worcester would you please leave out details which do not affect him&with which he has nothing to do – His interests being quite unconnected with business.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Elgar , pp. 24 - 31Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005