Elgar, Edward Books

The Cambridge Companion to Elgar (Cambridge Companions to Music)

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Editorial Review:

Divided into three sections, this Companion explores Edward Elgar's early career, his major musical achievements, and the reception, performance and interpretation of his work. Placed in this wider perspective, Elgar emerges as a pivotal figure in the British cultural imagination at a defining historical moment for England's musical identity.

Gerontius

James Hamilton-Paterson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Nuance and compassion in imaginary Elgar biography 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Music lovers as well as those who enjoy fine writing will find Hamilton-Paterson's imaginary account of a voyage up the Amazon by Edward Elgar not only entertaining and thought-provoking, but also ultimately very revealing of the contradictions and conflicts in Elgar's character. Hamilton-Paterson's research has been as thorough as his sympathy for his protagonist is obviously deep. This novel won the Whitbread prize for best first fiction

Editorial Review:

In this delightful novel, which won a Whitbread Prize in 1989, James Hamilton-Paterson joins celebrated British composer Edward Elgar on a cruise on the Amazon River and imagines what artists of the time may have pondered. "Oh Edward what a stupid doltish ass you've been to waste your life on the idea that art--in its small way--can make the least difference to things," he imagines Elgar as commenting. The book isn't merely a collection of questioning ruminations; the cruise is filled with a variety of comical and interesting passengers and crew members.

Elgar: Enigma Variations (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

Julian Rushton

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Editorial Review:

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.

Elgar the Music Maker

Diana McVeagh

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A wise reappraisal of an often misunderstood composer. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

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.

Editorial Review:

'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.

Elgar and His Publishers: Letters of a Creative Life Volume 1:1885-1903 and Volume 2:1904-1934

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Editorial Review:

Throughout his career, Elgar sought confidants in the publishing world, and when he found someone to whom he could open his heart, the letters that followed were among the most arresting ever written on the creative life. In this comprehensive collection, Jerrold Northrop Moore has gathered every letter of importance between Elgar and his publishers, including for the first time the correspondence between Elgar and his finest friend, the publishing manager of Novello, A.J. Jaeger--"Nimrod" of the "Enigma" Variations--as well as the letters Elgar wrote to Alfred Littleton, the chairman of Novello, to Keith Prowse, his final publisher, and to many others. These letters reach far back into the creative process, often to the formation of ideas and projects, providing a rare record of the vital relationship between a composer and his publisher.

Elgar The Erotic Variations & Delius A Moment with Delius (Ken Russell Presents)

Ken Russell

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Editorial Review:

Two fictional biographies of the famous composers Elgar and Delius.

Edward Elgar: A Guide to Research (Composer Resource Manuals)

Christophe Kent

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Editorial Review:

This work explores in depth Elgar's compositions and writings by and about the composer and his music. The compositions are examined in a work-by-work catalog, in chronological order, in which each entry gives a complete census and collation of manuscript, proof, text, biographical, printed edition and bibliographical sources for each item. The listing also includes unfinished sketches and details of much unpublished material. The bibliography section covers selected established literature as well as details of reviews and articles contained in the European periodicals at the climax of Elgar's career. An index is provided.

Elgar: The Man

Michael De-La-Noy

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Editorial Review:

Elgar deliberately made a mystery of his private life, so that only his most perceptive friends ever really knew Elgar the Man.

Born in 1857, the son of a piano-tuner and a farmer's daughter, Elgar spent his first forty years showing little sign that life had anything more to offer than his job as bandmaster in the Worcester Lunatic Asylum and a niche in the provincial music circuit. Then, in 1899, the success of his Enigma Variations made him a national celebrity. He crammed his whole life's work into the next twenty years, ending in 1919 with his Cello Concerto. He had fifteen years left to live, years spent in bitter disillusionment in which he felt his life had been a failure.

In this penetrating and moving biography Michael De-la-Noy reveals for the first time the depth and complexity of a man whom, he believes, struggled against exceptional emotional difficulties to produce some of the finest music ever written.

Elgar in Manuscript

Robert Anderson

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Editorial Review:

Edward Elgar's surviving manuscripts, whether full scores, musical sketches, letters or notebooks, are important sources for our knowledge of his working methods and his complex character. Here Robert Anderson examines the manuscript evidence, from some of Elgar's earliest exercises to the supreme achievements of the "Enigma Variations" and "Cello Concerto", and discusses the insights it provides into the development of the composer's works, his ideas, influences and ambitions. The book is illustrated throughout from manuscripts in the collections of the Elgar Birthplace Trust and The British Library, reproduced in duotone.

Elgar As I Knew Him (Oxford Paperbacks)

William H. Reed

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Editorial Review:

W. H. Reed was the leader of the London Symphony Orchestra and for many years an Elgar confidant. This reissue of his 1936 book reflects the growing interest in Elgar's music and provides a spontaneous, informal picture of every phase of his activities. Reed also provides insights into Elgar's music through analyses of his works and forty-two full-page reproductions comprising all that is coherent in the sketches for his Third Symphony.