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Edward Elgar

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, ( (listen); 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.

Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society of Victorian and Edwardian Britain, he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition. He nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British Army officer. She inspired him both musically and socially, but he struggled to achieve success until his forties, when after a series of moderately successful works his Enigma Variations (1899) became immediately popular in Britain and overseas. He followed the Variations with a choral work, The Dream of Gerontius (1900), based on a Roman Catholic text that caused some disquiet in the Anglican establishment in Britain, but it became, and has remained, a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere. His later full-length religious choral works were well received but have not entered the regular repertory.

In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a violin concerto that were immensely successful. His second symphony and his cello concerto did not gain immediate public popularity and took many years to achieve a regular place in the concert repertory of British orchestras. Elgar's music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. His stock remained low for a generation after his death. It began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. Some of his works have, in recent years, been taken up again internationally, but the music continues to be played more in Britain than elsewhere.

Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of acoustic recordings of his works. The introduction of the moving-coil microphone in 1923 made far more accurate sound reproduction possible, and Elgar made new recordings of most of his major orchestral works and excerpts from The Dream of Gerontius.

Birth and Death Data: Born June 2, 1857 (Broadheath), Died February 23, 1934 (Worcester)

Date Range of DAHR Recordings: 1902 - 1938

Roles Represented in DAHR: composer, conductor

= Recordings are available for online listening.
= Recordings were issued from this master. No recordings issued from other masters.

Recordings (Results 1-25 of 121 records)

Company Matrix No. Size First Recording Date Title Primary Performer Description Role Audio
Victor [Pre-matrix A-]1199 7-in. 1/7/1902 Salut d'amour Sousa's Band Band composer  
Victor [Pre-matrix B-]1199 10-in. 1/7/1902 Salut d'amour Sousa's Band Band composer  
Victor A-341 7-in. 8/25/1903 Salut d'amour Sousa's Band Band composer  
Victor B-341 10-in. 8/25/1903 Salut d'amour Sousa's Band Band composer  
Victor C-341 12-in. 8/25/1903 Salut d'amour Sousa's Band Band composer  
Victor A-1245 7-in. 4/21/1904 Salut d'amour Arthur Pryor's Band Band composer  
Victor B-1245 10-in. 4/21/1904 Salut d'amour Arthur Pryor's Band Band composer  
Victor C-1245 12-in. 4/21/1904 Salut d'amour Arthur Pryor's Band Band composer  
Victor C-2067 12-in. 12/21/1904 Pomp and circumstance march no. 1 Sousa's Band Band composer  
Victor B-8100 10-in. 7/8/1909 Salut d'amour Howard Rattay Violin solo, with orchestra composer  
Victor B-12296 10-in. 8/7/1912 Salut d'amour Neapolitan Trio Instrumental trio composer  
Victor C-12358 12-in. 9/11/1912 Pomp and circumstance march Arthur Pryor's Band Band composer  
Victor B-13003 10-in. 3/19/1913 Pleading John McCormack Tenor vocal solo composer  
Victor B-13728 10-in. 9/8/1913 Salut d'amour Maud Powell Violin solo, with piano composer  
Victor B-14598 10-in. 3/20/1914 Sevillana United States Marine Band Band composer  
Victor B-15311 10-in. 10/28/1914 Land of hope and glory Lyric Quartet Mixed vocal quartet, with orchestra composer  
Victor B-15502 10-in. 12/15/1914 Land of hope and glory Wilfred Glenn Male vocal solo, with male vocal chorus and orchestra composer  
Victor C-15900 12-in. 4/15/1915 The pipes of Pan Emilio de Gogorza Baritone vocal solo, with orchestra composer  
Victor B-21075 10-in. 11/9/1917 Capricieuse Jascha Heifetz Violin solo, with piano composer  
Victor B-22847 10-in. 5/13/1919 Lo! Now the dawn is breaking Lillian Rosedale Goodman ; Vivian Holt Female vocal duet, with violin and orchestra composer  
Victor B-25178 10-in. 4/11/1921 Salut d'amour Margaret McKee Whistling solo, with orchestra composer  
Victor B-25937 10-in. 1/6/1922 Salut d'amour Harry Kaufman ; Efrem Zimbalist Violin solo, with piano composer  
Victor BVE-25937 10-in. 2/2/1926 Salut d'amour Efrem Zimbalist Violin solo, with piano composer  
Victor B-26539 10-in. 6/13/1922 Exercise no. 3 : Salut d'amour Frank Croxton Physical instruction, with orchestra composer  
Victor B-27978 10-in. 5/28/1923 Ejercicios físicos, nos. 3 y 4 Alcides Briceño Physical instruction, with instrumental ensemble composer  
(Results 1-25 of 121 records)

Citation

Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "Elgar, Edward," accessed March 28, 2024, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/101974.

Elgar, Edward. (2024). In Discography of American Historical Recordings. Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/101974.

"Elgar, Edward." Discography of American Historical Recordings. UC Santa Barbara Library, 2024. Web. 28 March 2024.

DAHR Persistent Identifier

URI: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/101974

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