ABSTRACT
To write of Elgar the Edwardian is to acknowledge that he is regarded as a significant historical figure, quite apart from his music. His 'image' to many of the public is still as the embodiment of certain aspects of the period from 1900 to 1914. He even looked like a soldier or a squire. It was very reassuring to English philistines to have a composer who did not look much like one. Besides, to those who did know of Elgar the musician, he fitted the image they had devised for him: 'Pomp and Circumstance'; 'Imperial March'; 'The Banner of St George'. So we have Elgar the Edwardian or Elgar the Imperialist and for a long time he obscured the real Elgar, who was someone very different. The real Elgar is always there, of course. He is in The Banner ofSt George and all the marches. But it takes attuned ears to hear him, or it did until quite recently. We are told in one history of the period' that Elgar 'plunged himself into the popular emotions of the day with a sensual romanticism. He was 40 years old in the year of the Diamond Jubilee and he saw himself then as a musical laureate, summoned by destiny to hymn Britannia's greatness'. 1 It is only non-musicians who write like this. Far from being summoned by destiny, he was commissioned by his publisher to write the Imperial March and The Banner ofSt George and he viewed both as jobs of work, though writing them to the best of his ability, and hoped for a commercial success so that he could concentrate on a symphony.
