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Edward Elgar and His World.

Article Excerpt
Edward Elgar and His World. Edited by Byron Adams. (Bard Music Festival.) Princeton: Princeton University-Press, 2007. [xxi, 426 p. ISBN-10: 0691134456; ISBN-13 978-0-691-13446-8. $22.95.IIIustrations, music examples, index.

2007 was the sesquicentennial of Elgar's birth, and--as may be expected in anniversary years--there has been a surge of publications and events related to the honoree. That Elgar would be the subject of the celebrated Bard Music Festival is noteworthy, especially given his rather marginal status in American concert life. In recent years the festival tide has included the first and last names of its subject--perhaps shying away from the "canonic" look of the household name. This postmodern move notwithstanding, by its nature the festival is "canonizing," and Elgar's admission 10 this selective list may be his most important achievement since being awarded the Order of Merit in 1911.

It is greatly to the credit of Byron Adams that, amid the plethora of Elgar material published in the last lew years, Edward Elgar and His World is a vital contribution. The organization of Elgar and. His World as outlined in the introduction Is attractive; conceding to the "two Elgars" trope that pervades much of the literature, Adams settles on a version of the trope articulated by Percy Young--private Worcestershire versus public London. As Adams emphasizes, "nearly all of Elgar's public and populist compositions, including all five of the Pomp and Ciraumstance. marches, were composed in the West Midlands, and his anguished and, in spite of the targe orchestral and choral forces employed, intimate reaction to the war,...