Elgar in the Malvern

by David Wilmott

Elgar and the Malverns

Sir Edward Elgar the great English composer who died in 1934 spent much of his life within sight of the Malvern Hills, that ancient range of rocks which rise abruptly from the Vale of Evesham dominating what is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and historically interesting parts of England.

Visit the Malvern Hills, the surrounding countryside and the ancient small towns … it is not difficult to feel the effect the area would have had on the composer and the influence it bore on his music. As a small boy Elgar would sit by the banks pf the nearby River Severn “trying to write down what the reeds were saying” Little wonder that the area has become known as ‘Elgar country.’

Elgar was born in 1857 at Broadheath, a little village just north of the Malverns. His father owned a music shop in Worcester, and Edward was one of seven children who lived above the shop in the High Street near to the Cathedral.

Young Edward was therefore no stranger to music, being brought up surrounded by scores and musical instruments. He grasped the opportunity to learn from everything that passed through his father’s shop. He read all that he could about music, and he played every instrument that he could find.

Most of his basic musical knowledge was self taught When Edward was twelve the Elgar children devised an elaborate theatrical entertainment which they performed themselves. Edward was put in charge of the music, and he composed some pieces especially for their limited range of instruments and talents. These pieces were, some thirty years later, to form the basis of his “Wand of Youth Suite”

Edward soon mastered the piano and organ, but he was particularly fond of the violin playing with local amateur orchestras and even in the orchestra at the Three Choirs Festival (held annually at Gloucester, Hereford or Worcester) His talent for music was such that he was soon called on as an arranger and as a conductor. For some years he and other members of his family had played in the Attendant’s band in the Worcester City and County Pauper Lunatic Asylum at Powick .. When he was 22 he became the Band’s permanent conductor, for which he received the sum of £32 per annum plus a small fee for anything he wrote.

This gave Elgar a most valuable experience in orchestration, and in arranging music for unusual combinations of often amateur players; experience that was to bear fruit later in his musical career.

His next move was to set himself up as a violin teacher, first going to his pupils’ houses and eventually taking a room at Great Malvern, then a fashionable Spa town. Among his pupils was a Miss Caroline Alice Roberts, daughter of a retired Major-General, who travelled from Redmarley nine miles away for her lessons. She was thirty-eight, lived with her widowed mother and was passionately interested in the arts, having had two novels published. Despite family objections and the disparity in their ages Elgar and his pupil grew fond of one another and after her mother died Alice, as she was known ignored the protestations of her aunts and announced their engagement. She also joined Edward in the Catholic Church. [ Click to go to page 2 ]

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