Uh. Elgar is the largest English composer of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The formation and flourishing of his activities are closely associated with the period of the highest economic and political power of England during the reign of Queen Victoria. The technical and scientific achievements of English culture and the firmly established bourgeois-democratic freedoms had a fruitful influence on the development of literature and art. But if the national literary school at this time put forward
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Uh. Elgar is the largest English composer of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The formation and flourishing of his activities are closely associated with the period of the highest economic and political power of England during the reign of Queen Victoria. The technical and scientific achievements of English culture and the firmly established bourgeois-democratic freedoms had a fruitful influence on the development of literature and art. But if the national literary school at this time put forward outstanding figures of C. Dickens, W. Thackeray, T. Hardy, O. Wilde, B. Shaw, then music was just beginning to revive after almost two centuries of silence. Among the first generation of composers of the English Renaissance, the most prominent role belongs to Elgar, whose work vividly reflects the optimism and resilience of the Victorian era. In this he is close to R. Kipling. The homeland of Elgar is the English province, surrounding the town of Worcester, near Birmingham. Having received the first music lessons from his father, organist and keeper of a music shop, Elgar further developed independently, comprehending the basics of the profession in practice. Only in 1882 the composer passed the exams at the Royal Academy of Music in the violin class and in musical and theoretical subjects. Already as a child, he mastered the play of many instruments - violin, piano, in 1885 replaced his father as a church organist. The English province at that time was a faithful guardian of the national musical - and especially - choral traditions. A huge network of amateur circles and clubs maintained these traditions at a fairly high level. In 1873, Elgar began his professional career as a violinist at the Worcester Glee Club (choral society), and from 1882 he worked in his hometown as a concertmaster and conductor of an amateur orchestra. During these years, the composer composes a lot of choral music for amateur groups, piano plays and chamber ensembles, studies the work of classics and contemporaries, acts as a pianist and organist. From the late 80s to 1929, Elgar alternately lives in different cities, including London and Birmingham (where he teaches at the university for 3 years), and completes his life at home - in Worcester. The importance of Elgar for the history of English music is determined primarily by two compositions: the oratorio "Dream of Gerontius" (1900, on the text of J. Newman) and the symphonic "Variations on a mysterious theme" (_Enigma_variations {Enigma (Latin) - a riddle.}, 1899), which became the pinnacle of English musical romanticism. The oratorio "Dream of Gerontius" summarizes not only the long development of cantata-oratorial genres in the work of Elgar himself (4 oratorios, 4 cantatas, 2 odes), but in many respects the entire preceding path of English choral music. Another important feature of the national Renaissance was reflected in the oratorio - interest in folklore. It is no coincidence that after listening to the "Dream of Gerontius", R. Strauss made a toast "for the prosperity and success of the first English progressive Edward Elgar, master of the young progressive school of English composers." Unlike the Enigma oratorio, the variations laid the foundation stone for national symphony, which before Elgar was the most vulnerable area of English musical culture. "Enigma" variations indicate that in the person of Elgar, the country found an orchestral composer of the first magnitude, wrote one of the English researchers. The "mystery" of the variations is that they encrypt the names of the composer's friends, hide from view and the musical theme of the cycle. (It all reminds me of the Sphinxes from R. Schumann’s Carnival.) Elgar also wrote his first English symphony (1908). Among other numerous orchestral compositions of the composer (overtures, suites, concertos, etc.) stands out Violin Concerto (1910) - one of the most popular works of this genre. The work of Elgar is one of the outstanding phenomena of musical romanticism. Synthesizing national and Western European, mainly Austro-German influences, it carries the features of lyrical, psychological and epic trends. The composer widely uses the system of leitmotifs, this is clearly felt by the influence of R. Wagner and R. Strauss. Elgar's music is melodically charming, colorful, has a bright characteristic, in symphonic works attracts orchestral skill, the subtlety of instrumentation, the manifestation of romantic thinking. By the beginning of the XX century, Elgar gained European fame. Among the performers of his works were outstanding musicians - conductor X. Richter, violinists F. Kreisler and I. Menuhin. Often speaking abroad, the composer himself stood up for the conductor's console. In Russia, Elgar’s works were approved by N. Rimsky-Korsakov and A. Glazunov. After the creation of the Violin Concerto, the composer’s work gradually declines, only in the last years of his life his activity is revived. He writes a number of works for wind, sketches of the Third Symphony, the Piano Concerto, the opera The Spanish Lady. Elgar survived his fame, and at the end of his life his name became a legend, a living symbol and the pride of English musical culture.