And I'm not British at All -

For many of us the music of Edward Elgar

is instantly recognizable Characteristic

of the confident Edwardian age he lived

in and part of the national heritage

just like the man But we are the victims

of one of the wiliest image consultants

of the last century

Elgar himself He particularly enjoyed

bamboozling posterity As a contemporary

of Puccini and Mahler Elgar wrote music

that even today challenges our

preconceptions

And it doesn't feel really like Elgar's

world it really it's visceral and comes

right out of the guts of the music

although his home life seemed a model of

decorum this man of many moods was

always falling in love and unflinching

new evidence from one of the women who

knew him best reveals what sort of man

he was

gosh well that is quite a letter in his

lifetime he was known for being complex

and difficult His friends realized he

deliberately hid himself behind a mask

of respectability but they have now gone

and as the years have passed it's the

mask that survived the real Elgar is

only now being recovered His eyes were

restlessly moving all the time up and

down left and right that restless energy

and for a moment I have this absolutely

uncanny feeling that that at last I sort of

knew him, and what he would have been

like

Ages ago when I was a kid I remember an

ad on the TV that was for tomato sauce

ketchup something in

Venezuela. Our

headmaster would play records to us so in

three or four minute chunks he played us

the Dream of Gerontius on Saturday

mornings before our cornflakes

He really clicked with me when I

remember distinctly a specific

performance of the Enigma Variations in

the Albert Hall I don't think I had a

recording at home but there was a

recording at school conducted by

Toscanini I tremble to think how many

times I've heard it it's always fresh

Absolutely remember getting to the

climax the glimpse of God and of course

that is such an unusual moment in music

that's left an indelible mark

The bottle like that and that sauce

coming down, down, down, and when it was

reaching the food whatever it was chips

probably Pomp and Circumstance March

number one was sounding

that was the heroic thing

finally the ketchup got into the chip

it may have become a rousing patriotic

tune but Land of Hope and Glory began

life without any words simply as the

middle section of an orchestral March

Like much of Elgar’s music if you do

what he wanted and imagine you've never

heard it before it's not quite what it

seems It's not not pretentious it’s not

pompous it's just wonderfully open and

sincere and that's what totally embraces

me and I'm not even British at all