The encomiums which Germany—the acknowledged leader of the world in music—has showered on Dr. Elgar have at length been reflected in England, which has awakened to the fact that to him at least that much misapplied word "genius" belongs by right divine. That awakening was marked by the three days' festival in the middle of March, when Covent Garden Opera House reverted to an old custom and for two glorious nights became the home of oratorio, with a concert on the third night. That festival is unique in the history of music, for it is the first time an English composer has been so honoured.
However gratifying the applause of the public may be to the worker in any art, his greatest pleasure must properly come from his fellow-workers, who know the difficulties which have to be surmounted before the desired effect can be produced.
"Was not Herr Steinbach, the conductor of the Meiningen Orchestra, among the others who said that you have something different from anybody else in the tone of your orchestra?" I asked Dr. Elgar, as we sat in his study at Malvern, with a great expanse of country visible through the wide windows.
From a Photo. by] DR. ELGAR'S STUDY. [George Newnes, Ltd.
"I believe so," he replied; "and that remark has been one from which I have naturally derived great pleasure.
"You know," said Dr. Elgar, as he settled down to talk for the purpose of this interview, in accordance with a long-standing promise made in what he came to regard as an unguarded moment—"you know, since you compel me to begin at the beginning, that I 'began' in Broadheath, a little village three miles from Worcester, in which city my father was organist of St. George's Catholic Church, a post he held for thirty-seven years. I was a very little boy indeed when I began to show some aptitude for music and used to extemporize on the piano. When I was quite small I received a few lessons on the piano. The organ-loft then attracted me, and from the time I was about seven or eight I used to go and sit by my father and watch him play. After a time I began to try to play myself. At first the only thing I succeeded in producing was noise, but gradually, out of the chaos, harmony began to evolve itself. In those days, too, an English opera company used to visit the old Worcester Theatre, and I was taken into the orchestra, which consisted of only eight or ten performers, and so heard old operas like 'Norma,' 'Traviata,' 'Trovatore,' and, above all, 'Don Giovanni.'
DR. EDWARD ELGAR.
From a Photo. by E. T. Holding.