Hope and Glory

A snob of low birth, a Catholic in an Anglican land, a self-doubting religious pessimist and tortured musical genius. Edward Elgar was a mass of contradictions - and Britain’s first great native composer since Purcell in the 17th century.

Now, as the world celebrates the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1857, the Mediatheque revisits his artistic legacy with a series of dramas and documentaries that help to shape our understanding of the man and his music.

The portrait that emerges is of a man never truly at ease with himself or his world; a creator of symphonies and major choral works best known abroad for his tub-thumping marches and salon music; a man haunted by a sense of social failure and a mistrust of patriotism whose creative output has come to embody the very idea of England.

Paul Cutts
Paul Cutts is the editorial director of Impromptu Publishing.

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