Home  || About  ||  Publications ||  Contact  ||  Education ||  Production

Elgar, (Sir) Edward
1857 - 1934

 
About Salut d'Amour

 
Art works during the time of composition

 
Geography

Elgar lived most of his life in the area of Worcester, near where he was born. His father was an organist and music-seller, and he himself played piano, violin, cello, double-bass, bassoon and trombone. He became a bandmaster in a mental home, and his first compositions, for local music festivals, were works of great variety, for wind instruments, strings and for voices. It was not until the age of forty-two, with the first performance of his Enigma variations in 1899, that he suddenly came to the front rank as a composer. He was knighted in 1904.

In the Summer of 1888, Edward Elgar and Alice Roberts were heading towards marriage. Edward decided on a holiday with his long-standing friend, Dr Charles Buck of Settle, Yorkshire. As he left Worcester, Alice presented Edward with a poem she had written and entitled Love's Grace. While on holiday in Settle, Edward reciprocated by writing a short piece of music for her, which he called Liebesgruss (Love's Greeting). The work carried the dedication "To Carice", a contraction of his future wife's forenames Caroline Alice with which they subsequently christened their daughter. On his return from Settle, Elgar presented the work to his wife and proposed to her. They married at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington, London in May the following year.

Towards the end of 1888, Edward submitted three arrangements of the work - for solo piano, for violin and piano, and an orchestral arrangement - to the music publishing firm of Schott who agreed to buy the work outright for a fee of two guineas. At first, the work sold slowly. Apparently with Elgar's approval, Schott's retitled the work Salut d'Amour and gave the composer's name as Ed. Elgar, believing that the French title and a less obviously English composer would help the work gain wider international approval. It did, much to the publisher's satisfaction but with no financial benefit to Elgar.  It is easy to dismiss Salut d'Amour as an insignificant trifle, salon music not deserving a wider audience. However, for the work to establish itself so forcefully in what was a fiercely competitive field says much for its charm and quality. And, as Elgar's first published work, it has a historical value, containing pointers to the skills that Elgar was to develop and display in his later works.
Elgar subsequently composed a companion piece, Mot d'Amour (Liebesahnung or Love's Word). Although in many ways structurally and dramatically superior to the earlier work, it failed to capture the public affection of its predecessor and is rarely heard today.
 

Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919). Go to Renoir <<<

Go to Gauguin  <<<

The Swineherd, Brittany
1888 (180 Kb); Oil on canvas, 74 x 93 cm (29 x 36 1/2 in); Los Angeles County Museum of Art
 

Femmes de Tahiti [Sur la plage] (Tahitian Women [On the Beach])
1891 (150 Kb); Oil on canvas, 69 x 91 cm (27 1/8 x 35 7/8 in); Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Monet, Claude (1840-1926). Go to Monet  <<<

Impression: soleil levant
Claude Monet

Meule, Effet de Neige, le Matin (Morning Snow Effect)

Cezanne, Paul - works  between 1889 - 90. Go to Cezanne <<<

Maison et ferme du Jas de Bouffan (House and Farm at Jas de Bouffan)
1889-90 (140 Kb); Oil on canvas, 60.5 x 73.5 cm (23 3/4 x 29"); Narodni Galerie, Prague; Venturi no. 460

Cistern in the Park at Château Noir
c. 1900 (270 Kb); Oil on canvas, 74.3 x 61 cm (29 1/4 x 24 in); Estate of Henry Pearlman, New York; Venturi 780
 
 

Gardanne
1885-86 (130 Kb); Oil on canvas, 65 x 100 cm (25 5/8 x 39 3/8 in); The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania

Geography                      Top

 

Worcester	England	England and its Neighbor

Home  || About  ||  Publications ||  Contact  ||  Education ||  Production