Elgar's Enigma

The first thing that he wrote down that we have…is this six bar descent which starts in the violas…then its taken over by the cellos, seamlessly…and I thought of that, partly, as a descent into the grave…

– Opening narration in part one describing Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor

You can hear a quotation, a falling 3-note phrase from Felix Mendelssohn's Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage and the underlying beat on the tympani sounds like the engines of a steamship…so it is most likely that Elgar was thinking of his lost love Helen when he wrote it.

– Historian Charles Hadfield on composer Edward Elgar drawing inspiration from old love Helen Weaver who emigrated to New Zealand, Stuff, 16 November 2022

Although some early reviews were favourable, the Concerto generally failed to impress its first listeners who were expecting a more extrovert work, rather than what appeared to be a scarcely-veiled elegy for the millions of lives lost in World War One. Two early recordings were made of this Concerto … but it took the landmark EMI release in 1965 by the 20-year-old cellist Jacqueline du Pré with Sir John Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra, to propel the Concerto to the pre-eminent position which it has subsequently occupied. Today it is one of the best-loved and most frequently performed concertos in the repertoire.

– Background to Elgar’s famous Cello Concerto in E Minor, RNZ 27 July, 2019