Elgar, Delius, Holst: Three Lives, Three Deaths - Part 3: Elgar's Education

Elgar's education, unlike Delius's and Holst's, was somewhat desultory, with two years spent in a Catholic infant school, followed by two more at the Miss Walsh Dame School in Worcester; and then, from the age of eleven to fifteen, at the Littleton House School (with a compliment of just thirty boys) where the teacher, Francis Reeve, inspired the young Elgar with stories about Christ's disciples, and how, as young men, they were probably "no cleverer than some of you here." Which, as an observation and theme, would later appear in Elgar's massive oratorio The Apostles.

The majority of Edward's non-musical education came from his mother, who taught her son the rudiments of mathematics and geography, and gave him a long and comprehensive reading list that, naturally, included The Bible and Shakespeare, but also Voltaire, Holinshead, Drayton, Sidney, and by contrast, the hugely popular poetry of Mrs Hemans, whose poem Casabianca - which famously begins: " The boy stood on the burning deck..." - quickly became a favourite of Elgar's, and one he would quote at length given the slightest opportunity.

The young Edward was a solitary and introspective boy who spent hours sitting on the banks of the River Severn studying scores from his father's shop. And if not on the riverbank he might be found high in the galleries of Worcester Cathedral listening to the rehearsals of the Worcester Festival Chorus Society.

Consequently Elgar was absorbing music as if it were the sun and the rain; and by the time Frederick Delius was born, on the 29th of January 1862, music was Elgar's first language.

To Be Continued...