My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us,
the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require.
NARRATOR:
Enigma Variations
Nimrod
Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer,
most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider,
not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain,
his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society of Victorian and Edwardian Britain,
he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition.
Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer,
most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider,
not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain,
his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society of Victorian and Edwardian Britain,
he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition.