The English-speaking peoples have yet to produce an enduring giant among composers. Edward William Elgar came close, though not very. Perhaps the best that can be said for him is that he admirably ...

IF events in the First World War had meshed a little differently, Elgar’s The Fringes of the Fleet would have become one of his best-known works. When first heard at the London Coliseum on 11 June ...

Operatic climaxes are usually marked by surging strings, blaring brass, rumbling kettledrums; but this time, when the crucial moment came, there was silence. Composer Randall Thompson had a good ...