Elgar’s Choral Music: Light out of Darkness

 by Maureen Buja,  March 23rd, 2026

English choral music is one of the crowning glories of the English vocal tradition. From his earliest days, Edward Elgar (1857–1934) was associated with church music, albeit Roman Catholic, rather than Anglican church music. His father, William, was organist at Worcester’s St George’s Church from 1853 until 1885, and Edward Elgar was appointed organist from 1885, but was little associated with the church after 1889 when he moved to London and later Malvern.

Edward Elgar

The young Edward Elgar’s first involvement with the organ was as a bellows boy, supplying the air for his father’s performances. Later, he would sit in for his father during services. When sermons were being read, he was composing music up in the loft. His first compositions for St George’s were three hymn tunes in 1878. He had already started by setting the hymn ‘O salutaris Hostia’ in 1877. He eventually made 7 different settings of this one hymn, dedicating his 1880 setting in E flat major to his father.

Eventually, his work with the publisher Novello got him involved in writing music for Anglican occasions, and he was an active contributor to the Anglican New Cathedral Psalter Chants, although his 1909 contributions were not published at that time.

It was in choral song that Elgar came to the fore. He set texts by the leading British poets, including Byron, Shelley, and Tennyson, although he rarely set their finest poetry. One example is his 1907 ‘How calmly the evening’. Written at the request of the editor of The Musical Times, the setting is simple but effective.   

This recording, made by the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, features five works in their debut. We can hear choral works from Elgar’s earliest years as a choral composer and from his experienced hand. Through the recording, we get an education in the development of a composer.

After Elgar’s death in 1934, his music gradually faded away from the concert and cathedral halls. The Elgar Society was formed in 1951 at the behest of the conductor Sir Adrian Boult to encourage the promotion of the great composer’s works. In 2026, the Elgar Society celebrates its 75th anniversary of its creation and will hold a number of events throughout the year in commemoration.

Light out of Darkness: Choral Music by Edward Elgar

Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea; Callum Knox, organ; William Vann, director
SOMM Recordings SOMMCD0714

Official Website

Impressive moment in the initial movement of the legendary «Cello Concerto in mi minor»

 

Impressive moment in the initial movement of the legendary «Cello Concerto in mi minor», Op. 85 by Edward #Elgar (1857-1934), central work in this debut of the Franco-Argentinian Sol Gabetta with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2014, within the Baden-Baden Easter Festival. Complete program of orchestral works by Wagner, Ligeti and Stravinsky. Don't miss it by tuning in today: 16:20 | 15:20 | 14:20 .

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Jacqueline du Pré (Born on January 26, 1945) Beyond Elgar

 by Georg Predota  January 26th, 2026

When Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987) stepped into a recording studio in August 1965 to record Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, the world first fully sensed the emotional intensity and communicative power of her playing.

At just 20 years of age, this electrifying performance secured her international reputation almost overnight, transforming her into one of the most celebrated classical artists of the 20th century. That single recording of Elgar’s concerto has remained in print for decades and, for many listeners and musicians, stands as the definitive interpretation of the work.

Jacqueline du Pré

But to remember Jacqueline du Pré only for Elgar is to undervalue the breadth of her artistry. Though her career was tragically brief, curtailed by multiple sclerosis in her late twenties, she left behind a rich and varied discography spanning concertos, sonatas, and chamber music.

On the occasion of her birthday on 26 January, let’s explore Jacqueline du Pré’s artistry, which revealed the cello’s immense expressive range through her recordings of Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann, and Haydn.   

Breathing Life into Schumann

While Elgar remains the work most closely associated with her name, du Pré’s recorded output reveals a musician whose repertoire was both broad and engaging. And it is Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129 that perhaps most closely aligns with du Pré’s romantic sensibility after Elgar.

Her recording, made with Daniel Barenboim conducting, captures the concerto’s sustained lyricism and conversational interplay between soloist and orchestra. Where some cellists approach Schumann with restrained elegance, du Pré brings a strong sense of emotional urgency.

Du Pré shapes phrases with a directness that turns inward moments of reflection and outward gestures of intensity into a single, continuous narrative. This approach gives the concerto a strong sense of forward momentum, making its episodic structure feel unified and purposeful rather than fragmented.

At the time, the concerto was still less frequently performed and recorded than it is today, and du Pré’s interpretation played a role in renewing interest in the work. It helped establish the concerto as a central part of the Romantic cello repertoire rather than a peripheral curiosity.   

Narrative and Nuance in Dvořák

Jacqueline du Pré © Alamy

One of the greatest concertos in the repertoire, Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, is rich in folk-like pathos and expansive thematic writing. And to be sure, du Pré’s recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Barenboim is another cornerstone of her discography.

Critics at the time and since have pointed to her warm, full-bodied tone, wide dynamic range, and instinctive grasp of the concerto’s large-scale structure. Rather than treating the work as a series of contrasting episodes, du Pré shapes it as a coherent narrative, allowing moments of lyric intimacy and heroic projection to grow naturally out of one another.

The result is a performance that many listeners and commentators continue to regard as both emotionally satisfying and artistically authoritative.

Recordings and filmed performances of this concerto still attract millions of listeners online, a testament not only to the enduring appeal of Dvořák’s music but also to du Pré’s ability to communicate it with uncommon immediacy and conviction.   

Smiling Vitality in Haydn

Du Pré’s concerto recordings were not limited to the core Romantic repertoire. Her performances of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major  demonstrate her capacity for joyful, elegant playing in the Classical era, where clarity of line and rhythmic buoyancy are paramount.

Rather than imposing Romantic weight on the music, du Pré brings a lightness of articulation and a natural sense of forward motion that allow Haydn’s wit and formal elegance to emerge clearly. Critics have often noted this stylistic flexibility.

Reviewing her Haydn performances, one commentator remarked that du Pré played with “a smiling vitality and unfussy grace,” showing that her musical personality was not limited to intensity alone.

Another described her approach as “fresh, buoyant, and direct,” praising the way she combined technical precision with an unaffected sense of joy. Du Pré herself resisted being typecast as a purely passionate or impulsive performer, and her Haydn recordings beautifully support this view.

Dialogue and Balance in Beethoven

Du Pré was not only a concerto soloist. She was also a consummate chamber musician and interpreter of intimate works. Her collaborations with pianist Daniel Barenboim, her husband from 1967, produced some of her most sensitive and revealing recordings.

In the realm of chamber music, du Pré’s recordings of Beethoven’s Piano Trios, Op. 70 Nos. 1 and 2, made with Daniel Barenboim and violinist Pinchas Zukerman, reveal an important side of her musicianship. Freed from the heroic projection demanded by concerto repertoire, du Pré demonstrates an instinctive understanding of balance, proportion, and musical conversation.

Her cello line is never dominant for its own sake. Instead, it is woven into the ensemble texture with a natural responsiveness that allows Beethoven’s contrapuntal writing to speak clearly.

Contemporary critics frequently remarked on the sense of equality among the players. One reviewer described the trio as performing with “the alertness of three soloists listening intently to one another,” noting that du Pré’s phrasing seemed shaped as much by what she heard from her colleagues as by her own musical impulses.

Intimate Conversations with Brahms

Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim

The cello sonatas of Johannes Brahms reveal another layer of du Pré’s artistry. With Barenboim at the piano, these recordings are celebrated for their tenderness and depth by casting Brahms’ rich harmonic writing in a beautifully introspective light.

Her ability to shape phrases with both power and subtlety made these sonatas stand out as profound musical conversations, highlighting du Pré’s emotional range and artistic maturity.

From the mellow lyricism of Brahms to the fiery dialogue of Beethoven, and from the introspective sorrow of Schumann to joyous and agile Haydn, Jacqueline du Pré’s recordings are more than technical achievements. They are testimonials for an intensely felt musical life lived with passion and authenticity.

Though her career was brief, the emotional power, technical brilliance and spirited communication of her playing ensure that Jacqueline du Pré remains not just a historical figure, but a living presence in the classical music world.

10 Pieces of Classical Music About Childhood

by Emily E. Hogstad  

Classical music sometimes has a reputation of being solely for elderly people. If that’s true (spoiler alert: it’s not), it’s certainly strange how many pieces of classical music are about childhood and youth.

Today we’re looking at classical music inspired by childhood.

© soundgirls.org

Robert Schumann: Kinderszenen (1838) 

Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen (“Songs from Childhood”) is a set of thirteen pieces for solo piano about childhood.

Robert was twenty-eight at the time he wrote these pieces, and he was dating the nineteen-year-old piano superstar Clara Wieck.

For a variety of reasons, Clara had always been mature for her age, and at one point she observed that Robert was “like a child.” Robert, amused, decided to embrace his childlike nature, took her idea, and ran with it.

The pieces in this collection include Blind Man’s Buff, Knight of the Hobbyhorse, and, most famously, Dreaming (better-known by its German title, Träumerei). 

Teresa Carreño: Mi Teresita (ca 1885) 

Teresa Carreño was one of the most famous women composers of her generation, and Mi Teresita (“My Little Teresa”) is one of her most famous works.

It’s a waltz that was written for her third child, Teresita, who had been born in 1882. (As a bit of trivia, Carreño had six children in all: one by French violinist Émile Sauret, three by Italian baritone Giovanni Tagliapietra, and two more by German pianist Eugen d’Albert.)

Teresita would become a concert pianist like her mother.

Amy Beach: Children’s Carnival (1894) 

In 1894, twenty-seven-year-old American composer Amy Beach wrote six charming piano pieces for young players. She called the works Children’s Carnival.

The Carnival portrayed different stock characters often found in commedia dell’arte or pantomime, such as the meddling merchant Pantalon, the street-smart and gossipy maid Columbina, and her nimble, quick-thinking love interest, Harlequin.

Beach portrays each character with sweet and satisfying innocence.

Claude Debussy: Children’s Corner (1906-08) 

In January 1905, Claude Debussy’s married mistress Emma Bardac became pregnant. That spring, both Debussy and Bardac divorced from their respective spouses.

In October 1905, their little daughter Claude-Emma, whom they nicknamed Chouchou, was born. Debussy found Chouchou to be delightful beyond words.

Debussy with his daughter Chou-Chou

To celebrate his love for her, he wrote a six-movement suite of piano pieces called Children’s Corner. The work’s translated dedication reads, “To my dear little Chouchou, with tender apologies from her father for what follows.”

Children’s Corner portrays various scenes from childhood, including a serenade for a doll, a lullaby for an elephant, and a portrait of dancing snow.

John Alden Carpenter: Adventures in a Perambulator (1914)  

John Alden Carpenter was a composer born in Illinois in 1876. He studied music as a young man but chose not to make his living in music, instead joining the family shipping business as vice-president.

In 1914, he composed an orchestral portrait of his baby daughter Ginny’s day, perhaps taking inspiration from Richard Strauss, who, in 1903, had immortalized his own wife and baby in a tone poem called Symphonia Domestica.

Baby in Perambulator

Carpenter provided an incredibly detailed description of Ginny’s day from her perspective:

Every morning – after my second breakfast – if the wind and the sun are favorable, I go out. I should like to go alone, but my will is overborne…

Almost satiated with adventure, my Nurse firmly pushes me on, and almost before I recover my balance I am face to face with new sensation. The land comes to an end, and there at my feet is The Lake…

We pass on. Probably there is nothing more in the World. If there is, it is superfluous. There IS. It is Dogs!

Read more about Adventures in a Perambulator.

Florence Price: “To My Little Son” (ca 1915) 

Sometime around 1915, composer Florence Price set a melancholy poem by Julia Johnson Davis to music.

In your face I sometimes see
shadowings of the man to be
And eager dream of what my son shall be
in twenty years and one…

This was an especially poignant song for Price to set, as she lost a baby boy in infancy.

Edward Elgar: Nursery Suite (1931) 

Nursery Suite is one of the last pieces of music that Elgar ever wrote. In 1930, a 73-year-old Elgar told a friend that he’d recently found a box of music in manuscript dating from his youth.

His friend suggested that he work them up into something to celebrate the recent birth of Princess Margaret. He agreed, and by the following year he produced a sweet little orchestral suite with movement titles like “The Sad Doll” and “The Merry Doll.”

Elgar expanded the dedication: the final work was dedicated to Princess Margaret, Princess Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth II), and their mother, the Duchess of York.

Sergei Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf (1936) 

Peter and the Wolf was commissioned by the director of the Central Children’s Theatre in Moscow. She wanted Prokofiev to write a special symphony for children.

Peter, the work’s protagonist, plays in a meadow, listening to a whole menagerie of animals symbolised by various instruments.

Peter’s grandfather warns him of a gray wolf who might come to attack him. On cue, the wolf makes an appearance. Luckily, with the help of his animal friends, Peter is able to catch it.

Hunters come out of the forest, ready to kill the wolf, but Peter convinces them to put the wolf in a cage and bring it to a zoo instead. They do so in triumphant formation. At the last minute, a quacking comes from the wolf’s stomach: he has eaten the duck whole!

The work has proven to be incredibly popular and enduring, and it is often used even today as an introduction to the orchestra and orchestral instruments.

Benjamin Britten: The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1945) 

In the mid-1940s, composer Benjamin Britten was commissioned to score an educational documentary called Instruments of the Orchestra.

The main theme comes from another famous British composer: Henry Purcell‘s incidental music to Aphra Behn’s Abdelazer.

Each section shows off a different part of the orchestra, helping young listeners (of all ages!) to appreciate the uniqueness of each one.

Interestingly, there is a version with narration and another one without.

Samuel Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1947) 

Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is for orchestra and soprano soloist. It is a nostalgic portrait of the narrator’s childhood.

The lyrics are from a 1938 prose poem by James Agee, describing the summer before his father died in a car accident:

On the rough, wet grass of the back yard, my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there….They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near…

Barber’s music beautifully captures the uneasy poignancy of Agee’s words.

Conclusion

So there you have it: ten pieces of classical music about childhood and youth.

Did you have a favorite piece of classical music as a child? Is it still a favorite now? Let us know!