Editing Edward Elgar (section)

===Influences, antecedents and early works===
Elgar was contemptuous of folk music<ref name=k10>Kennedy (1970), p. 10</ref> and had little interest in or respect for the early English composers, calling [[William Byrd]] and his contemporaries "museum pieces". Of later English composers, he regarded [[Henry Purcell|Purcell]] as the greatest, and he said that he had learned much of his own technique from studying Hubert Parry's writings.<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 8</ref> The continental composers who most influenced Elgar were Handel, Dvořák and, to some degree, Brahms. In Elgar's [[chromaticism]], the influence of Wagner is apparent, but Elgar's individual style of orchestration owes much to the clarity of nineteenth-century French composers, Berlioz, [[Jules Massenet|Massenet]], Saint-Saëns and, particularly, [[Léo Delibes|Delibes]], whose music Elgar played and conducted at Worcester and greatly admired.<ref name=k10/><ref name=cox/>

Elgar began composing when still a child, and all his life he drew on his early sketchbooks for themes and inspiration. The habit of assembling his compositions, even large-scale ones, from scraps of themes jotted down randomly remained throughout his life.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/elgar/56393.stm "Antony Payne on Elgar's Symphony No 3"], BBC News, 13 February 1998. Retrieved 22 April 2010.</ref> His early adult works included violin and piano pieces, music for the wind quintet in which he and his brother played between 1878 and 1881, and music of many types for the Powick Asylum band. Diana McVeagh in ''Grove's Dictionary'' finds many embryonic Elgarian touches in these pieces, but few of them are regularly played, except ''[[Salut d'Amour]]'' and (as arranged decades later into ''[[The Wand of Youth]]'' Suites) some of the childhood sketches.<ref name=grove/> Elgar's sole work of note during his first spell in London in 1889–91, the overture ''[[Froissart Overture (Elgar)|Froissart]]'', was a romantic-bravura piece, influenced by [[Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]] and Wagner, but also showing further Elgarian characteristics.<ref name=grove/> Orchestral works composed during the subsequent years in Worcestershire include the ''[[Serenade for Strings (Elgar)|Serenade for Strings]]'' and ''[[Three Bavarian Dances]]''. In this period and later, Elgar wrote songs and [[part song]]s. W. H. Reed expressed reservations about these pieces, but praised the part song ''The Snow'', for female voices, and ''[[Sea Pictures]]'', a cycle of five songs for contralto and orchestra which remains in the repertory.<ref name="Reed, p. 149">Reed, p. 149</ref>

Elgar's principal large-scale early works were for chorus and orchestra for the Three Choirs and other festivals. These were ''The Black Knight'', ''King Olaf'', ''The Light of Life'', ''The Banner of St George'' and ''Caractacus''. He also wrote a ''Te Deum'' and ''Benedictus'' for the Hereford Festival. Of these, McVeagh comments favourably on his lavish orchestration and innovative use of [[leitmotif]]s, but less favourably on the qualities of his chosen texts and the patchiness of his inspiration. McVeagh makes the point that, because these works of the 1890s were for many years little known (and performances remain rare), the mastery of his first great success, the ''[[Enigma Variations]]'', appeared to be a sudden transformation from mediocrity to genius, but in fact his orchestral skills had been building up throughout the decade.<ref name=grove/>