British composer Edward Elgar (1857-1935) was one of the forerunners of a renaissance in British music at the turn of the 20th century.  The son of a piano tuner and music shop proprietor, Elgar was largely self-taught as a composer, violinist and organist. Although he showed great musical promise, his family could not afford to send him to a conservatory, so Elgar remained at home, serving as assistant organist at the church where his father played, and later, teaching violin and organ lessons.  He was propelled to wide recognition in 1899 after his Enigma Variations were presented in London to great acclaim, and later became a household name for his Pomp and Circumstance marches.  His superior musical craftsmanship combines nobility and expressiveness with an appealingly popular style, underscored by harmonies inspired by Schumann, Brahms and Wagner. The poet William Butler Yeats, a contemporary of Elgar, described his music as “wonderful in its heroic melancholy.”