Edward Elgar

Largely self-taught, Edward Elgar worked as a violinist, teacher, conductor and arranger, learning the orchestra from scores rather than at a conservatoire, and was past forty when the Enigma Variations — a sequence of musical portraits of friends — made his name. The Dream of Gerontius, the two symphonies, the Violin Concerto, the Cello Concerto, In the South and Falstaff followed within twenty years. Born near Worcester in 1857 and raised around his father's music shop, he conducted recordings of his own music. He died in 1934. The honours accumulated: a baronetcy named for Broadheath, where he was born, membership of the Order of Merit and a Knight Grand Cross appointment in the Royal Victorian Order. The birthplace has become a museum, the Elgar Society keeps the work before the public, the Bank of England put his face on its notes from 1999; a replacement design appeared in 2007 and the Elgar notes were withdrawn in 2010. The Nimrod variation portrays August Jaeger, and his output also includes the Pomp and Circumstance marches.