Elegy for Strings, Op. 58

• Elgar composed this piece in 1909 and it premiered the same year in London.¹
• Elgar’s friend August Jaeger died in 1909, and it is possible that Elgar had him in mind when he wrote this elegy. Jaeger edited Elgar’s works for Novello and helped promote Elgar’s music. Jaeger is the friend Elgar honored in “Nimrod” from the Enigma Variations.²
• Elgar inscribed the words “Mordiford Bridge” at the end of this score. This was an ancient bridge near Elgar’s home in Hereford, Plas Gwyn.³

“Most of my ‘sketches,’—that is to say the reduction of original thoughts to writing, have been made in the open air. I fished the Wye round about Mordiford & completed many pencil memoranda of compositions on an old bridge, of which I have vivid & affectionate memories.”

Edward Elgar⁴

1. Diana McVeagh, “Elgar, Sir Edward,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed September 18, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008709.
2. “Elgar – His Music: Elegy for Strings, op 58,” Elgar Society, accessed September 19, 2019, http://www.elgar.org/3elegy.htm.
3. Jerrold Northrop Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life (Oxford University Press, 1984), 555.
4. Ibid..