Symphony No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 63

• Elgar composed this symphony in 1911, and conducted its premiere on May 24, 1911, at Queen’s Hall in London.¹
• Elgar dedicated this symphony to the memory of Edward VII, who died in 1910.²
• Elgar described this symphony as “‘the passionate pilgrimage of a soul.”³

“Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight”

from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Elgar inscribed his Second Symphony with this quotation.⁴

“It seems one of his very greatest works, vast in design, and supremely beautiful … it résumés our human life, delight, regrets, farewell, the saddest mood & then the strong man’s triumph.”

Alice Elgar, on Edward Elgar’s Second Symphony, from a diary entry dated Feb. 28, 1911 (the day after Elgar completed the composition).⁵

1. Diana McVeagh, “Elgar, Sir Edward,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed April 1, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008709.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Michael Kennedy, The Life of Elgar (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 129.