Poco Allegro in D (from 11 Vesper Voluntaries, Op. 14)

Sir Edward William Elgar, (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934)
This upload is to mark the Birthdate of Elgar on June 2nd.
The music is harder than it looks especially to get the flow and colouring that is needed in Elgar's music for organ.

Edward Elgar came into contact with the organ at an early age through his father’s duties as organist at St George’s Catholic Church, Worcester. In 1885 he succeeded his father in the post and it was probably during this time that he began to sketch the Vesper Voluntaries. In the autumn of 1889 he and his new and adored bride Alice moved into a house in Norwood, near the Crystal Palace. In 1891 the Elgars moved to Malvern, where he at last found the contentment that enabled him to blossom into the composer of the ‘Enigma Variations’ and all that was to follow.

Early in January 1890, shortly after the move to London, Elgar sold the Vesper Voluntaries to the publishers Orsborn & Tuckwood for five guineas – and they appeared as Book 26 of The Vesper Voluntaries for the Organ, Harmonium, or American Organ. They are designed to be played on a two manual instrument without pedals but Elgar provided indications where they could be used if available. The latent grandness of many of the ideas makes them eminently suitable for expansion onto a larger canvas. The set comprises eight voluntaries with an introduction, an interlude between the fourth and fifth numbers and a coda. The use of the same theme in the introduction, interlude and coda binds the work together and Elgar already adopts the quasi-orchestral approach to organ writing which was to be such a feature of his magnificent Sonata in G major a few years later.

from notes by Stephen Westrop © 2000