"Byron Adams clearly loves Elgar and his music...[His] chapter on Elgar's self-education...is a fascinating exploration of how books read by the budding composer had an enduring influence on his music."
Daniel Jaffe, BBC Music Magazine "This fine and fascinating book includes welcome pieces by younger scholars working in the U.S. and England
recent PhDs who bring new perspectives, ideas, and methodologies to ... Read morethis tricky and provocative branch of socio/historical musicology. In addition to providing a clear, helpful introduction and a striking essay on the persistence of memory, Adams proves himself an inspired editor. The 13 essays
not a dud among them
look at societal, cultural, historical, and psychological aspects of Elgar's life and world."
W. Metcalfe, Choice "[A] handsome volume of essays by a dozen scholars, who strive to assess Elgar's place in music history."
George B. Stauffer, Weekly Standard "It is greatly to the credit of Byron Adams that, amid the plethora of Elgar material published in the last few years, Edward Elgar and His World is a vital contribution... Here Adams challenges us with a rich contextual study not of Elgar's world, but of many conflicting and contradictory worlds in which the composer lived, battled, triumphed, failed, and died."
James Brooks Kuykendall, Notes "The essays in Edward Elgar and His World ambitiously and successfully delineate the complexity of Elgar's world and the composer's place in it... All of the essays in ... offer richly detailed, extensively documented, and fascinating explorations of different aspects of Elgar's world."
Dan Kline, Victorian Studies "This collection contains almost nothing that is unworthy, and several chapters that significantly advance the important recent realignments in Elgar scholarship (and, I hope, more widely). The old guard may grow their ulcers, but humanities scholarship should be grateful to Adams. Elgar's world has never been more illuminatingly painted."
J. P. E. Harper-Scott, Music and Letters Show Less