Edward Elgar (1857–1934) dedicated his second symphony to the memory of King Edward VII, who died in 1910, and yet he described it as the “the passionate pilgrimage of a soul” and later wrote to a friend, “I have written out my soul […]”. The deceased king was therefore perhaps not the main inspirer of the symphony – which is more a mirror of the composer’s personal experiences and inner world.
Elgar described the grand opening movement to be “tremendous in energy”; indeed the abundance of themes, the gesture-like quality of the motifs, the undulation of the most diverse characters and passions are convincing enough that we are listening to the subtlest pulsations of the soul. The moving funeral-march music of the C-minor slow movement is thought to be a tribute not to King Edward VII, but very probably the composer’s friend, Alfred Rodewald who met with a sudden death in 1903. The third movement is a rondo in terms of form and a scherzo in terms of character; the rondo theme is especially exciting on account of its metric ambiguity. Around the middle of the movement the theme familiar from the first movement reappears, rising to terrifying proportions by means of a drum accompaniment that grows in volume to fortissimo. In the finale the haunting spirits of the previous movements disappear, and ultimately this majestic and awesomely extravagant music can perhaps be connected to the deceased king.