Richard Strauss’s famous toast to Edward Elgar in 1902—‘to thewelfare and success of the first English progressivist’—looks startlingtoday. Is not Elgar the last embodiment of a fading Empire, acomposer of late romantic music that even for its period was behindthe times? That clich´ed view has become ever more inadequate overa period when Elgar’s music has increasingly been performed andrecognized internationally. Yet we all acknowledge that there issomething essentially English in Elgar—but what is it? In Elgar wesense a peculiarly British, a (deliberately?) enigmatic combinationof conservatism and progressivism, intense introversion and boldextroversion, despair and exuberance. It is easy to see that in thefirst years of the 20th century, the Wagnerian echoes of The Dreamof Gerontius and the originality of the Enigma Variations musthave created a powerful impression on Richard Strauss and others.Was Elgar on the verge of a breakthrough that would havetransformed his national music? That did not quite happen. Butbecause it did not happen, something else did.