As a 16-year-old in 1986 I was a viola pupil of Cyril Perfect. He was in his late 80s. On his piano was the famous picture of Edward Elgar with Yehudi Menuhin on the steps of the newly opened Abbey Road Studios after the recording of elderly composer’s Violin Concerto. I asked why he had the picture. He told me he was standing next to the photographer who took the photo and as a young musician played in those now legendary recording sessions. So, my lifelong love of the music of Sir Edward Elgar began with first-hand accounts of the man himself, as well as being taken on regular trips to the Malvern Hills with my Mum and Dad, seeing the sights he loved so much. 

So, when I step onto the podium to conduct Elgar, I do so with the humility of someone opening a well-worn letter. The ink may have faded, the edges may be torn, but the message remains: deeply personal, achingly beautiful, and in some cases still waiting to be fully understood. 

And yet, there is always something hidden. while preparing for a performance of the Sea Pictures, I found a letter Elgar wrote to his publisher and close friend August Jaeger (‘Nimrod’ of the Enigma Variations), describing the ocean not as a place of beauty, but as something vast and unknowable – ‘a void that sings of eternity’. I now approach the piece completely differently. Indeed, it was no longer merely a song cycle about the sea; it is about fear, loneliness and the search for meaning in something overwhelming. That is Elgar in a nutshell: the grandeur is real, but it masks something far more intimate, sometimes hidden and sometimes acutely painful. 

Perhaps that is why I keep returning to him. Elgar invites us to listen harder, to look beyond the obvious. His music is full of ‘hidden faces’ (to borrow his own phrase) – highly personal narratives of people, emotions and memories tucked into cadences and chords. The task is to reveal those faces gently, respectfully and never with force. 

Conducting Elgar is not about control, it’s about companionship. One walks beside him, never ahead. He doesn’t shout; he murmurs, with eloquence and restraint. And in those murmurs, one hears a whole life: its triumphs, its disappointments, its secret sorrows, and enduring hope. 

Tempo is key. Elgar’s markings are often precise, but they are not absolutes. He was, after all, an improviser at heart, always tinkering and inventing. The best performances of Elgar are the ones where rubato feels instinctive, where transitions unfold naturally rather than mechanically. When conducting the First Symphony, I always remind myself that this is music built on transformation. Themes evolve, textures shift, emotions deepen; nothing ever quite returning as it was. Nevertheless, the actual melodies and harmonies which mean so much to English audiences and musicians don’t seem to travel well.

Conducting Elgar is not about control, it’s about companionship. One walks beside him, never ahead

I remember conducting the Enigma Variations in Oregon where musicians had not only never played them before but many having never heard them either. In China, where I conducted the first performances of The Dream of Gerontius, none of the musicians had even heard of Elgar, let alone listened to his music. These experiences taught me that an instinctive feel for the language of a composer isn’t necessarily shared universally and needs to be introduced and built gradually with mutual understanding and care. 

Interpretative precedence in Elgar is a rich but delicate inheritance. There are recordings by Sir Adrian Boult, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Vernon Handley and Sir Andrew Davis that are rightly revered. Yet Elgar’s music, like all great music, must be reimagined in each performance. One cannot simply mimic the masters; one must find the heartbeat anew. That said, I’ve learned invaluable lessons from those who came before. Barbirolli’s Cello Concerto with Du Pré remains, to me, a benchmark, not just for the power of the playing, but for the way both conductor and soloist allow space, silence, and vulnerability. I’ve conducted the cello concerto at least 20 times during my career and I remember my last performance with Steven Isserlis just as we were coming out of Covid, and the pure joy on Steven’s and the orchestral members’ faces in the grandioso moment in the first movement as if saying ‘…thank goodness music is back.’ 

As a conductor, finding Elgar’s narrative means resisting the temptation to over-explain. Elgar is not Mahler; he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. His emotions are masked in ceremony and civility, often couched in harmonic ambiguity or rhythmic displacement. His orchestral language is refined, his structures precise, and his emotional weight often sits just below the audible surface. The conductor’s job is to honour that tension – to draw it out gently, never to press. 

In rehearsal, this presents a challenge. Elgar’s music demands clarity without rigidity. His phrasing flows with a kind of poetic elasticity – like speech, with breaths and hesitations. The melodies may rise heroically, but they must always feel human. I’ve found that Elgar rewards conductors who trust the line, who allow the phrases to breathe rather than control them.  

I came to Elgar slowly. As a young conductor, I approached his scores with reverence, but not intimacy. They seemed orderly, expansive, perhaps even reserved. Then I took on Enigma Variations. I began, as any good conductor should, with the notes – those lush, late-Romantic orchestrations, the textural shifts, the iconic ‘enigma’ itself. But the more I sat with the music, the more I became aware of something intangible woven into it: an emotional language that spoke not just of Elgar’s circle of friends, but a coded autobiography in miniature. When Dora Penny (Variation XI – 'Dorabella') asked the composer ‘…What was the “enigma?”’, Elgar reportedly said, ‘…it’s strange, because it’s been staring everybody in the face!’. For me this obviously is Edward himself. If you trace the rhythm of the ‘Enigma’ theme, it fits his name perfectly. As a conductor, when you realise this the piece becomes completely clear in concept and hence interpretation. 

Going back to Cyril Perfect nearly 40 years ago, I asked whether Mr Elgar ever talked about his music. Mr Perfect told me he only ever talked about his latest bets at Haydock or Newmarket or his dogs. He apparently never once talked about his music just leaving clues and puzzles and riddles in his wonderful, powerful and intimate musical genius for us to discover. 

Jason Thornton is Artistic Director of Budleigh Music Festival, which takes place from June 27 this year. He will be leading a workshop which dives into a rare choral arrangement of Elgar's Sea Pictures on June 27 culminating in a showcase performance that day. To take part in the workshop, visit www.budleighmusicfestival.co.uk