The fatal popularity of “Land of Hope and Glory” and the Pomp and Circumstance marches long obscured the fact that Elgar has considerable depth. Those who listen the Symphonies and the Cello Concerto closely know this, of course, but it’s also worth paying attention to his modest output of chamber music, the best pieces of which were all composed in the summer of 1918. The Quintet for Piano and String Quartet is an example, and it is one of my favourites in that genre. It’s full of shifting and ambiguous moods, stopping and starting in an odd way. It’s rather long, usually taking about forty minutes to play. It is said to have been inspired by this tree, near Elgar’s Sussex cottage:
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