The trio of Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 is the sound of the British establishment, yet Edward Elgar was a self-taught, working-class Catholic outsider who felt like a failure until his forties. Born near Worcester in 1857 to a piano tuner who ran a sheet music shop, he could not afford the Leipzig Conservatory and instead built his own education from instruction books, cathedral scores, and playing violin and bassoon in local ensembles. At 22 he became conductor and arranger for the staff band at the Powick lunatic asylum, learning orchestration by making a mismatched collection of instruments work.

We follow his marriage to Alice Roberts, a general's daughter who was disinherited for marrying him and who became his manager, secretary, and emotional anchor. Her belief paid off in 1899 with the Enigma Variations, 14 musical portraits o ...