Elgar never received a composition lesson in his life. The fact that his father kept a music shop has often been seen as a social disadvantage: being born into trade certainly contributed to the chip on his shoulder. But should not the emphasis be on music shop, for what better environment could the penurious young composer have had than the music, scores, books, and instruments all around him? The shop formed his private library, his laboratory, and familiarized him with the ways of publishers. He learnt by listening and doing.

Edward William Elgar was born in 1857 in a cottage at the village of Lower Broadheath, in sight of the Malvern Hills, the fourth child of William Henry Elgar and Ann Greening. He was baptized at St George's Roman Catholic Church, Worcester. When he was two, the family moved into the city, where three more children were born.

His earliest notated tune is Humoreske, which he dated 1867. He would have been ten. It is a single line in the bass clef. Already present are two abiding elements of his style: loping compound rhythm, and sequences. In the answering phrase the first sequential repeat is modified by an accidental, A sharp in G major (Ex. 1.1a). In 1919 Elgar completed his Cello Concerto. The main theme is a single line of three twobar sequences played by the violas; in the soloist's answering phrase the second repeat is modified by an accidental, C sharp in E minor (Ex. 1.1b). The distance between the ten-year-old and the sixty-two-year-old composer at that moment seems touchingly short.

He attended local schools, and for a year was apprenticed to a solicitor. Worcester offered good opportunities for a young musician, since every three years, in rotation with Gloucester and Hereford, the Three Choirs Festival based on the Cathedral is held there. After taking a few lessons, in 1876 Elgar began teaching the violin, and in March 1877 he composed his first surviving violin piece, the fluent but undistinguished Reminiscences (strange but prophetic title for a twenty-year-old to choose).