'When Elgar's Cello Concerto reached my young ears fifty years ago across the seas in the United States, it transfixed me with its power to project a landscape I did not know. When knowledge came of Worcestershire, Elgar's projection proved strangely accurate. How could music do that?' Jerrold Northrop Moore pursues his quest for the essential Elgar and sets out the story of an extraordinarily creative life. It shows themes of childhood, fantasy and vision fusing into a mature style of nobility and nostalgia. Above all it links the composer to the English landscape that formed the backdrop to all of his work, from his earliest years. This powerful short book is the outcome of half a century's thought and reflection by a leading Elgar biographer.