Smittims, Now I remember that my friend told me that Elgar was catholic. This is why they would be interested in his music even more here. But as you say tastes are different for many people and some might find his music too sentimental (for an English person).
Thank you Smittims and marbleflugel,
I think you are right. There are many books about Elgar. I think they even have some biographies about him in Public Libraries here. I will have to check for myself.
There are enthusiasts of his music here and many people like him and his music. My friend often talks about him. He knows a lot about his time and his music. I can ask him as well as read books that you suggested.
The problem here is that CD shops are very bad and there is no music department in the area. University Library has practically no music books, scores or anything. It is hard to do everything yourself.
I can explore his chamber music all right, but his symphonies and oratorio (how many does he have?) are more diffecult to manage because of luck of time and resources.
His music is on the sillabus of violin exams (don't remember grades). I played many of his easier pieces that are probably more popular.
Thank you for helping me understand.

I understand you, autoharp.
This was my first reaction. However, it helps to be with people who love it because you can get inspired or at least understand what they find attractive.
His music like all other needs getting used to.
Even now I some times (often) feel that it is too much for me. but I keep reminding myself that he was a late Romantic (when they were taking things too far) or I say to myself he is like Gries and Sibelius.
I don't know if I explained well what I feel.

The popularity of the two symphonies has alternated . The First had a hundred performances in its first year, while  the  Second was neglected untilBoitonducteda landmark performancein 1918.Then it was recorded twice before the First Symphony received its first recording.

Recently Tadaaki Otaaka and the BBC Welsh S.O. made the First  a sort of party piece and it was broadcast a lot.

I think Boult preferred the Second and made five commercial recordings of it compared with three of the First. 

I like them both equally. Vaughan Williams used to tease Michael Kennedy by threatening to make an 'Omnibus' version of them keeping all his favourite bits.

I think the First is marginally more forward-looking and optimistic,the second marginally more elegaic.
Maybe it suits the mood of the nation at this  uncomfortable and ambiguous stage of our history.

to Stanley
You mention Savage Messiah - loved this film especially the way Russell uses Debussy in it - think some of the other feature films (lisztomania in particular) were rather over the top

Ros, thanks for your  on Bly/Jung@Harbison(my response in quote box)...and you're exactly right in your description of 2. Nordic performances seem to make that pain speak in an Ingmar Bergman sort of way...all in
all a long way from triumphalism, yet the humility of the man bears witness to his own times and as you say Smittims, ours too. I have been listening to wgbh today online, they played VW3/Haitink/Roocroft earlier,
Strowacewski/Minnesota in Tomveau de Couperin and currently Copland 3 (really coherent reading) . I mention this because the feel of the programming essays that 'optimism with grief underpinning' and elgar 2 amidst
labour day/ military commemorations in states , beyond  crass Bushism, and I got the feeling that Elgar prefigures all this in his later phase from 2 onwards.

As we see the matter Madame T-P it is never possible to take things "too far" in Art. Art is of its very nature built from extremes of intensity not from happy media. To put it another way the only true moderation is the all-out.

And in regard to Sir Edward, we must remember that through all the years preceding "Gerontius" he was teaching many hours a week for a living. He was not teaching young geniuses how to compose, or perfecting the powers of young prodigies. Such teaching might have been a joy to him, its own reward. Actually he was teaching just ordinary young folk, as we Members ourselves once were. When we think that, in order to fulfil his responsibilities, he occupied those gloriously impatient young years of life with many many hours of the drudgery of ordinary teaching, whereas all the while he might have made more money by scribbling pot-boilers at three guineas a time - pieces that are published by the thousand every year, and which some clever musicians provide for publishers under a dozen different fictitious names - we cannot believe that he produced large oratorios and cantatas, delicate violin pieces, earnest Church music, and very poetical choral numbers, for any reason other than the artistic one. Elgar was not the only great musician whose first works are different from his last, or whose final development was apparently retarded; the greatest of French musicians, César Franck, was ten years older than Elgar when he arrived finally at himself, and the greater part of his first group of compositions is almost more restricted to the power only to "please."

Thankyou, Stanley S for pointing this film out....I was only talking about it a couple of weeks ago to a friend who is just discovering Elgar. I last watched it back in about 1984, when it was shown on television.

I'm not mad keen on Elgar's music, but this is a beautiful film, and I look forward to seeing it again. I would probably have failed to notice it was on if you hadn't mentioned it.

Thanks again. x Jan x