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Caroline Alice Elgar (9 October 1848 - 7 April 1920) was an English author of verse and prose fiction, who married the composer Edward Elgar.

Family

She was born Caroline Alice Roberts, daughter of Major-General Sir Henry Gee Roberts KCB (1800-1860) and Julia Maria Raikes (1815-1887). She was born in Bhooj, Gujarat, India. Known as Alice, she was the youngest of four children, having three brothers Albert Henry Roberts (born in 1839), Frederick Boyd Roberts (1841) and Stanley Napier Roberts (1844).

She studied the piano with Hubert-Ferdinand Kufferath in Brussels and harmony with Charles Harford Lloyd. Before she was married her writing was published under the name C. Alice Roberts. She spoke fluent German, and also Italian, French and Spanish.

Marriage

In 1886 she was living with her elderly widowed mother at Hazeldine House at Redmarley in Worcestershire (now in Gloucestershire), when she took up piano accompaniment lessons with Edward Elgar. After the death of her mother a year later they became engaged, much to the disapproval of her family, who considered Edward a tradesman, of a lower social class.

Alice was eight years older than Edward when they were married on 8 May 1889 at Brompton Oratory. As an engagement present, Elgar had presented her with the short violin and piano piece called Salut d'Amour, and she presented him with one of her poems The Wind at Dawn. The Elgars spent their honeymoon on the Isle of Wight, then returned to London to be closer to the centre of British musical life – first to West Kensington before moving to Upper Norwood to be near the Crystal Palace concerts, before moving back to Fulham. Their only child, Carice Irene, born at 51 Avonmore Road in Fulham on 14 August 1890, was named with a combination of her mother’s names. After the birth of their daughter, they returned to Malvern, where her husband could earn a living teaching and conducting local musical ensembles.

Alice's faith in her husband and her courage in marrying 'beneath her class' were strongly supportive to his career. She dealt with his mood swings and was a generous musical critic. She was also his business manager, social secretary, and not least set out and ruled score paper for his orchestral works.

She did her best to gain him the attention of influential society, though with limited success. The honours accepted reluctantly by her husband mattered more to her and her social class. She also gave up some of her personal aspirations to further his career. In her diary she later admitted, "The care of a genius is enough of a life work for any woman."

When her husband received his knighthood in 1904, she became Lady Elgar.

By January 1920, friends had noticed that she had lost her normal vitality and had not been out of the house since November . She attended a performance of Elgar's Second Symphony on 16 March, and the next day went to a Harley Steet doctor, but stayed at home when Elgar travelled to a concert in Leeds. The last concert she attended was a performance of some of Elgar's chamber music in London. She died of cancer on 7 April, in their home Severn House at 42 Netherhall Gardens in Hampstead. Her funeral was held at St Wulstan's Roman Catholic Church in Little Malvern three days later: among the mourners, with Edward and Carice, were Alice's brother Napier Roberts and Elgar's friend Frank Schuster. In the gallery of the church the slow movement from Elgar's String Quartet was played by Billy Reed, Albert Sammons, Lionel Tertis and Felix Salmond.

Legacy

Elgar gave her initials “C.A.E.” to the first of his Enigma Variations.

Alice's diary, kept during the years of her marriage, between 1889 and 1920, is a valuable record of information about the lives of her and her family.

Works

Poems set to music by Edward Elgar

• "The Wind at Dawn", song (1888)
• "O Happy Eyes", part-song SATB, Op.18 No.1 (1890). Elgar's Op. 18 No.2 "Love" was dedicated to Alice.
• "Mill-wheel Songs", two unpublished songs (1892)
  • 1. Winter; 2. May (a rhapsody)
• The Snow, part-song SSA acc. 2 violins and piano, Op. 26 No.1 (1894). From her poem Isabel Trevithoe.
• Fly, Singing Bird, part-song SSA acc. 2 violins and piano, Op. 26 No.2 (1894). From her poem Isabel Trevithoe.
• From the Bavarian Highlands, six choral songs SATB and orchestra, Op. 27 (1896). Alice also gave the songs their German subtitles.
  • 1. The Dance (Sonnenbichl); 2. False Love (Wamberg); 3. Lullaby (In Hammersbach); 4. Aspiration (Bei Sankt Anton); 5. On the Alm (Hoch Alp); 6. The Marksmen (Bei Murnau)
• "Love alone will stay", song, (1898). Later in “Sea Pictures”, Op. 37 as In Haven (Capri)
• A Christmas Greeting, carol for 2 sopranos, male chorus ad lib, 2 violins and piano, Op. 52, (1907)
• "The King's Way", song (1910)

Other works

• Marchmont Manor, a novel.
• Translation from German of Ritter Gluck by E. T. A. Hoffmann
• Isabel Trevithoe, a poem by C. A. R., published in India (1879)

External links

• The Lied and Art Song Texts page - Caroline Alice Elgar

References

• Kennedy, Michael (1987). Portrait of Elgar (Third ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0192840177. {{cite book}}: Check |first= value (help)
• Moore, Jerrold N. (1984). Edward Elgar: a Creative Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0193154471.
• Reed, William H (1989). Elgar as I knew him. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192822578.
• Young, Percy M. (1978). Alice Elgar: enigma of a Victorian lady. London: Dobson. ISBN 0234774827. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Obituary in The Times, 8 April 1920

Notes

1. Moore, p.115
2. Kennedy, p. 24
3. Kennedy, p. 26
4. Kennedy, p. 28
5. Kennedy, p. 31
6. Kennedy, p.115.
7. Reed, pp.66-7
8. Moore, pp.750-1
9. Moore, p.754
10. Moore, p. 168

• English poets
• English novelists