As a companion piece to Elgar at Tiddington House, I thought the readers of ‘Our Man In Stratford’ might also be interested, in this the 150th anniversary of Elgar’s birth, in the pieces I also wrote for ‘Classy Classical’ last year called Three Voices of English Music, which are an affectionate look, not only at the life of Elgar, but at the lives of two other composers, namely Gustav Holst, born in Cheltenham - an hours drive to the south of Stratford - and Frederick Delius, who is thought to have visited his friend and mentor, the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (his father invented the legendary Beecham’s Pills) at his Stratford home, Clopton House, in the 1920s.

To read the features go to…

Classy Classical post 1

Classy Classical post 2

Classy Classical post 3

Classy Classical post 4

Classy Classical post 5

With Sir Edward Elgar’s 150th birthday approaching, and with the interest being shown in the serialisation of my play, A Summer Garden, over at Classy Classical, I was trolling through references to Elgar on the net when I came across (on a site dedicated to the breeding of the Sussex Spaniel) a piece I wrote last summer for Classy Classical about Elgar living at Tiddington House in the late 1920s. So, for the readers of Our Man In Stratford click on this link to read it again.