The Sonata in G major, Op 28 is Sir Edward Elgar's

Edward Elgar

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...

 first sonata

Sonata

Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...

 composed for the organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

 and first performed on 8 July 1895. It also exists in an arrangement for full orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 made after Elgar's death. A second organ sonata was arranged by Ivor Atkins

Ivor Atkins

Sir Ivor Algernon Atkins was the choirmaster and organist at Worcester Cathedral for over 50 years . He is well known for editing Allegri's Miserere with the famous top-C part for the treble...

 from Elgar's Severn Suite, written as a test piece for a 1930 brass band competition.

Structure

There are four movements:

I. Allegro maestoso

II. Allegretto

III. Andanto espressivo

IV. Presto (comodo)

The outer movements follow the classic sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

; the inner movements are in three-part A-B-A form. Michael Kennedy

Michael Kennedy (music critic)

Dr. George Michael Sinclair Kennedy CBE is an English biographer, journalist and writer on classical music. He joined the Daily Telegraph at the age of 15 in 1941, and began writing music criticism for it in 1948...

 observes that to play the finale successfully, the organist needs to be a mental and physical athlete.

The genesis of the work was a request to Elgar to write an organ voluntary for a convention of American organists in the English city of Worcester

Worcester

The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

 in 1895. Instead, Elgar decided on a four movement sonata of nearly half an hour's length. It was first performed by the Worcester Cathedral

Worcester Cathedral

Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England; situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester...

 organist, Hugh Blair

Hugh Blair (composer)

Hugh Blair was an English musician, composer and organist.He was Organist of Worcester Cathedral from 1895 to 1897, having been Acting Organist before that time...

, on 8 July, 1895. According to the score inscription, it took Elgar only a week to write the piece.

The work was dedicated to Elgar’s friend and fellow-musician, Charles Swinnerton Heap (1847-1900).

Orchestration

In the 1940s, the decade after Elgar’s death, the publishers decided that an orchestration of the sonata should be commissioned, and having consulted the composer’s daughter and the conductor Sir Adrian Boult

Adrian Boult

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...

, they entrusted the job to Gordon Jacob

Gordon Jacob

Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...

. The orchestrated sonata was performed in 1946 (by the BBC Symphony Orchestra

BBC Symphony Orchestra

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...

 and Boult). It was neglected for decades thereafter, being revived in 1988 in a recording by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society is a society based in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, that organises concerts and other events mainly in the field of classical music. The society is the second oldest of its type in the United Kingdom and its orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic...

 conducted by Vernon Handley

Vernon Handley

Vernon George "Tod" Handley CBE was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers. He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, London. He acquired the nickname "Tod" because his feet were turned in at his birth, which his...

. The notes to that recording aver that ‘due to Jacob’s sympathetic scoring the version may be described as Elgar’s Symphony No 0,’ though this may be thought an optimistic claim, as for nearly twenty years after the recording was made it remained the only one in the catalogue, compared with four recordings of Anthony Payne

Anthony Payne

Anthony Payne is an English composer, most famous for the work published as Edward Elgar: The Sketches for Symphony No. 3 Elaborated by Anthony Payne...

’s elaboration of Elgar’s sketches for the Symphony No 3. In 2007 a second recording of the orchestrated sonata was issued by Chandos Records

Chandos Records

Chandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...

, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is a Welsh symphony orchestra and one of the BBC's five professional orchestras. The BBC NOW is the only professional symphony orchestra organisation in Wales, occupying a dual role as both a broadcasting orchestra and national orchestra.The BBC NOW has its...

 conducted by Richard Hickox

Richard Hickox

Richard Sidney Hickox CBE was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.-Early life:Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family...

. There exists another orchestration of the sonata made by John Morrison (born 1936, member of the Elgar Society), completed without being aware of the earlier work by Gordon Jacob.

Recordings

The organ sonata has been recorded by, inter alia, Jennifer Bate

Jennifer Bate

Jennifer Lucy Bate OBE is a British concert organist.Born in London, Bate is the daughter of H.A. Bate, organist of St James's Muswell Hill from 1924 to 1978. She is especially regarded as an authority on the organ music of Messiaen, having befriended him within the last twenty years of his life...

, Christopher Bowers-Broadbent

Christopher Bowers-Broadbent

-Biography:He was a chorister in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and went on to study organ and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was taught by Arnold Richardson and Richard Rodney Bennett. His made his debut at the Camden Festival in 1966; his first major recitals were at...

, Carlo Curley

Carlo Curley

Carlo Curley is a flamboyant and popular classical concert organist. Self-dubbed "the Pavarotti of the Organ", he is one of only a few concert organists worldwide who support themselves exclusively by giving recitals, concerts and master classes, without any supplement from teaching or church...

, Harold Darke

Harold Darke

Dr Harold Edwin Darke was an English composer and organist.Darke was born in Highbury, London the youngest son of Samuel Darke & Arundel Bourne...

, Gareth Green, Christopher Herrick

Christopher Herrick

-Early life:Born in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Christopher Herrick was a boy chorister at St Paul's Cathedral and attended its choir school; he sang at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and later that year went with the choir on a three-month tour of America which included a private...

, Donald Hunt, Nicolas Kynaston, James Lancelot

James Lancelot

James Bennett Lancelot is currently Master of the Choristers and Cathedral Organist at Durham Cathedral, a position he has held since 1985....

, Simon Preston

Simon Preston

Simon John Preston CBE is an English organist, conductor, and composer.- Early life :He attended the Canford School in Wimborne in Dorset. Originally a chorister at King's College, Cambridge, he studied the organ with C. H...

, Wolfgang Rübsam

Wolfgang Rübsam

Wolfgang Friedrich Rübsam is a German-American organist, pianist, composer and pedagogue.-Biography:...

, Arturo Sacchetti

Arturo Sacchetti

Arturo Sacchetti Italian organist, conductor and musicologist. He worked as artistic director at the Radio Vatican....

, John Scott

John Scott (organist)

John Gavin Scott LVO is an English-born organist and choirmaster. He directed the Choir of St. Paul's Cathedral in London from 1990 to 2004. He now directs the Choir of Men and Boys of Saint Thomas Church on 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City...

, Herbert Sumsion

Herbert Sumsion

Herbert Whitton Sumsion was an English musician who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967...

 and Thomas Trotter

Thomas Trotter

Thomas Trotter is a British concert organist. He is Birmingham City Organist and organist of St. Margaret's, Westminster and visiting Professor of Organ at the Royal College of Music, London....

.
The first recording of the orchestrated version was made in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool in 1988 for EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

. A second recording, under Hickox, (details above) was issued in 2007.