Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 3,62 mins

SeriesEdward Elgar (1857-1934)

Edward Elgar - inspired by landscapes

Composer of the Week

Available for over a year

Donald Macleod and Stephen Johnson explore the music of Edward Elgar and its close ties to the landscapes of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Donald asks Stephen, a keen cyclist, about the influence Elgar's hobby of cycling had on his music. They attempt to ride an authentic Edwardian bicycle and examine what the new hobby of the era meant to Elgar and his friends, particularly the female cyclists he knew, a number of whom turn up in the list of friends portrayed in the Enigma Variations.

Programme Website
More episodes