This dramatic and effective piece, perhaps Elgar's answer to Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, is the perfect solution to the occasional dilemma of a 20-minute slot in a concert programme. Hans Richter, fervent champion of Elgar's music, had conducted the premiere of The Dream of Gerontius in 1900, and ever since the following year Elgar had promised to dedicate a Symphony to him. But inspiration was elusive, and Elgar sought it by taking his wife Alice to the seaside resort of Alassio, to the west of Genova. The weather was miserable (it was December), but the fresh surroundings did the trick, and new melodies poured forth from the composer's pen. Though still not the Symphony, these became this ‘characteristic overture’, rather in the mould of Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave, or (closer) Elgar's own Cockaigne of 1901.

sources

A  Autograph (1904), in the Royal Academy of Music, London; viewable online at archive.org

E,P  Full score and parts, published by Novello in 1904

Ue  Urtext edition, edited by Sarah Thompson and published by the Elgar Society in 2013. See Froissart above for general comments on Ue; for In the South Ue also used an earlier (unpublished) version of the present report

P often (and as usual) has a superior text to that in E.