The Man Behind The Mask

DVD. With his noble bearing, stiff upper lip and imperial moustache, the composer Sir Edward Elgar is often seen as the epitome of Edwardian England. But this image was deliberately contrived, and far from reality. Based on the enigmatic clues he left in his music and in his private correspondence, John Bridcut's film looks behind the famous moustache to disclose the apparently self-confident Elgar as a brilliant but neurotic musician, with a chip on his shoulder about his lowly origins and his Catholic religion, who despised the Establishment, yet longed to belong to it. Elgar's intense relationships with several women apart from his wife belong to his restless, obsessive nature, and fresh evidence of the nature of these relationships is revealed in the film. This surprising portrait of a musical genius, originally shown on BBC Television, explores the secret conflicts in Elgar's heart which produced some of Britain's greatest music.