Sir Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, opus 47, was composed in 1905 for performance in an all-Elgar performance by the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. Scored for string quartet and orchestra, Elgar composed it to show off the players' virtuosity. Though critical reception was intially lukewarm at best, Elgar's piece soon came to be recognized as a masterpiece. The work, which is roughly twelve to fourteen minutes in length, is in the form of one movement, with several prominent themes. Sir Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, OM, GCVO (2 June 1857 â€“ 23 February 1934) was an English composer, born in the small village of Lower Broadheath outside Worcester, Worcestershire, to William Elgar, a piano tuner and music dealer, and his wife Ann. ... 1905 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The London Symphony Orchestra (frequently abbreviated to LSO) is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom. ... The resident string quartet of the Library of Congress in 1963 A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments—usually two violins, a viola and cello—or a piece written to be performed by such a group. ... Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Orchestra at City Hall (Edmonton). ... A virtuoso (from the Latin virtus meaning: skill, manliness, excellence) is an individual who possesses outstanding mechanical ability at operating a musical instrument. ... In music, a theme is the initial or primary melody. ...

The piece opens with a tutti descending fanfare, which segues into a major-key moderato section. Elgar then introduces a slow, lyrical theme played by the solo viola. Elgar writes that this theme is a quotation of a song sung by a distant voice that he had heard during a vacation in Wales. An expressive, romantic section leads into a recapitulation of the opening fanfare and Welsh theme, ending the Introduction. In music, a tutti section in a concerto is one in which the orchestra plays and the soloist does not. ... In music theory, the major scale (or major mode) is one of the diatonic scales. ... This article is about tempo in music. ... The viola is a stringed musical instrument which serves as the middle voice of the violin family, between the upper lines played by the lighter violin (soprano register) and the lower lines played by the heavier cello (bass) and double bass. ...

The Allegro begins with a theme in G major built around a quarter-eighth-eighth note motif. 21 measures of nonstop sixteenth-notes build from a soft piano to a powerful forte as the piece arrives at a hemiola-ridden G Major restatement of the Introduction's opening fanfare. Instead of a development section as would be expected from traditional sonata form, a new theme is introduced, a vigorous fugue in which the piece returns to the opening key of g minor. In a letter to his good friend A. J. Jaeger (Nimrod of the Enigma Variations), Elgar referred to this section as a "devil of a fugue." After the exhilirating fugue, the piece's themes are all recapitulated in G Major. Then the Welsh theme appears in all its splendor in a triumphant coda. The piece ends with a perfect cadence followed by a pizzicato G Major chord. Allegro is: a direction in musical notation indicating that the music is to be played fast and lively. ... G major is a major scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, F# and G. Its key signature consists of one sharp. ... In music, dynamics refers to the volume or loudness of the sound or note, in particular to the range from soft (quiet) to loud. ... In music, dynamics refers to the volume or loudness of the sound or note, in particular to the range from soft (quiet) to loud. ... In modern musical parlance, a hemiola is a metrical pattern in which two bars in triple time (3/2 or 3/4 for example) are articulated as if they were three bars in duple time (2/2 or 2/4). ... Musical development is the transformation and restatement of initial material, often contrasted with musical variation, with which it may be difficult to distinguish as a general process. ... Sonata form refers to both the standard layout of an entire musical composition and more specifically to the standardized form of the first movement. ... In music, a fugue is a type of piece written in counterpoint for several independent musical voices. ... G minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B-flat, C, D, E-flat, F# and G (harmonic minor scale). ... Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra (Enigma),op. ... In Western musical theory a cadence (Latin cadentia, a falling) is a particular series of intervals (a caesura) or chords that ends a phrase, section, or piece of music. ... Pizzicato is a method of playing an orchestral string instrument. ... A chord is a geometric figure. ...