Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. Snowflakes come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Types which fall in the form of a ball due to melting and refreezing, rather than a flake, are known as graupel, with ice pellets and snow grains as examples of graupel. Snowfall amount and its related liquid equivalent precipitation amount are determined using a variety of different rain gauges.

The process of precipitating snow is called snowfall. Snowfall tends to form within regions of upward motion of air around a type of low-pressure system known as an extratropical cyclone. Snow can fall poleward of these systems' associated warm fronts and within their comma head precipitation patterns (called such due to the comma-like shape of the cloud and precipitation pattern around the poleward and west sides of extratropical cyclones). Where relatively warm water bodies are present, for example due to water evaporation from lakes, lake-effect snowfall becomes a concern downwind of the warm lakes within the cold cyclonic flow around the backside of extratropical cyclones. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy. Thundersnow is possible within a cyclone's comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy snow is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, if the atmosphere is cold enough.

Forms

Once on the ground, snow can be categorized as powdery when fluffy, granular when it begins the cycle of melting and refreezing, and eventually ice once it packs down, after multiple melting and refreezing cycles, into a dense mass called snow pack. When powdery, snow moves with the wind from the location where it originally landed, forming deposits called snowdrifts which may have a depth of several meters. After attaching to hillsides, blown snow can evolve into a snow slab, which is an avalanche hazard on steep slopes. The existence of a snowpack keeps temperatures colder than they would be otherwise, as the whiteness of the snow reflects most sunlight, and the absorbed heat goes into melting the snow rather than increasing its temperature. The water equivalent of snowfall is measured to monitor how much liquid is available to flood rivers from meltwater which will occur during the following spring. Snow cover can protect crops from extreme cold. If snowfall stays on the ground for a series of years uninterrupted, the snowpack develops into a mass of ice called glacier. Fresh snow absorbs sound, lowering ambient noise over a landscape because the trapped air between snowflakes attenuates vibration. These acoustic qualities quickly minimize and reverse, once a layer of freezing rain falls on top of snow cover. Walking across snowfall produces a squeaking sound at low temperatures.

The energy balance of the snowpack itself is dictated by several heat exchange processes. The snowpack absorbs solar shortwave radiation that is partially blocked by cloud cover and reflected by snow surface. A long-wave heat exchange takes place between the snowpack and its surrounding environment that includes overlying air mass, tree cover and clouds. Heat exchange takes place by convection between the snowpack and the overlaying air mass, and it is governed by the temperature gradient and wind speed. Moisture exchange between the snowpack and the overlying air mass is accompanied with latent heat transfer that is influenced by vapor pressure gradient and air wind. Rain on snow can add significant amounts of thermal energy to the snowpack. A generally insignificant heat exchange takes place by conduction between the snowpack and the ground. The small temperature change from before to after a snowfall is a result of the heat transfer between the snowpack and the air.

The term ''snow storm'' can describe a heavy snowfall while a ''blizzard'' involves snow and wind, obscuring visibility. ''Snow shower'' is a term for an intermittent snowfall, while ''flurry'' is used for very light, brief snowfalls. Snow can fall more than a meter at a time during a single storm in flat areas, and meters at a time in rugged terrain, such as mountains. When snow falls in significant quantities, travel by foot, car, airplane and other means becomes highly restricted, but other methods of mobility become possible: the use of snowmobiles, snowshoes and skis. When heavy snow occurs early in the fall (or, on rarer occasions, late in the spring), significant damage occurs to trees still in leaf. Areas with significant snow each year can store the winter snow within an ice house, which can be used to cool structures during the following summer. A variation on snow has been observed on Venus, though composed of metallic compounds and occurring at a substantially higher temperature.

Cause

Extratropical cyclones can bring cold and dangerous conditions with heavy rain and snow with winds exceeding , (sometimes referred to as windstorms in Europe). The band of precipitation that is associated with their warm front is often extensive, forced by weak upward vertical motion of air over the frontal boundary which condenses as it cools and produces precipitation within an elongated band, which is wide and stratiform, meaning falling out of nimbostratus clouds. When moist air tries to dislodge an arctic air mass, overrunning snow can result within the poleward side of the elongated precipitation band. In the Northern Hemisphere, poleward is towards the North Pole, or north. Within the Southern Hemisphere, poleward is towards the South Pole, or south.

Within the ''cold sector'', poleward and west of the cyclone center, small scale or mesoscale bands of heavy snow can occur within a cyclone's comma head pattern. The cyclone's comma head pattern is a comma-shaped area of clouds and precipitation found around mature extratropical cyclones. These snow bands typically have a width of to . These bands in the comma head are associated with areas of frontogenesis, or zones of strengthening temperature contrast.

Southwest of extratropical cyclones, curved cyclonic flow bringing cold air across the relatively warm water bodies can lead to narrow lake-effect snow bands. Those bands bring strong localized snowfall which can be understood as follows: Large water bodies such as lakes efficiently store heat that results in significant temperature differences (larger than 13 °C or 23 °F) between the water surface and the air above. Because of this temperature difference, warmth and moisture are transported upward, condensing into vertically oriented clouds (see satellite picture) which produce snow showers. The temperature decrease with height and cloud depth are directly affected by both the water temperature and the large-scale environment. The stronger the temperature decrease with height, the deeper the clouds get, and the greater the precipitation rate becomes.

In mountainous areas, heavy snowfall accumulates when air is forced to ascend the mountains and squeeze out precipitation along their windward slopes, which in cold conditions, falls in the form of snow. Because of the ruggedness of terrain, forecasting the location of heavy snowfall remains a significant challenge.

Snowflakes

Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets (about 10 μm in diameter) freeze. These droplets are able to remain liquid at temperatures lower than , because to freeze, a few molecules in the droplet need to get together by chance to form an arrangement similar to that in an ice lattice; then the droplet freezes around this "nucleus." Experiments show that this "homogeneous" nucleation of cloud droplets only occurs at temperatures lower than . In warmer clouds an aerosol particle or "ice nucleus" must be present in (or in contact with) the droplet to act as a nucleus. Ice nuclei are very rare compared to that cloud condensation nuclei on which liquid droplets form. Clays, desert dust and biological particles may be effective, although to what extent is unclear. Artificial nuclei include particles of silver iodide and dry ice, and these are used to stimulate precipitation in cloud seeding.

Once a droplet has frozen, it grows in the supersaturated environment, which is one where air is saturated with respect to ice when the temperature is below the freezing point. The droplet then grows by diffusion of water molecules in the air (vapor) onto the ice crystal surface where they are collected. Because water droplets are so much more numerous than the ice crystals due to their sheer abundance, the crystals are able to grow to hundreds of micrometers or millimeters in size at the expense of the water droplets by a process known as the Wegner-Bergeron-Findeison process. The corresponding depletion of water vapor causes the ice crystals grow at the droplets' expense. These large crystals are an efficient source of precipitation, since they fall through the atmosphere due to their mass, and may collide and stick together in clusters, or aggregates. These aggregates are snowflakes, and are usually the type of ice particle that falls to the ground. Guinness World Records list the world's largest snowflakes as those of January 1887 at Fort Keogh, Montana; allegedly one measured wide. Although the ice is clear, scattering of light by the crystal facets and hollows/imperfections mean that the crystals often appear white in color due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the small ice particles.

The shape of the snowflake is determined broadly by the temperature and humidity at which it is formed. The most common snow particles are visibly irregular. Planar crystals (thin and flat) grow in air between and . Between and , the crystals will form needles or hollow columns or prisms (long thin pencil-like shapes). From to the shape reverts back to plate-like, often with branched or dendritic features. At temperatures below , the crystal development becomes column-like, although many more complex growth patterns also form such as side-planes, bullet-rosettes and also planar types depending on the conditions and ice nuclei. If a crystal has started forming in a column growth regime, at around , and then falls into the warmer plate-like regime, then plate or dendritic crystals sprout at the end of the column, producing so called "capped columns."

A snowflake consists of roughly 10¹⁹ water molecules, which are added to its core at different rates and in different patterns, depending on the changing temperature and humidity within the atmosphere that the snowflake falls through on its way to the ground. As a result, it is extremely difficult to encounter two identical snowflakes. Initial attempts to find identical snowflakes by photographing thousands their images under a microscope from 1885 onward by Wilson Alwyn Bentley found the wide variety of snowflakes we know about today. It is more likely that two snowflakes could become virtually identical if their environments were similar enough. Matching snow crystals were discovered in Wisconsin in 1988. The crystals were not flakes in the usual sense but rather hollow hexagonal prisms.

Types

Types of snow can be designated by the shape of the flakes, the rate of accumulation, and the way the snow collects on the ground. Types which fall in the form of a ball due to melting and refreezing cycles, rather than a flake, are known as graupel, with ice pellets and snow pellets as types of graupel associated with wintry precipitation. Once on the ground, snow can be categorized as ''powdery'' when fluffy, ''granular'' when it begins the cycle of melting and refreezing, and eventually ''ice'' once it packs down into a dense drift after multiple melting and refreezing cycles. When powdery, snow drifts with the wind from the location where it originally fell, forming deposits with a depth of several meters in isolated locations. Snow fences are constructed in order to help control snow drifting in the vicinity of roads, to improve highway safety. After attaching to hillsides, blown snow can evolve into a snow slab, which is an avalanche hazard on steep slopes. A frozen equivalent of dew known as hoar frost forms on a snow pack when winds are light and there is ample low-level moisture over the snow pack.

Snowfall's intensity is determined by visibility. When the visibility is over , snow is considered light. Moderate snow describes snowfall with visibility restrictions between 0.5 and 1 km. Heavy snowfall describes conditions when visibility is less than 0.5 km. Steady snows of significant intensity are often referred to as "snowstorms". When snow is of variable intensity and short duration, it is described as a "snow shower". The term snow flurry is used to describe the lightest form of a snow shower.

A blizzard is a weather condition involving snow which has varying definitions in different parts of the world. In the United States, a blizzard is occurring when two conditions are met for a period of three hours or more: A sustained wind or frequent gusts to , and sufficient snow in the air to reduce visibility to less than . In Canada and the United Kingdom, the criteria are similar. While heavy snowfall often occurs during blizzard conditions, falling snow is not a requirement, as blowing snow can create a ground blizzard.

Density

Snow remains on the ground until it melts or sublimates. Sublimation of snow directly into water vapor is most likely to occur on a dry and windy day such as when a strong downslope wind, such as a Chinook wind, exists. The ''water equivalent'' of a given amount of snow is the depth of a layer of water having the same mass and upper area. For example, if the snow covering a given area has a water equivalent of , then it will melt into a pool of water deep covering the same area. This is a much more useful measurement to hydrologists than snow ''depth'', as the density of cool freshly fallen snow widely varies. New snow commonly has a density of around 8% of water. This means that of snow melts down to of water. Cloud temperatures and physical processes in the cloud affect the shape of individual snow crystals. Highly branched or dendritic crystals tend to have more space between the arms of ice that form the snowflake and this snow will therefore have a lower density, often referred to as "dry" snow. Conditions that create columnar or plate-like crystals will have much less air space within the crystal and will therefore be denser and feel "wetter".

Once the snow is on the ground, it will settle under its own weight (largely due to differential evaporation) until its density is approximately 30% of water. Increases in density above this initial compression occur primarily by melting and refreezing, caused by temperatures above freezing or by direct solar radiation. In colder climates, snow lies on the ground all winter. By late spring, snow densities typically reach a maximum of 50% of water. When the snow does not all melt in the summer it evolves into firn, where individual granules become more spherical in nature, evolving into a glacier as the ice flows downhill.

Acoustic properties

Under water, snowfall has a unique sound when compared to other forms of precipitation. Despite the different sizes and shapes on individual snowflakes, the sound made when individual flakes fall upon the surface of a freshwater lake are quite similar. On the ground, newly fallen snow acts as a sound-absorbing material, which minimizes sound over its surface. This is due to the trapped air between the individual crystalline flakes which act to trap sound waves and dampen vibrations. Once it is blown around by the wind and exposed to sunshine, snow hardens and its sound-softening quality diminishes. Snow cover as thin as thick changes the acoustic properties of a landscape. Studies concerning the acoustic properties of snow have revealed that loud sounds, such as from a pistol, can be used to measure snow cover permeability and depth. Within motion pictures, the sound of walking through snow is simulated using cornstarch, salt, or cat litter. When the temperature falls below , snow will squeak when walked upon due to the crushing of the ice crystals within the snow. If covered by a layer of freezing rain, the hardened frozen surface acts to echo sounds, similar to concrete.

Snowfall measurement

The liquid equivalent of snowfall may be evaluated using a snow gauge or with a standard rain gauge having a diameter of 100 mm (4 in; plastic) or 200 mm (8 in; metal). Rain gauges are adjusted to winter by removing the funnel and inner cylinder and allowing the snow/freezing rain to collect inside the outer cylinder. Antifreeze liquid may be added to melt the snow or ice that falls into the gauge. In both types of gauges once the snowfall/ice is finished accumulating, or as its height in the gauge approaches , the snow is melted and the water amount recorded.

Another type of gauge used to measure the liquid equivalent of snowfall is the weighing precipitation gauge. The wedge and tipping bucket gauges will have problems with snow measurement. Attempts to compensate for snow/ice by warming the tipping bucket meet with limited success, since snow may sublimate if the gauge is kept much above the freezing temperature. Weighing gauges with antifreeze should do fine with snow, but again, the funnel needs to be removed before the event begins. At some automatic weather stations an ultrasonic snow depth sensor may be used to augment the precipitation gauge.

Spring snow melt is a major source of water supply to areas in temperate zones near mountains that catch and hold winter snow, especially those with a prolonged dry summer. In such places, water equivalent is of great interest to water managers wishing to predict spring runoff and the water supply of cities downstream. Measurements are made manually at marked locations known as ''snow courses'', and remotely using special scales called ''snow pillows''. Snow stakes and simple rulers can be used to determine the depth of the snow pack, though they will not evaluate either its density or liquid equivalent.

When a snow measurement is made, various networks exist across the United States and elsewhere where rainfall measurements can be submitted through the Internet, such as CoCoRAHS or GLOBE. If a network is not available in the area where one lives, the nearest local weather office will likely be interested in the measurement.

Records

The world record for the highest seasonal total snowfall was measured in the United States at Mount Baker Ski Area, outside of the town Bellingham, Washington during the 1998–1999 season. Mount Baker received of snow, thus surpassing the previous record holder, Mount Rainier, Washington, which during the 1971–1972 season received of snow.

The largest piece of ice to fall to earth was an ice block 6 meters (20 ft) across that fell in Scotland on 13 August 1849.

Snow blindness

Fresh snow reflects 90% or more of ultraviolet radiation that causes snow blindness and reduces absorption of sunlight by the ground.Snow blindness (also known as ultraviolet keratitis, photokeratitis or niphablepsia) is a painful eye condition, caused by exposure of unprotected eyes to the ultraviolet (UV) rays in bright sunlight reflected from snow or ice. This condition is a problem in polar regions and at high altitudes, as with every of elevation (above sea level), the intensity of UV rays increases by 4%. Snow's large reflection of light makes night skies much brighter, since reflected light is directed back up into the sky. However, when there is also cloud cover, light is then reflected back to the ground. This greatly amplifies light emitted from city lights, causing the 'bright night' effect. A similar brightening effect occurs when no snow is falling and there is a full moon and a large amount of snow.

Relation to river flow

Many rivers originating in mountainous or high-latitude regions receive a significant portion of their flow from snowmelt. This often makes the river's flow highly seasonal resulting in periodic flooding. In contrast, if much of the melt is from glaciated or nearly glaciated areas, the melt continues through the warm season, with peak flows occurring in mid to late summer.

Effects on human society

Substantial snowfall can disrupt public infrastructure and services, slowing human activity even in regions that are accustomed to such weather. Air and ground transport may be greatly inhibited or shut down entirely. Populations living in snow-prone areas have developed various ways to travel across the snow, such as skis, snowshoes, and sleds pulled by horses, dogs, or other animals and later, snowmobiles. Basic utilities such as electricity, telephone lines, and gas supply can also fail. In addition, snow can make roads much harder to travel and vehicles attempting to use them can easily become stuck.

The combined effects can lead to a "snow day" on which gatherings such as school or work are officially canceled. In areas that normally have very little or no snow, a snow day may occur when there is only light accumulation or even the threat of snowfall, since those areas are unprepared to handle any amount of snow. In some areas, such as some states in the United States, schools are given a yearly quota of snow days (or "calamity days"). Once the quota is exceeded, the snow days must be made up. In other states, all snow days must be made up. For example, schools may extend the remaining school days later into the afternoon, shorten spring break, or delay the start of summer vacation.

Accumulated snow is removed to make travel easier and safer, and to decrease the long-term impact of a heavy snowfall. This process utilizes shovels and snowplows, and is often assisted by sprinkling salt or other chloride-based chemicals, which reduce the melting temperature of snow. In some areas with abundant snowfall, such as Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, people harvest snow and store it surrounded by insulation in ice houses. This allows the snow to be used through the summer for refrigeration and air conditioning, which requires far less electricity than traditional cooling methods.

Agriculture

Snowfall can be beneficial to agriculture by serving as a thermal insulator, conserving the heat of the Earth and protecting crops from subfreezing weather. Some agricultural areas depend on an accumulation of snow during winter that will melt gradually in spring, providing water for crop growth. If it melts into water and refreezes upon sensitive crops, such as oranges, the resulting ice will protect the fruit from exposure to lower temperatures.

Recreation

Many winter sports, such as skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and snowshoeing depend upon snow. Where snow is scarce but the temperature is low enough, snow cannons may be used to produce an adequate amount for such sports. Children and adults can play on a sled or ride in a sleigh. Although a person's footsteps remain a visible lifeline within a snow-covered landscape, snow cover is considered a general danger to hiking since the snow obscures landmarks and makes the landscape itself appear uniform.

One of the recognizable recreational uses of snow is in building snowmen. A snowman is created by making a man shaped figure out of snow – often using a large, shaped snowball for the body and a smaller snowball for the head which is often decorated with simple household items – traditionally including a carrot for a nose, and coal for eyes, nose and mouth; occasionally including old clothes such as a top hat or scarf.

Snow can be used to make snow cones, also known as snowballs, which are usually eaten in the summer months. Flat areas of snow can be used to make snow angels, a popular pastime for children.

Snow can be used to alter the format of outdoor games such as Capture the flag, or for snowball fights. The world's biggest snowcastle, the SnowCastle of Kemi, is built in Kemi, Finland every winter. Since 1928 Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan has held an annual Winter Carnival in mid-February, during which a large Snow Sculpture Contest takes place between various clubs, fraternities, and organizations in the community and the university. Each year there is a central theme, and prizes are awarded based on creativity. Snowball softball tournaments are held in snowy areas, usually using a bright orange softball for visibility, and burlap sacks filled with snow for the bases.

Damage

When heavy, wet snow with a snow-water equivalent (SWE) ratio of between 6:1 and 12:1 (in extreme cases, as heavy as 4:1) and a weight in excess of 10 pounds per square foot (~50 kg/m²) piles onto trees or electricity lines – particularly if the trees have full leaves or are not adapted to snow – significant damage may occur on a scale usually associated with hurricanes. An avalanche can occur upon a sudden thermal or mechanical impact upon snow that has accumulated on a mountain, which causes the snow to rush downhill en masse. Preceding an avalanche is a phenomenon known as an avalanche wind caused by the approaching avalanche itself, which adds to its destructive potential. Large amounts of snow which accumulate on top of man-made structures can lead to structural failure. During snowmelt, acidic precipitation which previously fell into the snow pack is released, which harms marine life.

Design of structures considering snow load

The design of all structures and buildings use the ground snow load to some extent by professional engineers and designers. In North America, the northern states will be designed to accommodate the live load design contributed by the ground snow load in a pounds per square foot (PSF) loading analysis. This load is typically the governing design factor on roofs and structural elements exposed to the effects of snow. Closer to the Equator, the snow load becomes less of a factor and snow may or may not be the governing factor. Ground snow in North America is provided by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE7-latest edition) for most jurisdictions.

Extraterrestrial snow

Very light snow is known to occur at high latitudes on Mars. A "snow" of hydrocarbons is also theorized to occur on Saturn's moon Titan.

While there is little or no water on Venus, there is a phenomenon which is quite similar to snow. The Magellan probe imaged a highly reflective substance at the tops of Venus's highest mountain peaks which bore a strong resemblance to terrestrial snow. This substance arguably formed from a similar process to snow, albeit at a far higher temperature. Too volatile to condense on the surface, it rose in gas form to cooler higher elevations, where it then fell as precipitation. The identity of this substance is not known with certainty, but speculation has ranged from elemental tellurium to lead sulfide (galena).

See also

2007 Siberian orange snow

Alberta clipper

Animal tracks

Black ice

Cold wave

Eskimo words for snow

Frost

Grit bin

Heikki Lunta

Igloo

Knickerbocker Storm

Quinzhee

Snow cave

Snow farming

Snowbelt

The wrong type of snow

Timeline of snowflake research

Ukichiro Nakaya

References

External links

Snow at above freezing temperatures

Snowpack energy and mass balance An article that contains detailed analysis of snowpack energy and mass balance.

United Nations Environment Programme: Global Outlook for Ice and Snow

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:Snow Category:Precipitation Category:Forms of water

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Coordinates	39°16′01″N86°14′57″N
name	Dean Martin
background	solo_singer
birth name	Dino Paul Crocetti
alias	Dean MartinThe King of CoolDinoDino Martini
born	June 07, 1917Steubenville, Ohio, U.S.
died	December 25, 1995Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
genre	Big band, easy listening, pop standard, country
years active	1939–1995
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, actor, comedian, film producer
label	Capitol, Reprise }}

Dean Martin (June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995), born Dino Paul Crocetti, was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "Mambo Italiano", "Sway", "Volare" and smash hit "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?". Nicknamed the "King of Cool", he was one of the members of the "Rat Pack" and a major star in four areas of show business: concert stage/night clubs, recordings, motion pictures, and television.

Early life

Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio, to Italian parents, Gaetano and Angela Crocetti (née Barra). His father was from Abruzzo, Italy, and his mother was an Italian of part Neapolitan and part Sicilian ancestry. Martin was the younger of two sons. His brother was named Bill. Martin spoke only Italian until he started school. He attended Grant Elementary School in Steubenville, and took up the drums as a hobby as a teenager. He was the target of much ridicule for his broken English and ultimately dropped out of Steubenville High School in the 10th grade because he thought that he was smarter than his teachers. He delivered bootleg liquor, served as a speakeasy croupier, was a blackjack dealer, worked in a steel mill and boxed as welterweight. He grew up a neighbor to Jimmy the Greek.

At the age of 15, he was a boxer who billed himself as "Kid Crochet". His prizefighting years earned him a broken nose (later straightened), a scarred lip, and many sets of broken knuckles (a result of not being able to afford the tape used to wrap boxers' hands). Of his twelve bouts, he would later say "I won all but eleven." For a time, he roomed with Sonny King, who, like Martin, was just starting in show business and had little money. It is said that Martin and King held bare-knuckle matches in their apartment, fighting until one of them was knocked out; people paid to watch.

Eventually, Martin gave up boxing. He worked as a roulette stickman and croupier in an illegal casino behind a tobacco shop where he had started as a stock boy. At the same time, he sang with local bands. Calling himself "Dino Martini" (after the then-famous Metropolitan Opera tenor, Nino Martini), he got his first break working for the Ernie McKay Orchestra. He sang in a crooning style influenced by Harry Mills (of the Mills Brothers), among others. In the early 1940s, he started singing for bandleader Sammy Watkins, who suggested he change his name to Dean Martin.

In October 1941, Martin married Elizabeth Anne McDonald. During their marriage (ended by divorce in 1949), they had four children. Martin worked for various bands throughout the early 1940s, mostly on looks and personality until he developed his own singing style. Martin famously flopped at the Riobamba, a high class nightclub in New York, when he succeeded Frank Sinatra in 1943, but it was the setting for their meeting.

Drafted into the United States Army in 1944 during World War II, Martin served a year stationed in Akron, Ohio. He was then reclassified as 4-F (possibly because of a double hernia; Jerry Lewis referred to the surgery Martin needed for this in his autobiography) and was discharged.

By 1946, Martin was doing relatively well, but was still little more than an East Coast nightclub singer with a common style, similar to that of Bing Crosby. He drew audiences to the clubs he played, but he inspired none of the fanatic popularity enjoyed by Sinatra.

Mafia connections

A biography on Martin entitled ''Dean Martin: King of the Road'' by Michael Freedland alleged he had links to the Mafia early in his career. According to this book, Martin was given help with his singing career by the Chicago Outfit who owned saloons in the city, and later performed in shows hosted by these bosses when he was a star. The mob bosses were Tony ("Joe Batters") Accardo and Sam Giancana. Freedland suggests Martin felt little sympathy for the Mafia and did them small favors only if it was not inconvenient for him. Another book, ''The Animal in Hollywood'' by John L. Smith, depicted Martin's longtime friendship with Mafia mobsters "Handsome Johnny" Roselli and Anthony ("The Animal") Fiato. Smith suggests that Fiato did Martin many favors, such as getting back money from two swindlers who had cheated Martin's ex-wife Betty out of thousands of dollars of her alimony.

Career

Teaming with Jerry Lewis

Martin attracted the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures, but a Hollywood contract was not forthcoming. He met comic Jerry Lewis at the Glass Hat Club in New York, where both men were performing. Martin and Lewis formed a fast friendship which led to their participation in each other's acts and the ultimate formation of a music-comedy team.

Martin and Lewis's official debut together occurred at Atlantic City's 500 Club on July 24, 1946, and they were not well received. The owner, Skinny D'Amato, warned them that if they did not come up with a better act for their second show later that night, they would be fired. Huddling together in the alley behind the club, Lewis and Martin agreed to "go for broke", to throw out the pre-scripted gags and to improvise. Martin sang and Lewis came out dressed as a busboy, dropping plates and making a shambles of both Martin's performance and the club's sense of decorum until Lewis was chased from the room as Martin pelted him with breadrolls. They did slapstick, reeled off old vaudeville jokes, and did whatever else popped into their heads at the moment. This time, the audience doubled over in laughter. This success led to a series of well-paying engagements on the Eastern seaboard, culminating in a triumphant run at New York's Copacabana. Patrons were convulsed by the act, which consisted primarily of Lewis interrupting and heckling Martin while he was trying to sing, and ultimately the two of them chasing each other around the stage and having as much fun as possible. The secret, both said, is that they essentially ignored the audience and played to one another.

The team made its TV debut on the very first broadcast of CBS-TV network's ''Toast of the Town'' (later called ''The Ed Sullivan Show'') with Ed Sullivan and Rodgers & Hammerstein appearing on this same inaugural telecast of June 20, 1948. A radio series commenced in 1949, the same year Martin and Lewis were signed by Paramount producer Hal B. Wallis as comedy relief for the movie ''My Friend Irma''.

Their agent, Abby Greshler, negotiated for them one of Hollywood's best deals: although they received only a modest $75,000 between them for their films with Wallis, Martin and Lewis were free to do one outside film a year, which they would co-produce through their own York Productions. They also had complete control of their club, record, radio and television appearances, and it was through these endeavors that they earned millions of dollars.

In ''Dean & Me'', Lewis calls Martin one of the great comic geniuses of all time. But the harsh comments from the critics, as well as frustration with the formulaic similarity of Martin and Lewis movies, which producer Hal Wallis stubbornly refused to change, led to Martin's dissatisfaction. He put less enthusiasm into the work, leading to escalating arguments with Lewis. They finally could not work together, especially after Martin told his partner he was "nothing to me but a dollar sign". The act broke up in 1956, 10 years to the day from the first official teaming.

Martin's first solo film, ''Ten Thousand Bedrooms'' (1957), was a box office failure. He was still popular as a singer, but with rock and roll surging to the fore, the era of the pop crooner was waning.

The CBS film, ''Martin and Lewis'', a made-for-TV movie about the famous comedy duo, starred Jeremy Northam as Martin, and Sean Hayes as Lewis. It depicted the years from 1946–1956.

Solo career

Never totally comfortable in films, Martin wanted to be known as a real actor. Though offered a fraction of his former salary to co-star in a war drama, ''The Young Lions'' (1957), he was ecstatic to receive the part because it would be a dramatic showcase with the two most intriguing young actors of the period and he could learn from Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. Tony Randall already had the part, but talent agency MCA realized that with this movie, Martin would become a triple threat: they could make money from his work in night clubs, movies, and records. Martin replaced Randall and the film turned out to be the beginning of Martin's spectacular comeback. Success would continue as Martin starred alongside Frank Sinatra for the first time in a highly acclaimed Vincente Minnelli drama, ''Some Came Running'' (1958). By the mid '60s, Martin was a top movie, recording, and nightclub star, while Lewis' film career declined. Martin was acclaimed for his performance as Dude in ''Rio Bravo'' (1959), directed by Howard Hawks and also starring John Wayne and singer Ricky Nelson. He teamed up again with Wayne in ''The Sons of Katie Elder'' (1965), somewhat unconvincingly cast as brothers.

In 1960, Martin was cast in the motion picture version of the Judy Holliday hit stage play ''Bells Are Ringing''. Martin played a satiric variation of his own womanizing persona as Vegas singer "Dino" in Billy Wilder's comedy ''Kiss Me, Stupid'' (1964) with Kim Novak, and he was not above poking fun at his image in films such as the ''Matt Helm'' spy spoofs of the 1960s, in which he was a co-producer.

As a singer, Martin copied the styles of Harry Mills (of the Mills Brothers), Bing Crosby, and Perry Como until he developed his own and could hold his own in duets with Sinatra and Crosby. Like Sinatra, he could not read music, but he recorded more than 100 albums and 600 songs. His signature tune, "Everybody Loves Somebody", knocked The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" out of the number-one spot in the United States in 1964. This was followed by the similarly-styled "The Door is Still Open to My Heart", which reached number six later that year. Elvis Presley was said to have been influenced by Martin, and patterned "Love Me Tender" after his style. Martin, like Elvis, was influenced by country music. By 1965, some of Martin's albums, such as ''Dean "Tex" Martin,'' ''The Hit Sound Of Dean Martin,'' ''Welcome To My World'' and ''Gentle On My Mind'' were composed of country and western songs made famous by artists like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Buck Owens. Martin hosted country performers on his TV show and was named "Man Of the Year" by the Country Music Association in 1966. "Ain't That a Kick in the Head", a song Martin performed in ''Ocean's Eleven'' that never became a hit at the time, has enjoyed a spectacular revival in the media and pop culture.

For three decades, Martin was among the most popular acts in Las Vegas. Martin sang and was one of the smoothest comics in the business, benefiting from the decade of raucous comedy with Lewis. Martin's daughter, Gail, also sang in Vegas and on his TV show, co-hosting his summer replacement series on NBC. Though often thought of as a ladies' man, Martin spent a lot of time with his family; as second wife Jeanne put it, prior to the couple's divorce, "He was home every night for dinner."

The Rat Pack

As Martin's solo career grew, he and Frank Sinatra became close friends. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Martin and Sinatra, along with friends Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis, Jr. formed the legendary Rat Pack, so called by the public after an earlier group of social friends, the Holmby Hills Rat Pack centered on Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, of which Sinatra had been a member.

The Martin-Sinatra-Davis-Lawford-Bishop group referred to themselves as "The Summit" or "The Clan" and never as "The Rat Pack", although this has remained their identity in the popular imagination. The men made films together, formed an important part of the Hollywood social scene in those years, and were politically influential (through Lawford's marriage to Patricia Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy).

The Rat Pack were legendary for their Las Vegas performances. For example, the marquee at the Sands Hotel might read DEAN MARTIN---MAYBE FRANK---MAYBE SAMMY. Las Vegas rooms were at a premium when the Rat Pack would appear, with many visitors sleeping in hotel lobbies or cars to get a chance to see the three men together. Their act (always in tuxedo) consisted of each singing individual numbers, duets and trios, along with much seemingly improvised slapstick and chatter. In the socially-charged 1960s, their jokes revolved around adult themes, such as Sinatra's infamous womanizing and Martin's legendary drinking, as well as many at the expense of Davis's race and religion. Davis famously practiced Judaism and used Yiddish phrases onstage, eliciting much merriment from both his stage-mates and his audiences. It was all good-natured male bonding, never vicious, rarely foul-mouthed, and the three had great respect for each other. The Rat Pack was largely responsible for the integration of Las Vegas. Sinatra and Martin steadfastly refused to appear anywhere that barred Davis, forcing the casinos to open their doors to African-American entertainers and patrons, and to drop restrictive covenants against Jews.

Posthumously, the Rat Pack has experienced a popular revival, inspiring the George Clooney/Brad Pitt "Ocean's" trilogy. An HBO film, ''The Rat Pack'', starred Joe Mantegna as Martin, Ray Liotta as Sinatra and Don Cheadle as Davis. It depicted their contribution to JFK's election in 1960.

The 1960s to 1980s

In 1965, Martin launched his weekly NBC comedy-variety series, ''The Dean Martin Show'', which exploited his public image as a lazy, carefree boozer. There he perfected his famous laid-back persona of the half-drunk crooner suavely hitting on beautiful women with hilarious remarks that would get anyone else slapped, and making snappy if slurred remarks about fellow celebrities during his famous roasts. During an interview he stated, and this may have been tongue-in-cheek, that he had someone record them on cassette tape so he could listen to them; this is evidenced by his comments to this effect on the British TV documentary 'Wine, Women and Song' which was aired in 1983.

The TV show was a success. Martin prided himself on memorizing whole scripts – not merely his own lines. He disliked rehearsing because he firmly believed his best performances were his first. The show's loose format prompted quick-witted improvisation from Martin and the cast. On occasion, he made remarks in Italian, some mild obscenities that brought angry mail from offended, Italian-speaking viewers. This prompted a battle between Martin and NBC censors, who insisted on more scrutiny of the show's content. The show was often in the Top Ten. Martin, deeply appreciative of the efforts of the show's producer, his friend Greg Garrison, later made a handshake deal giving Garrison, a pioneer TV producer in the 1950s, 50% ownership of the show. However, the validity of that ownership is currently the subject of a lawsuit brought by NBC Universal.

Despite Martin's reputation as a heavy drinker – a reputation perpetuated via his vanity license plates reading "DRUNKY" – he was remarkably self-disciplined. He was often the first to call it a night, and when not on tour or on a film location, liked to go home to see his wife and children. Phyllis Diller has said that Martin was indeed drinking alcohol onstage and not apple juice. She also commented that although he was not drunk, he was not really sober either, but had very strict rules when it came to performances. He borrowed the lovable-drunk shtick from Joe E. Lewis, but his convincing portrayals of heavy boozers in ''Some Came Running'' and Howard Hawks's ''Rio Bravo'' led to unsubstantiated claims of alcoholism. More often than not, Martin's idea of a good time was playing golf or watching TV, particularly westerns – not staying with Rat Pack friends Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. into the early hours of the morning.

Martin starred in and co-produced a series of four Matt Helm superspy comedy adventures. A fifth, ''The Ravagers'', was planned starring Sharon Tate and Martin in a dual role, one as a serial killer, but due to the murder of Tate and the decline of the spy genre the film was never made.

By the early 1970s, ''The Dean Martin Show'' was still earning solid ratings, and although he was no longer a Top 40 hitmaker, his record albums continued to sell steadily. His name on a marquee could guarantee casinos and nightclubs a standing-room-only crowd. He found a way to make his passion for golf profitable by offering his own signature line of golf balls. Shrewd investments had greatly increased Martin's personal wealth; at the time of his death, Martin was reportedly the single largest minority shareholder of RCA stock. Martin even managed to cure himself of his claustrophobia by reportedly locking himself in the elevator of a tall building and riding up and down for hours until he was no longer panic-stricken.

Martin retreated from show business. The final (1973–74) season of his variety show would be retooled into one of celebrity roasts, requiring less of Martin's involvement. After the show's cancellation, NBC continued to air the ''Dean Martin Celebrity Roast'' format in a series of TV specials through 1984. In those 11 years, Martin and his panel of pals successfully ridiculed and made fun of these legendary stars in this order: Ronald Reagan, Hugh Hefner, Ed McMahon, William Conrad, Kirk Douglas, Bette Davis, Barry Goldwater, Johnny Carson, Wilt Chamberlain, Hubert Humphrey, Carroll O'Connor, Monty Hall, Jack Klugman & Tony Randall, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Leo Durocher, Truman Capote, Don Rickles, Ralph Nader, Jack Benny, Redd Foxx, Bobby Riggs, George Washington, Dan Rowan & Dick Martin, Hank Aaron, Joe Namath, Bob Hope, Telly Savalas, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Sammy Davis Jr, Michael Landon, Evel Knievel, Valerie Harper, Muhammad Ali, Dean Martin, Dennis Weaver, Joe Garagiola, Danny Thomas, Angie Dickinson, Gabe Kaplan, Ted Knight, Peter Marshall, Dan Haggerty, Frank Sinatra, Jack Klugman, Jimmy Stewart, George Burns, Betty White, Suzanne Somers, Joan Collins, and Mr T. For nearly a decade, Martin had recorded as many as four albums a year for Reprise Records. That stopped in November 1974, when Martin recorded his final Reprise album - ''Once In A While,'' released in 1978. His last recording sessions were for Warner Brothers Records. An album titled ''The Nashville Sessions'' was released in 1983, from which he had a hit with "(I Think That I Just Wrote) My First Country Song", which was recorded with Conway Twitty and made a respectable showing on the country charts. A followup single "L.A. Is My Home" / "Drinking Champagne" came in 1985. The 1975 film ''Mr. Ricco'' marked Martin's final starring role, and Martin limited his live performances to Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Martin seemed to suffer a mid-life crisis. In 1972, he filed for divorce from his second wife, Jeanne. A week later, his business partnership with the Riviera was dissolved amid reports of the casino's refusal to agree to Martin's request to perform only once a night. He was quickly snapped up by the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, and signed a three-picture deal with MGM Studios. Less than a month after his second marriage had been legally dissolved, Martin married 26-year-old Catherine Hawn on April 25, 1973. Hawn had been the receptionist at the chic Gene Shacrove hair salon in Beverly Hills. They divorced November 10, 1976. He was also briefly engaged to Gail Renshaw, Miss World-U.S.A. 1969.

Eventually, Martin reconciled with Jeanne, though they never remarried. He also made a public reconciliation with Jerry Lewis on Lewis' Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon in 1976. Frank Sinatra shocked Lewis and the world by bringing Martin out on stage. As Martin and Lewis embraced, the audience erupted in cheers and the phone banks lit up, resulting in one of the telethon's most profitable years. Lewis reported the event was one of the three most memorable of his life. Lewis brought down the house when he quipped, "So, you working?" Martin, playing drunk, replied that he was "at the Meggum" – this reference to the MGM Grand Hotel convulsed Lewis. This, along with the death of Martin's son Dean Paul Martin a few years later, helped to bring the two men together. They maintained a quiet friendship but only performed together again once, in 1989, on Martin's 72nd birthday.

Personal life

Martin was married three times. Martin's first wife, Betty McDonald, tried by all accounts to be a good wife and mother to their four children, but her efforts were ultimately undone by her alcoholism . It remains a matter of speculation whether her alcoholism led to the failure of the marriage, or whether Martin's infidelities led to Betty's alcoholism. Subsequent to their divorce, Martin gained custody of their children; Betty lived out her life in quiet obscurity in San Francisco. Their children were Stephen Craig (born June 29, 1942), Claudia Dean (March 16, 1944 - 2001 from breast cancer), Barbara Gail (born April 11, 1945) and Deana (Dina) (born August 19, 1948).

Martin's second wife was Jeanne Biegger. A stunning blonde, Jeanne could sometimes be spotted in Martin's audience while he was still married to Betty. Their marriage lasted twenty-four years (1949–1973) and produced three children. Their children were Dean Paul (November 17, 1951 - March 21, 1987; plane crash), Ricci James (born September 20, 1953) and Gina Caroline (born December 20, 1956).

Martin's third marriage, to Catherine Hawn, lasted three years. One of Martin's managers had spotted her at the reception desk of a hair salon on Rodeo Drive, then arranged a meeting. Martin adopted Hawn's daughter, Sasha, but their marriage also failed. Martin initiated divorce proceedings.

Martin's uncle was Leonard Barr, who appeared in several of his shows.

Later years and death

On December 1, 1983 while gambling at the Golden Nugget casino in Atlantic City, Martin and Sinatra intimidated the dealer and several employees into breaking New Jersey law by making the dealer deal the cards by hand instead of from a shoe. Although Sinatra and Martin were implicated as the cause of the violation, neither was fined by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. The Golden Nugget received a $25,000 fine (which Sinatra paid, stating that it was his responsibility as he and Martin were the cause of the fine) and four employees including the dealer, a supervisor and pit boss were suspended from their jobs without pay.

Martin returned to films briefly with appearances in the two star-laden yet critically panned Cannonball Run movies. He also had a minor hit single with "Since I Met You Baby" and made his first music video, which appeared on MTV. The video was created by Martin's youngest son, Ricci.

On March 21, 1987, Martin's son, Dean Paul (formerly Dino of the '60s "teeny-bopper" rock group Dino, Desi & Billy), was killed when his F-4 Phantom II jet fighter crashed while flying with the California Air National Guard. A much-touted tour with Davis and Sinatra in 1988 sputtered. On one occasion, he infuriated Sinatra when he turned to him and muttered "Frank, what the hell are we doing up here?" Martin, who always responded best to a club audience, felt lost in the huge stadiums they were performing in (at Sinatra's insistence), and he was not interested in drinking until dawn after performances. His final Vegas shows were at Bally's Hotel in 1990. There he had his final reunion with Jerry Lewis on his 72nd birthday. Martin's last two TV appearances involved tributes to his former Rat Pack members. On December 8, 1989, he joined many stars of the entertainment industry in Sammy Davis, Jr's 60th anniversary celebration, which aired only a few weeks before Davis died from throat cancer. In December 1990, he congratulated Frank Sinatra on his 75th birthday special. By early 1995, Martin had officially retired from performing.

Martin, a life-long smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer at Cedars Sinai Medical Center on 16 September 1993. He died of acute respiratory failure resulting from emphysema at his Beverly Hills home on Christmas morning 1995, at age 78. The lights of the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed in his honor.

Tributes and legacy

In 1996, Ohio Rte. 7, through Steubenville, was re-dedicated as "Dean Martin Boulevard." Road signs bearing an Al Hirschfeld caricature of Martin's likeness officially designate the stretch, along with a state historical marker, in the Gazebo Park at Route 7 and North Fourth Street.

An annual "Dean Martin Festival" celebration is held in Steubenville. Impersonators, friends and family of Martin, and various entertainers, many of Italian ancestry, appear.

In 2005, Las Vegas renamed Industrial Road as ''Dean Martin Drive.'' A similarly named street was dedicated in 2008 in Rancho Mirage, California.

Martin's family was presented a gold record in 2004 for ''Dino: The Essential Dean Martin'', his fastest-selling album ever, which also hit the iTunes Top 10. For the week ending December 23, 2006, the Dean Martin and Martina McBride duet of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" reached #7 on the R&R; AC chart. It also went to #36 on the R&R; Country chart - the last time Martin had a song this high in the charts was in 1965, with the song "I Will", which reached #10 on the Pop chart.

An album of duets, ''Forever Cool'', was released by Capitol/EMI in 2007. It features Martin's voice with Kevin Spacey, Shelby Lynne, Joss Stone, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Robbie Williams, McBride and others.

His footprints were immortalized at Grauman's Chinese Theater in 1964. Martin has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: One at 6519 Hollywood Boulevard, for movies; one at 1817 Vine, for recordings; and one at 6651 Hollywood Boulevard, for television.

In February 2009, Martin was honored with a posthumous Grammy award for Lifetime Achievement. Four of his surviving children, Gail, Deana, Ricci and Gina, were on hand to accept on his behalf. In 2009, Martin was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

Popular culture

A number of Dean Martin songs have constantly been featured across popular culture for decades. Hit songs such as "Ain't That a Kick in the Head", "Sway", "That's Amore", and Martin's signature song "Everybody Loves Somebody" (and many more) have been used in films (such as the Oscar-winning ''Logorama'', ''A Bronx Tale'', ''Casino'', ''Goodfellas'', and ''Return to Me''), television series (such as ''American Dad!'', ''Friends'', and ''House MD''), video games (such as ''The Godfather: The Game'', ''The Godfather II'', ''Fallout: New Vegas'', and ''Mafia II''), and even fashion shows (such as the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2008).

In film and television

In That '70s show episode, S-6/E-2 "Join Together." When the Forman's were throwing away all of their bad foods and drinks, because of Red's Heart Attack. Red's beloved beer and his meats were taken away and Red's Fresh mouth son, Eric said,"Whoa look at this, it looks like Dean Martin exploded!"

In the movie ''A Bronx Tale'', Martin's song, "Ain't That A Kick In The Head?", was featured during the scene when C was playing dice.

A Budweiser TV commercial that premiered during Super Bowl XLI featured Martin's "Ain't That A Kick In The Head?".

British actor Jeremy Northam portrayed the entertainer in a made-for-TV movie called, ''Martin and Lewis'', alongside Will & Grace's Sean Hayes as Jerry Lewis.

Martin was portrayed by Joe Mantegna in an HBO movie about Sinatra and Martin titled ''The Rat Pack''. Mantegna was nominated for both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the role.

In the movie ''Return to Me'', three of his recordings are featured: "Good Morning, Life," "Buona Sera" and "Return to Me".

Danny Gans portrayed Martin in the miniseries ''Sinatra''.

In the pilot episode of ''White Collar'', Peter refers to Neal as "Dino", referencing the newly-found Sy Devore suits that Neal now wears – made famous by the "Rat Pack".

In the movie ''Pulp Fiction'', Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega go out to dinner at "Jack Rabbit Slim's" – she chooses "Martin and Lewis", and a $5 milkshake shows up.

In the movie ''Moonstruck'', Martin's recording of "That's Amore" plays over both the opening and closing credits.

In a Royal Automobile Club commercial, "Memories are Made of This" is sung.

In games and gambling

Martin is the subject of "Dean Martin's Wild Party", a video slot machine found in some casinos. The game features songs sung by Martin during the bonus game and the count-up of a player's winnings.

The 2010 video game, ''Fallout: New Vegas'', features Martin's "Ain't that a Kick in the Head?" throughout the game. It can be listened to on the "New Vegas" radio channel and heard on the loud speakers when you enter the Vegas Strip. The first quest of the game is also ironically named after the same song, as the player character is inflicted with a headshot wound.

Dean Martin's music is featured on the radios in the game Mafia II and Godfather II.

In music

A compilation album called, ''Amore!'', debuted at Number One on ''Billboard magazine'''s Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in its February 21, 2009 issue.

Other

In the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2008, "Ain't That A Kick In The Head?" was the opening song from the show.

Discography

Filmography

Features: {|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- |1946 |''Film Vodvil: Art Mooney and Orchestra'' | |Short |- |1949 |''My Friend Irma'' |Steve Laird | |- |rowspan=3|1950 |''My Friend Irma Goes West'' |Steve Laird | |- |''At War with the Army'' |1st Sgt. Vic Puccinelli | |- |''Screen Snapshots: Thirtieth Anniversary Special'' | |Short |- |1951 |''That's My Boy'' |Bill Baker | |- |rowspan=4|1952 |''Sailor Beware'' |Al Crowthers | |- |''Jumping Jacks'' |Corp. Chick Allen | |- |''Road to Bali'' |Man in Lala's dream |Cameo (uncredited) |- |''The Stooge'' |Bill Miller | |- |rowspan=3|1953 |''Scared Stiff'' |Larry Todd | |- |''The Caddy'' |Joe Anthony | |- |''Money from Home'' |Herman 'Honey Talk' Nelson | |- |rowspan=2|1954 |''Living It Up'' |Dr. Steve Harris | |- |''3 Ring Circus'' |Peter 'Pete' Nelson | |- |rowspan=2|1955 |''You're Never Too Young'' |Bob Miles | |- |''Artists and Models'' |Rick Todd | |- |rowspan=3|1956 |''Screen Snapshots: Hollywood, City of Stars'' | |Short |- |''Pardners'' |Slim Mosely Jr. / Slim Mosely Sr. | |- |''Hollywood or Bust'' |Steve Wiley | |- |1957 |''Ten Thousand Bedrooms'' |Ray Hunter | |- |rowspan=2|1958 |''The Young Lions'' |Michael Whiteacre | |- |''Some Came Running'' |Bama Dillert (professional gambler) | |- |rowspan=2|1959 |''Rio Bravo'' |Dude ('Borachón') | |- |''Career'' |Maurice 'Maury' Novak | |- |rowspan=4|1960 |''Who Was That Lady?'' |Michael Haney |Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |- |''Bells Are Ringing'' |Jeffrey Moss | |- |''Ocean's Eleven'' |Sam Harmon | |- |''Pepe'' | |Cameo |- |rowspan=2|1961 |''All in a Night's Work'' |Tony Ryder | |- |''Ada'' |Bo Gillis | |- |rowspan=4|1962 |''Something's Got to Give'' |Nicholas 'Nick' Arden |(unfinished) |- |''Sergeants 3'' |Sgt. Chip Deal | |- |''The Road to Hong Kong'' |The 'Grape' on plutonium |Cameo (uncredited) |- |''Who's Got the Action?'' |Steve Flood | |- |rowspan=5|1963 |''38-24-36'' |Self | |- |''Come Blow Your Horn'' |The Bum |(uncredited) |- |''Toys in the Attic'' |Julian Berniers | |- |''4 for Texas'' |Joe Jarrett | |- |''Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?'' |Jason Steel | |- |rowspan=3|1964 |''What a Way to Go!'' |Leonard 'Lennie' Crawley | |- |''Robin and the 7 Hoods'' |Little John | |- |''Kiss Me, Stupid'' |Dino | |- |rowspan=2|1965 |''The Sons of Katie Elder'' |Tom Elder | |- |''Marriage on the Rocks'' |Ernie Brewer | |- |rowspan=3|1966 |''The Silencers'' |Matt Helm | |- |''Texas Across the River'' |Sam Hollis | |- |''Murderers' Row'' |Matt Helm | |- |rowspan=2|1967 |''Rough Night in Jericho'' |Alex Flood | |- |''The Ambushers'' |Matt Helm | |- |rowspan=4|1968 |''How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life'' |David Sloane | |- |''Bandolero!'' |Dee Bishop | |- |''Rowan & Martin at the Movies'' | |Short |- |''5 Card Stud'' |Van Morgan | |- |1969 |''The Wrecking Crew'' |Matt Helm | |- |1970 |''Airport'' |Capt. Vernon Demerest | |- |1971 |''Something Big'' |Joe Baker | |- |1973 |''Showdown'' |Billy Massey | |- |1975 |''Mr. Ricco'' |Joe Ricco | |- |1981 |''The Cannonball Run'' |Jamie Blake | |- |rowspan=2|1984 |''Cannonball Run II'' |Jamie Blake | |- |''Terror in the Aisles'' | |archival footage |}

References

Further reading

Arthur Marx. ''Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime (Especially Himself): The story of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis'', New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, 1974, ISBN 978-0801524301

Lewis, Jerry and James Kaplan. ''Dean & Me (A Love Story)''. Doubleday, New York, 2005. ISBN 0-7679-2086-4

Tosches, Nick. ''Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams''. Delta Trade Paperbacks, New York, 1992 (1st edition). ISBN 0-385-33429-X

Smith, John L. ''The Animal in Hollywood: Anthony Fiato's Life in the Mafia''. Barricade Books, New York, 1998. ISBN 1-56980-126-6

External links

Dean Martin at The Biography Channel

Cleveland.com: Homegrown Heroes: Dean Martin Timeline

Dean Works the room at the Sands

Jerry Lewis interview for the Archive of American Television

Dean Martin biography/discography on The Interlude Era site

Radio interview with Deana Martin WSLR

Dean Martin Roasts Johnny Carson

Dean Martin Roast Frank Sinatra

Dean Martin Roasts Don Rickles

Category:1917 births Category:1995 deaths Category:Actors from Ohio Category:Actors from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:American baritones Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American comedians Category:American crooners Category:American film actors Category:American jazz musicians of Italian descent Category:American people of Sicilian descent Category:Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery Category:California Republicans Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Deaths from emphysema Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Deaths from respiratory failure Category:Musicians from Ohio Category:Musicians from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Ohio Republicans Category:People from Steubenville, Ohio Category:Traditional pop music singers

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Coordinates	39°16′01″N86°14′57″N
birth name	James Eugene Carrey
birth date	January 17, 1962
birth place	Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
occupation	Actor, comedian
years active	1979–present
spouse	(divorced) (divorced)
website	JimCarrey.com
signature	Firma de Jim Carrey.svg }}

James Eugene "Jim" Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario. After gaining prominence in 1981, he began working at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles where he was soon noticed by comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who immediately signed him to open his tour performances. Carrey, long interested in film and television, developed a close friendship with comedian Damon Wayans, which landed him a role in the sketch comedy hit ''In Living Color'', in which he portrayed various characters during the show's 1990 season.

Having had little success in television movies and several low-budget films, Carrey was cast as the title character in ''Ace Ventura: Pet Detective'' which premiered in February, 1994, making more than $72 million domestically despite receiving mixed critical reception. The film spawned a sequel, ''Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls'' (1995), in which he reprised the role of Ventura. High profile roles followed when he was cast as Stanley Ipkiss in ''The Mask'' (1994) for which he gained a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, and as Lloyd Christmas in the comedy film ''Dumb and Dumber'' (1994).

Between 1996 and 1999, Carrey continued his success after earning lead roles in several highly popular films including ''The Cable Guy'' (1996), ''Liar Liar'' (1997), in which he was nominated for another Golden Globe Award and in the critically acclaimed films ''The Truman Show'' and ''Man on the Moon'', in 1998 and 1999, respectively. Both films earned Carrey Golden Globe awards. Since earning both awards, Carrey continued to star in comedy films, including ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' (2000) where he played the title character, ''Bruce Almighty'' (2003) where he portrayed the role of unlucky TV reporter Bruce Nolan, ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'' (2004), ''Fun with Dick and Jane'' (2005), ''Yes Man'' (2008), and ''A Christmas Carol'' (2009). Carrey has also taken on more serious roles including Joel Barish in ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' (2004) alongside Kate Winslet and Kirsten Dunst, which earned him another Golden Globe nomination, and Steven Jay Russell in ''I Love You Phillip Morris'' (2009) alongside Ewan McGregor.

Early life

Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario, the son of Kathleen (née Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey, a musician and accountant. He has three older siblings, John, Patricia, and Rita. He was raised Roman Catholic. His mother was of French, Irish, and Scottish descent and his father was of French Canadian ancestry (the family's original surname was ''Carré''). After his family moved to Scarborough, Ontario, when Carrey was 14 years old, he attended Blessed Trinity Catholic School, in North York, for two years, enrolled at Agincourt Collegiate Institute for another year, then briefly attended Northview Heights Secondary School for the remainder of his high school career (all together, he spent three years in Grade 10).

Carrey lived in Burlington, Ontario, for eight years and attended Aldershot High School, where he once opened for 1980s new wave band Spoons. In a ''Hamilton Spectator'' interview (February 2007), Carrey remarked, "If my career in show business hadn't panned out I would probably be working today in Hamilton, Ontario at the Dofasco steel mill." When looking across the Burlington Bay toward Hamilton, he could see the mills and thought, "Those were where the great jobs were." At this point, he already had experience working in a science testing facility in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Career

Comedy

In 1979, under the management of Leatrice Spevack, Carrey started doing stand-up comedy at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, where he rose to become a headliner in February 1981, shortly after his 19th birthday. One reviewer in the ''Toronto Star'' raved that Carrey was "a genuine star coming to life." In the early 1980s, Carrey moved to Los Angeles and started working at The Comedy Store, where he was noticed by comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who signed the young comedian to open Dangerfield's tour performances.

Carrey then turned his attention to the film and television industries, auditioning to be a cast member for the 1980–1981 season of NBC's ''Saturday Night Live.'' Carrey was not selected for the position (although he did host the show in May 1996, and again in January 2011). Joel Schumacher had him audition for a role in ''D.C. Cab,'' though in the end, nothing ever came of it. His first lead role on television was Skip Tarkenton, a young animation producer on NBC's short-lived ''The Duck Factory,'' airing from April 12, 1984, to July 11, 1984, and offering a behind-the-scenes look at the crew that produced a children's cartoon. Carrey continued working in smaller film and television roles, which led to a friendship with fellow comedian Damon Wayans, who co-starred with Carrey as an extraterrestrial in 1989's ''Earth Girls Are Easy.'' When Wayans' brother Keenen began developing a sketch comedy show for Fox called ''In Living Color,'' Carrey was hired as a cast member, whose unusual characters included masochistic, accident-prone safety inspector Fire Marshall Bill, and masculine female bodybuilder Vera de Milo.

Film

Carrey made his film debut in ''Rubberface'' (1981), which was released as ''Introducing...Janet.'' Later that year, he won the leading role in Damian Lee's Canadian skiing comedy ''Copper Mountain,'' which included his impersonation of Sammy Davis Jr. Since the film had a less than one hour runtime consisting largely of musical performances by Rita Coolidge and Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins, it was not considered a genuine feature film. Two years later, in 1985, Carrey saw his first major starring role in the dark comedy ''Once Bitten,'' in the role of Mark Kendall, a teen virgin pursued by a 400-year-old female vampire, played by Lauren Hutton. After supporting roles in films such as ''Peggy Sue Got Married'' (1986), ''Earth Girls Are Easy'' (1988), and ''The Dead Pool'' (1988), Carrey did not experience true stardom until starring in the 1994 comedy ''Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,'' which premiered only months before ''In Living Color'' ended. ''Ace Ventura'' was panned by critics, and earned Carrey a 1995 Golden Raspberry Award nomination as Worst New Star. But the film was as embraced by fans as it was derided by critics. The Ventura character became a pop icon, and the film made Carrey a superstar. It was a commercial success, as were his two other starring roles from that year: ''The Mask'' and ''Dumb and Dumber''. In 1995, Carrey appeared as the Riddler in ''Batman Forever'' and reprised his role as Ace Ventura in ''Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.'' Both films were successful at the box office and earned Carrey multi-million-dollar paychecks. Carrey earned $20 million for his next film, ''The Cable Guy'' (directed by Ben Stiller), a record sum for a comedy actor. The film did not do well with critics, but Carrey quickly rebounded with the successful ''Liar Liar,'' a return to his trademark comedy style.

Carrey took a slight pay cut to play a more serious role to star in the critically praised science-fiction film ''The Truman Show'' (1998), a change of pace that led to forecasts of Academy Award nominations. Although the movie was nominated for three other awards, Carrey did not personally receive a nomination, leading him to joke that "it's an honor just to be nominated...oh no," during his appearance on the Oscar telecast. However, Carrey did win a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama and an MTV Movie Award for Best Male Performance. That same year, Carrey appeared as a fictionalized version of himself on the final episode of Garry Shandling's ''The Larry Sanders Show'', in which he deliberately ripped into Shandling's character. In 1999, Carrey won the role of comedian Andy Kaufman in ''Man on the Moon.'' Despite critical acclaim, he was not nominated for an Academy Award, but again won a Best Actor Golden Globe award for the second consecutive year. In 2000, Carrey reteamed with the Farrelly Brothers, who had directed him in ''Dumb and Dumber,'' in their comedy, ''Me, Myself & Irene,'' about a state trooper with multiple personalities who romances a woman played by Renée Zellweger. The film grossed $24 million on its opening weekend and $90 million by the end of its domestic run.

In 2003, Carrey reteamed with Tom Shadyac for the financially successful comedy ''Bruce Almighty''. Earning over $242 million in the U.S. and over $484 million worldwide, this film became the second highest grossing live-action comedy of all time. His performance in ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' in 2004 earned high praise from critics, who again predicted that Carrey would receive an Oscar nomination; the film did win for Best Original Screenplay, and co-star Kate Winslet received an Oscar nomination for her performance. (Carrey was also nominated for a sixth Golden Globe for his performance).

In 2004, he played the villainous Count Olaf in ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'', which was based on the popular children's novels of the same name. He was also inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame that year. In 2005, Carrey starred in a remake of ''Fun with Dick and Jane'', playing Dick, a husband who becomes a bank robber after he loses his job. In 2007, Carrey reunited with Joel Schumacher, director of ''Batman Forever'', for ''The Number 23'', a psychological thriller co-starring Virginia Madsen and Danny Huston. In the film, Carrey plays a man who becomes obsessed with the number 23, after finding a book about a man with the same obsession. Carrey has stated that he finds the prospect of reprising a character to be considerably less enticing than taking on a new role. The only time he has reprised a role was with Ace Ventura. (Sequels to ''Bruce Almighty'', ''Dumb and Dumber'', and ''The Mask'' have all been released without Carrey's involvement.) As of December 2010, Carrey's films grossed over $2.3 billion in total.

In 2010, Carrey was the narrator of the documentary film, ''Under the Sea 3D''.

Personal life

Family and relationships

Carrey has been married twice, first to former actress and Comedy Store waitress Melissa Womer on March 28, 1987; the two were divorced in late 1995. Their only child, a daughter named Jane Erin Carrey, was born on September 6, 1987, in Los Angeles County. After his separation from Womer in 1994, Carrey began dating his ''Dumb and Dumber'' co-star Lauren Holly. They were married on September 23, 1996; the marriage lasted less than a year.

In December 2005, Carrey began dating actress and model Jenny McCarthy. They made their relationship public in June 2006. She announced on ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' on April 2, 2008, that the two were then living together, but had no plans to marry; as they do not need a "piece of paper." In April 2010, Carrey and McCarthy ended their near five-year relationship.

In Los Angeles on February 27, 2010, Carrey announced via his Twitter account that he had become a grandfather when his daughter Jane gave birth to her first child with musician husband Alex Santana, who performs in the band Blood Money under the stage name Nitro. He announced that his grandson's name was Jackson Riley Santana.

On the 11th season of the reality show singing competition ''American Idol'', Carrey's daughter Jane auditioned during the January 22, 2012 episode. Jane was put through to the Hollywood round.

Citizenship

Carrey received U.S. citizenship in October 2004 and remains a dual citizen of both the United States and his native Canada.

Depression

Carrey discussed his bouts of depression in a November 2004 interview on ''60 Minutes''.

Friendship with Eckhart Tolle

Carrey is a great admirer and friend of author Eckhart Tolle, and in June 2009, Carrey gave an introduction for Tolle when together they headlined the first conference of the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment.

Beliefs

Carrey has been a critic of the scientific consensus that no evidence links the childhood MMR vaccination to the development of autism, and wrote an article questioning the merits of vaccination and vaccine research for the ''Huffington Post''. With former partner Jenny McCarthy, Carrey led a "Green Our Vaccines" march in Washington, D.C., to advocate for the removal of toxins from children's vaccines, out of a belief that children had received "too many vaccines, too soon, many of which are toxic".

Filmography

Title	Year	Role	Notes
''The Sex and Violence Family Hour''	1980	Various roles
''All in Good Taste''	1981	Ralph Parker
! scope="row"	1983	Bobby Todd
! scope="row"	1984	Lane Bidlekoff
! scope="row"	1985	Mark Kendall
''Peggy Sue Got Married''	1986	Walter Getz
''The Dead Pool''	1988	Johnny Squares
! scope="row"	1989	Comedian
''Earth Girls Are Easy''	1989	Wiploc
''High Strung''	1991	Death
''Doing Time on Maple Drive''	1992	Tim Carter
! scope="row"	1992	The Exterminator	Voice role
''Ace Ventura: Pet Detective''	1994	Ace Ventura
! scope="row"	1994		London Critics Circle Film Award for Newcomer of the Year (also for ''Ace Ventura: Pet Detective'')Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Dance Sequence (shared with Cameron Diaz)
''Dumb and Dumber''	1994	Lloyd Christmas	MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceMTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (shared with Lauren Holly)Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (shared with Jeff Daniels)
''Batman Forever''	1995		Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Villain
''Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls''	1995	Ace Ventura
''The Cable Guy''	1996	Ernie "Chip" Douglas	Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorMTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceMTV Movie Award for Best VillainNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Fight (shared with Matthew Broderick)
''Liar Liar''	1997	Fletcher Reede	Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor - ComedyMTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actor
''The Truman Show''	1998	Truman Burbank
''Simon Birch''	1998	Adult Joe Wenteworth
! scope="row"	1999	Andy Kaufman / Tony Clifton	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActorGolden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - American Comedy Award for Funniest Actor (Leading Role)Nominated - Canadian Comedy Award for Film - Male PerformanceNominated - London Critics Circle Film Award for Actor of the Year (also for '' ''[[Me, Myself & Irene">How the Grinch Stole Christmas (film)
''[[Me, Myself & Irene''	2000	Officer Charlie Baileygates/Hank	Teen Choice Award for Wipeout Scene of the SummerNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceNominated - Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor - Comedy/Romance
! scope="row"	2000	The Grinch
! scope="row"	2001	Peter Appleton
! scope="row"	2003	The driver	2-minute short film
''Bruce Almighty''	2003	Bruce Nolan	Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorMTV Movie Award, Mexico, for Most Divine Miracle in a MovieTeen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor - ComedyNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (shared with Jennifer Aniston)Nominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Chemistry (shared with Morgan Freeman)
''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind''	2004	Joel Barish	San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorWashington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best EnsembleNominated - BAFTA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading RoleNominated - Empire Award for Best ActorNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - Online Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorNominated - People's Choice Award for Favorite Leading ManNominated - People's Choice Award for Favorite On-Screen Chemistry (shared with Kate Winslet)Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Actor, Musical or Comedy FilmNominated - Saturn Award for Best Actor
''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events''	2004	Count Olaf	People's Choice Award for Favorite Funny Male StarTeen Choice Award for Choice Movie Bad GuyNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best VillainNominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor: Action/Adventure/ThrillerNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Liar
! scope="row"	2005	Dick Harper	Nominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Actor: Comedy
''The Number 23''	2007	Walter Sparrow / Fingerling
! scope="row"	2008		Voice roleNominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie
! scope="row"	2008	Carl Allen	MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformancePeople's Choice Award for Favorite Funny Male StarNominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor: ComedyNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Hissy FitNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Rockstar Moment
''I Love You Phillip Morris''	2009	Steven Jay Russell
! scope="row"	2009	Ebenezer ScroogeGhost of Christmas PastGhost of Christmas PresentGhost of Christmas Yet to Come
''Under the Sea 3D	2009	Narrator
! scope="row"	2011	Tom Popper
	2013	Steve Haines	''pre-production''

Television

! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1980	''The All-Night Show''	Various voices	(voice only)
1981	''Rubberface''	Tony Moroni	Television movie
		Jerry Lewis Impersonator	Television series (uncredited)
''The Duck Factory''	Skip Tarkenton	Television series
1989	''Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All''	Brad Peters	Television movie
1990	''In Living Color''	Various roles	Television series
1992	''Doing Time on Maple Drive''	Tim Carter	Television movie
1994	''Space Ghost Coast to Coast''	Himself	Television series (two episodes)
2011		Finger Lakes guy	Episode: "Search Committee"Nominated - People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star

Other appearances

! Year	! Song	! Album
1998	"I Am the Walrus"

Other accolades

|- |2001 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Comedy | |- |2003 | rowspan="2"| Teen Choice Awards | rowspan="2"| Choice Comedian | |- |2004 | |- |rowspan=2| 2005 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite Funny Male Star | |- | Teen Choice Awards | Choice Comedian | |- |2006 | MTV Movie Awards | MTV Generation Award | |- |2009 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite Funny Male Star | |- |2012 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite TV Guest Star | |}

References

Further reading

External links

Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:20th-century writers Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from Ontario Category:Comedians from Ontario Category:Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Canadian comedians Category:Canadian expatriate actors in the United States Category:Canadian film actors Category:Canadian film producers Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:Canadian impressionists (entertainers) Category:Canadian people of Scottish descent Category:Canadian stand-up comedians Category:Canadian television actors Category:Canadian television writers Category:Canadian voice actors Category:Franco-Ontarian people Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Burlington, Ontario Category:People from Newmarket, Ontario Category:People from Scarborough, Ontario Category:Anti-vaccination activists

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Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) 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 for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including ''The Dream of Gerontius'', chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.

Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society of Victorian and Edwardian Britain, he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition. He nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British army officer. She inspired him both musically and socially, but he struggled to achieve success until his forties, when after a series of moderately successful works his ''Enigma Variations'' (1899) became immediately popular in Britain and overseas. He followed the Variations with a choral work, ''The Dream of Gerontius'' (1900), based on a Roman Catholic text that caused some disquiet in the Anglican establishment in Britain, but it became, and has remained, a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere. His later full-length religious choral works were well received but have not entered the regular repertory. The first of his ''Pomp and Circumstance Marches'' (1901) is well known in the English-speaking world.

In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a violin concerto that were immensely successful. His second symphony and his cello concerto did not gain immediate public popularity and took many years to achieve a regular place in the concert repertory of British orchestras. Elgar's music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. His stock remained low for a generation after his death. It began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. Some of his works have, in recent years, been taken up again internationally, but the music remains more played in Britain than elsewhere.

Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of recordings of his works. The introduction of the microphone in 1925 made far more accurate sound reproduction possible, and Elgar made new recordings of most of his major orchestral works and excerpts from ''The Dream of Gerontius''. These recordings were reissued on LP record in the 1970s and on CD in the 1990s.

Biography

Early years

Edward Elgar was born in the small village of Lower Broadheath, outside Worcester, England. His father, William Henry Elgar (1821–1906), was raised in Dover and had been apprenticed to a London music publisher. In 1841 William moved to Worcester, where he worked as a piano tuner and set up a shop selling sheet music and musical instruments. In 1848 he married Ann Greening (1822–1902), daughter of a farm worker. Edward was the fourth of their seven children. Ann Elgar had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before Edward's birth, and he was baptised and brought up as a Roman Catholic, to the disapproval of his father. William Elgar was a violinist of professional standard and held the post of organist of St. George's Roman Catholic Church, Worcester, from 1846 to 1885. At his instigation, masses by Cherubini and Hummel were first heard at the Three Choirs Festival by the orchestra in which he played the violin. All the Elgar children received a musical upbringing. By the age of eight, Elgar was taking piano and violin lessons, and his father, who tuned the pianos at many grand houses in Worcestershire, would sometimes take him along, giving him the chance to display his skill to important local figures.

Elgar's mother was interested in the arts and encouraged his musical development. He inherited from her a discerning taste for literature and a passionate love of the countryside. His friend and biographer W. H. "Billy" Reed wrote that Elgar's early surroundings had an influence that "permeated all his work and gave to his whole life that subtle but none the less true and sturdy English quality." He began composing at an early age; for a play written and acted by the Elgar children when he was about ten, he wrote music that forty years later he rearranged with only minor changes and orchestrated as the suites titled ''The Wand of Youth''.

Until he was fifteen, Elgar received a general education at Littleton (now Lyttleton), spell it "Lyttleton".|group= n}} House school, near Worcester. However, his only formal musical training beyond piano and violin lessons from local teachers was more advanced violin studies with Adolf Pollitzer, during brief visits to London in 1877–78. Elgar said "my first music was learnt in the Cathedral ... from books borrowed from the music library, when I was eight, nine or ten." He worked through manuals of instruction on organ playing and read every book he could find on the theory of music. He later said that he had been most helped by Hubert Parry's articles in the ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. Elgar began to learn German, in the hope of going to the Leipzig Conservatory for further musical studies, but his father could not afford to send him. Years later a profile in ''The Musical Times'' considered that his failure to get to Leipzig was fortunate for Elgar's musical development: "Thus the budding composer escaped the dogmatism of the schools." However, it was a disappointment to Elgar that on leaving school in 1872 he went not to Leipzig but to the office of a local solicitor as a clerk. He did not find an office career congenial, and for fulfilment he turned not only to music but to literature, becoming a voracious reader. Around this time, he made his first public appearances as a violinist and organist.

After a few months, Elgar left the solicitor to embark on a musical career, giving piano and violin lessons and working occasionally in his father's shop. He was an active member of the Worcester Glee Club, along with his father, and he accompanied singers, played the violin, composed and arranged works, and conducted for the first time. Pollitzer believed that, as a violinist, Elgar had the potential to be one of the leading soloists in the country, but Elgar himself, having heard leading virtuosi at London concerts, felt his own violin playing lacked a full enough tone, and he abandoned his ambitions to be a soloist. At twenty-two he took up the post of conductor of the attendants' band at the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum in Powick, three miles (5 km) from Worcester. The band consisted of: piccolo, flute, clarinet, two cornets, euphonium, three or four first and a similar number of second violins, occasional viola, cello, double bass and piano. Elgar coached the players and wrote and arranged their music, including quadrilles and polkas, for the unusual combination of instruments. ''The Musical Times'' wrote, "This practical experience proved to be of the greatest value to the young musician. ... He acquired a practical knowledge of the capabilities of these different instruments. ... He thereby got to know intimately the tone colour, the ins and outs of these and many other instruments." He held the post for five years, from 1879, travelling to Powick once a week. Another post he held in his early days was professor of the violin at the Worcester College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen.

Although rather solitary and introspective by nature, Elgar thrived in Worcester's musical circles. He played in the violins at the Worcester and Birmingham Festivals, and one great experience was to play Dvořák's Symphony No. 6 and ''Stabat Mater'' under the composer's baton. Elgar regularly played the bassoon in a wind quintet, alongside his brother Frank, an oboist (and conductor who ran his own wind band). Elgar arranged numerous pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, and others for the quintet, honing his arranging and compositional skills.

In his first trips abroad, Elgar visited Paris in 1880 and Leipzig in 1882. He heard Saint-Saëns play the organ at the Madeleine and attended concerts by first-rate orchestras. In 1882 he wrote, "I got pretty well dosed with Schumann (my ideal!), Brahms, Rubinstein & Wagner, so had no cause to complain." In Leipzig he visited a friend, Helen Weaver, who was a student at the Conservatoire. They became engaged in the summer of 1883, but for unknown reasons the engagement was broken off the next year . Elgar was greatly distressed, and some of his later cryptic dedications of romantic music may have alluded to Helen and his feelings for her. In 1887, three years after breaking off the engagement, Elgar presented her brother Frank Weaver, a Worcester shoemaker and double bass player, with a little ''Duett for trombone and double bass'', on his wedding-day.

In 1883, while a regular member of the orchestra for W. C. Stockley's winter concert seasons in Birmingham, Elgar took part in a performance of one of his first works for full orchestra, the ''Sérénade mauresque''. Stockley had invited him to conduct the piece, but, as Stockley later recalled, "he declined, and, further, insisted upon playing in his place in the orchestra. The consequence was that he had to appear, fiddle in hand, to acknowledge the genuine and hearty applause of the audience." He often went to London in an attempt to get his works published, but this period in his life found him frequently despondent and low on money. He wrote to a friend in April 1884, "My prospects are about as hopeless as ever ... I am not wanting in energy I think, so sometimes I conclude that 'tis want of ability. ... I have no money – not a cent." For a number of years he was assistant to his father, William Elgar, as organist of St George's Roman Catholic Church, Worcester, and succeeded him for four years from 1885. During this period he wrote his first liturgical works in the Catholic tradition, beginning with his three motets Op. 2 (1887) for four-part choir (''Ave Verum Corpus'', ''Ave Maria'' and ''Ave Maris Stella''), and followed by a setting of ''Ecce sacerdos magnus'' for the entry of the Bishop on an official visit to St. George's in 1888, all four of which remain in the repertoire of church choirs.

Marriage

When Elgar was twenty-nine, he took on a new pupil, Caroline Alice Roberts, daughter of the late Major-General Sir Henry Roberts, and a published author of verse and prose fiction. Eight years older than Elgar, Alice became his wife three years later. Elgar's biographer Michael Kennedy writes, "Alice's family was horrified by her intention to marry an unknown musician who worked in a shop and was a Roman Catholic. She was disinherited." They were married on 8 May 1889, at Brompton Oratory. From then until her death she acted as his business manager and social secretary, dealt with his mood swings and was a perceptive musical critic. She did her best to gain him the attention of influential society, though with limited success. In time he would learn to accept the honours given him, realising that they mattered more to her and her social class and recognising what she had given up to further his career. In her diary she wrote, "The care of a genius is enough of a life work for any woman." As an engagement present, Elgar dedicated his short violin and piano piece ''Salut d'Amour'' to her. With Alice's encouragement, the Elgars moved to London to be closer to the centre of British musical life, and Elgar started devoting his time to composition. Their only child, Carice Irene, was born at their home in West Kensington on 14 August 1890. Her name, revealed in Elgar's dedication of ''Salut d'Amour'', was a contraction of her mother's names Caroline and Alice.

Elgar took full advantage of the opportunity to hear unfamiliar music. In the days before miniature scores and recordings were available, it was not easy for young composers to get to know new music. Elgar took every chance to do so at the Crystal Palace concerts. He and Alice attended day after day, hearing music by a wide range of composers. Among these were masters of orchestration from whom he learned much, such as Berlioz and Wagner. His own compositions, however, made little impact on London's musical scene. August Manns conducted Elgar's orchestral version of ''Salut d'amour'' and the Suite in D at the Crystal Palace, and two publishers accepted some of Elgar's violin pieces, organ voluntaries, and partsongs. Some tantalising opportunities seemed to be within reach but vanished unexpectedly. For example, an offer from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, to run through some of his works was withdrawn at the last second when Sir Arthur Sullivan arrived unannounced to rehearse some of his own music. Sullivan was horrified when Elgar later told him what had happened. Elgar's only important commission while in London came from his home city: the Worcester Festival Committee invited him to compose a short orchestral work for the 1890 Three Choirs Festival. The result is described by Diana McVeagh in the ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', as "his first major work, the assured and uninhibited ''Froissart''." Elgar conducted the first performance in Worcester in September 1890. For lack of other work, he was obliged to leave London in 1891 and return with his wife and child to Worcestershire, where he could earn a living conducting local musical ensembles and teaching. They settled in Alice's former home town, Great Malvern.

Growing reputation

During the 1890s, Elgar gradually built up a reputation as a composer, chiefly of works for the great choral festivals of the English Midlands. ''The Black Knight'' (1892) and ''King Olaf'' (1896), both inspired by Longfellow, ''The Light of Life'' (1896) and ''Caractacus'' (1898) were all modestly successful, and he obtained a long-standing publisher in Novello and Co. Other works of this decade included the ''Serenade for Strings'' (1892) and ''Three Bavarian Dances'' (1897). Elgar was of enough consequence locally to recommend the young composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to the Three Choirs Festival for a concert piece, which helped establish the younger man's career. Elgar was catching the attention of prominent critics, but their reviews were polite rather than enthusiastic. Although he was in demand as a festival composer, he was only just getting by financially and felt unappreciated. In 1898, he said he was "very sick at heart over music" and hoped to find a way to succeed with a larger work. His friend August Jaeger tried to lift his spirits: "A day's attack of the blues ... will not drive away your desire, your necessity, which is to exercise those creative faculties which a kind providence has given you. Your time of universal recognition will come."

In 1899, that prediction suddenly came true. At the age of forty-two, Elgar produced the ''Enigma Variations'', which were premiered in London under the baton of the eminent German conductor Hans Richter. In Elgar's own words, "I have sketched a set of Variations on an original theme. The Variations have amused me because I've labelled them with the nicknames of my particular friends ... that is to say I've written the variations each one to represent the mood of the 'party' (the person) ... and have written what I think they would have written – if they were asses enough to compose". He dedicated the work "To my friends pictured within". Probably the best known variation is "Nimrod", depicting Jaeger. Purely musical considerations led Elgar to omit variations depicting Arthur Sullivan and Hubert Parry, whose styles he tried but failed to incorporate in the variations. The large-scale work was received with general acclaim for its originality, charm and craftsmanship, and it established Elgar as the pre-eminent British composer of his generation.

The work is formally titled ''Variations on an Original Theme''; the word "Enigma" appears over the first six bars of music, which led to the familiar version of the title. The enigma is that, although there are fourteen variations on the "original theme", there is another overarching theme, never identified by Elgar, which he said "runs through and over the whole set" but is never heard.; and Westrup, J. A., "Elgar's Enigma", ''Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 86th Session (1959–1960)'', pp. 79–97, accessed 24 October 2010 |group= n}} Later commentators have observed that although Elgar is today regarded as a characteristically English composer, his orchestral music and this work in particular share much with the Central European tradition typified at the time by the work of Richard Strauss. The ''Enigma Variations'' were well-received in Germany and Italy, and remain to the present day a worldwide concert staple.

National and international fame

Elgar's biographer Basil Maine commented, "When Sir Arthur Sullivan died in 1900 it became apparent to many that Elgar, although a composer of another build, was his true successor as first musician of the land." Elgar's next major work was eagerly awaited. For the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival of 1900, he set Cardinal John Henry Newman's poem ''The Dream of Gerontius'' for soloists, chorus and orchestra. Richter conducted the premiere, which was marred by a poorly prepared chorus, which sang badly. Elgar was deeply depressed, but the critics recognised the mastery of the piece despite the defects in performance. It was performed in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1901 and again in 1902, conducted by Julius Buths, who also conducted the European premiere of the ''Enigma Variations'' in 1901. The German press was enthusiastic. ''The Cologne Gazette'' said, "In both parts we meet with beauties of imperishable value. ... Elgar stands on the shoulders of Berlioz, Wagner, and Liszt, from whose influences he has freed himself until he has become an important individuality. He is one of the leaders of musical art of modern times." ''The Düsseldorfer Volksblatt'' wrote, "A memorable and epoch-making first performance! Since the days of Liszt nothing has been produced in the way of oratorio ... which reaches the greatness and importance of this sacred cantata." Richard Strauss, then widely viewed as the leading composer of his day, was so impressed that in Elgar's presence he proposed a toast to the success of "the first English progressive musician, Meister Elgar." Performances in Vienna, Paris and New York followed, and ''The Dream of Gerontius'' soon became equally admired in Britain. According to Kennedy, "It is unquestionably the greatest British work in the oratorio form ... [it] opened a new chapter in the English choral tradition and liberated it from its Handelian preoccupation." Elgar, as a Roman Catholic, was much moved by Newman's poem about the death and redemption of a sinner, but some influential members of the Anglican establishment disagreed. His colleague, Charles Villiers Stanford complained that the work "stinks of incense". The Dean of Gloucester banned ''Gerontius'' from his cathedral in 1901, and at Worcester the following year, the Dean insisted on expurgations before allowing a performance.

Elgar is probably best known for the first of the five ''Pomp and Circumstance Marches'', which were composed between 1901 and 1930. It is familiar to millions of television viewers all over the world every year who watch the Last Night of the Proms, where it is traditionally performed. When the theme of the slower middle section (technically called the "trio") of the first march came into his head, he told his friend Dora Penny, "I've got a tune that will knock 'em – will knock 'em flat". When the first march was played in 1901 at a London Promenade Concert, it was conducted by Henry J. Wood, who later wrote that the audience "rose and yelled ... the one and only time in the history of the Promenade concerts that an orchestral item was accorded a double encore." To mark the coronation of Edward VII, Elgar was commissioned to set A. C. Benson's ''Coronation Ode'' for a gala concert at the Royal Opera House in June 1901. The approval of the king was confirmed, and Elgar began work. The contralto Clara Butt had persuaded him that the trio of the first ''Pomp and Circumstance'' march could have words fitted to it, and Elgar invited Benson to do so. Elgar incorporated the new vocal version into the Ode. The publishers of the score recognised the potential of the vocal piece, ''"Land of Hope and Glory"'', and asked Benson and Elgar to make a further revision for publication as a separate song. It was immensely popular and is now considered an unofficial British national anthem. In the United States, the trio, known simply as "Pomp and Circumstance" or "The Graduation March", has been adopted since 1905 for virtually all high school and university graduations.

In March 1904 a three-day festival of Elgar's works was presented at Covent Garden, an honour never before given to any English composer. ''The Times'' commented, "Four or five years ago if any one had predicted that the Opera-house would be full from floor to ceiling for the performance of an oratorio by an English composer he would probably have been supposed to be out of his mind." The king and queen attended the first concert, at which Richter conducted ''The Dream of Gerontius'', and returned the next evening for the second, the London premiere of ''The Apostles'' (first heard the previous year at the Birmingham Festival). The final concert of the festival, conducted by Elgar, was primarily orchestral, apart for an excerpt from ''Caractacus'' and the complete ''Sea Pictures'' (sung by Clara Butt). The orchestral items were ''Froissart'', the ''Enigma Variations'', ''Cockaigne'', the first two (at that time the only two) ''Pomp and Circumstance'' marches, and the premiere of a new orchestral work, ''In the South (Alassio)'', inspired by a holiday in Italy.

Elgar was knighted at Buckingham Palace on 5 July 1904. The following month, he and his family moved to Plâs Gwyn, a large house on the outskirts of Hereford, overlooking the River Wye, where they lived until 1911. Between 1902 and 1914, Elgar was, in Kennedy's words, at the zenith of popularity. He made four visits to the U.S., including one conducting tour, and earned considerable fees from the performance of his music. Between 1905 and 1908, he held the post of Peyton Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham. He had accepted the post reluctantly, feeling that a composer should not head a school of music. He was not at ease in the role, and his lectures caused controversy, with his attacks on the critics and on English music in general: "Vulgarity in the course of time may be refined. Vulgarity often goes with inventiveness ... but the commonplace mind can never be anything but commonplace. An Englishman will take you into a large room, beautifully proportioned, and will point out to you that it is white – all over white – and somebody will say, 'What exquisite taste'. You know in your own mind, in your own soul, that it is not taste at all, that it is the want of taste, that is mere evasion. English music is white, and evades everything." He regretted the controversy and was glad to hand on the post to his friend Granville Bantock in 1908. His new life as a celebrity was a mixed blessing to the highly-strung Elgar, as it interrupted his privacy, and he often was in ill-health. He complained to Jaeger in 1903, "My life is one continual giving up of little things which I love." Both W. S. Gilbert and Thomas Hardy sought to collaborate with Elgar in this decade. Elgar refused, but would have collaborated with George Bernard Shaw had Shaw been willing.

Elgar's principal composition in 1905 was the ''Introduction and Allegro for Strings'', dedicated to Samuel Sanford, professor at Yale University. Elgar visited America in that year to conduct his music and to accept a doctorate from Yale. His next large-scale work was the sequel to ''The Apostles'' – the oratorio ''The Kingdom'' (1906). It was well-received but did not catch the public imagination as ''The Dream of Gerontius'' had done and continued to do. Among keen Elgarians, however, ''The Kingdom'' was sometimes preferred to the earlier work: Elgar's friend Frank Schuster told the young Adrian Boult: "compared with ''The Kingdom'', ''Gerontius'' is the work of a raw amateur." As Elgar approached his fiftieth birthday, he began work on his first symphony, a project that had been in his mind in various forms for nearly ten years. His First Symphony (1908) was a national and international triumph. Within weeks of the premiere it was performed in New York under Walter Damrosch, Vienna under Ferdinand Löwe, St. Petersburg under Alexander Siloti, and Leipzig under Arthur Nikisch. There were performances in Rome, Chicago, Boston, Toronto and fifteen British towns and cities. In just over a year, it received a hundred performances in Britain, America and continental Europe.

The Violin Concerto (1910) was commissioned by Fritz Kreisler, one of the leading international violinists of the time. Elgar wrote it during the summer of 1910, with occasional help from the violinist W. H. Reed, the leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, who helped the composer with advice on technical points. Elgar and Reed formed a firm friendship, which lasted for the rest of Elgar's life. Reed's biography, ''Elgar As I Knew Him'' (1936), records many details of Elgar's methods of composition. The work was presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society, with Kreisler and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), conducted by the composer. Reed recalled, "the Concerto proved to be a complete triumph, the concert a brilliant and unforgettable occasion". So great was the impact of the concerto that Kreisler's rival Eugène Ysaÿe spent much time with Elgar going through the work. There was great disappointment when contractual difficulties prevented Ysaÿe from playing it in London.

The Violin Concerto was Elgar's last popular triumph. The following year he presented his Second Symphony in London, but was disappointed at its reception. Unlike the First Symphony, it ends not in a blaze of orchestral splendour but quietly and contemplatively. Reed, who played at the premiere, later wrote that Elgar was recalled to the platform several times to acknowledge the applause, "but missed that unmistakable note perceived when an audience, even an English audience, is thoroughly roused or worked up, as it was after the Violin Concerto or the First Symphony." Elgar asked Reed, "What is the matter with them, Billy? They sit there like a lot of stuffed pigs." The work was, by normal standards, a success, with twenty-seven performances within three years of its premiere, but it did not achieve the international ''furore'' of the First Symphony.

Last major works

In June 1911, as part of the celebrations surrounding the coronation of King George V, Elgar was appointed to the Order of Merit, an exclusive honour limited to twenty-four holders at any time. The following year, the Elgars moved back to London, to a large house in Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead, designed by Norman Shaw. There Elgar composed his last two large-scale works of the pre-war era, the choral ode, ''The Music Makers'' (for the Birmingham Festival, 1912) and the symphonic study ''Falstaff'' (for the Leeds Festival, 1913). Both were received politely but without enthusiasm. Even the dedicatee of ''Falstaff'', the conductor Landon Ronald, confessed privately that he could not "make head or tail of the piece," while the musical scholar Percy Scholes wrote of ''Falstaff'' that it was a "great work" but, "so far as public appreciation goes, a comparative failure."

When World War I broke out, Elgar was horrified at the prospect of the carnage, but his patriotic feelings were nonetheless aroused. He composed "A Song for Soldiers", which he later withdrew. He signed up as a special constable in the local police and later joined the Hampstead Volunteer Reserve of the army. He composed patriotic works, ''Carillon'', a recitation for speaker and orchestra in honour of Belgium, and ''Polonia'', an orchestral piece in honour of Poland. ''Land of Hope and Glory'', already popular, became still more so, and Elgar wished in vain to have new, less nationalistic, words sung to the tune.

Elgar's other compositions during the war included incidental music for a children's play, ''The Starlight Express'' (1915); a ballet, ''The Sanguine Fan'' (1917); and ''The Spirit of England'' (1915–17, to poems by Laurence Binyon), three choral settings very different in character from the romantic patriotism of his earlier years. His last large-scale composition of the war years was ''The Fringes of the Fleet'', settings of verses by Rudyard Kipling, performed with great popular success around the country, until Kipling for unexplained reasons objected to their performance in theatres. Elgar conducted a recording of the work for the Gramophone Company.

Towards the end of the war, Elgar was in poor health. His wife thought it best for him to move to the countryside, and she rented 'Brinkwells', a house near Fittleworth in Sussex, from the painter Rex Vicat Cole. There Elgar recovered his strength and, in 1918 and 1919, he produced four large-scale works. The first three of these were chamber pieces: the Violin Sonata in E minor, the Piano Quintet in A minor, and the String Quartet in E minor. On hearing the work in progress, Alice Elgar wrote in her diary, "E. writing wonderful new music". All three works were well received. ''The Times'' wrote, "Elgar's sonata contains much that we have heard before in other forms, but as we do not at all want him to change and be somebody else, that is as it should be." The quartet and quintet were premiered at the Wigmore Hall on 21 May 1919. ''The Manchester Guardian'' wrote, "This quartet, with its tremendous climaxes, curious refinements of dance-rhythms, and its perfect symmetry, and the quintet, more lyrical and passionate, are as perfect examples of chamber music as the great oratorios were of their type."

By contrast, the remaining work, the Cello Concerto in E minor, had a disastrous premiere, at the opening concert of the London Symphony Orchestra's 1919–20 season in October 1919. Apart from the Elgar work, which the composer conducted, the rest of the programme was conducted by Albert Coates, who overran his rehearsal time at the expense of Elgar's. Lady Elgar wrote, "that brutal selfish ill-mannered bounder ... that brute Coates went on rehearsing." The critic of ''The Observer'', Ernest Newman, wrote, "There have been rumours about during the week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever the explanation, the sad fact remains that never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself. ... The work itself is lovely stuff, very simple – that pregnant simplicity that has come upon Elgar's music in the last couple of years – but with a profound wisdom and beauty underlying its simplicity." Elgar attached no blame to his soloist, Felix Salmond, who played for him again later. In contrast with the First Symphony and its hundred performances in just over a year, the Cello Concerto did not have a second performance in London for more than a year.

Last years

thumb|upright|alt=drawing of an ageing man in left profile; he has receding white hair and a large moustache|Elgar in 1919, by William RothensteinAlthough in the 1920s Elgar's music was no longer in fashion, his admirers continued to present his works when possible. Reed singles out a performance of the Second Symphony in March 1920 conducted by "a young man almost unknown to the public", Adrian Boult, for bringing "the grandeur and nobility of the work" to a wider public. Also in 1920, Landon Ronald presented an all-Elgar concert at the Queen's Hall. Alice Elgar wrote with enthusiasm about the reception of the symphony, but this was one of the last times she heard Elgar's music played in public. After a short illness, she died of lung cancer on 7 April 1920, at the age of seventy-two.

Elgar was devastated by the loss of his wife. For much of the rest of his life, Elgar indulged himself in his several hobbies. Throughout his life he was a keen amateur chemist, sometimes using a laboratory in his back garden. He enjoyed football, supporting Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C., for whom he composed an anthem, "He Banged the Leather for Goal", and in his later years he frequently attended horseraces. His protégés, the conductor Malcolm Sargent and violinist Yehudi Menuhin, both recalled rehearsals with Elgar at which he swiftly satisfied himself that all was well and then went off to the races. In his younger days, Elgar had been an enthusiastic bicyclist, buying Royal Sunbeam bicycles for himself and his wife in 1903 (he named his "Mr. Phoebus)" As an elderly widower, he enjoyed being driven about the countryside by his chauffeur. In 1923, he took a voyage to South America, journeying up the Amazon. Almost nothing is recorded about the events that Elgar encountered during the trip, which gave the historical novelist James Hamilton-Paterson considerable latitude when writing ''Gerontius'', a fictional account of the journey.

After Alice's death, Elgar sold the Hampstead house, and after living for a short time in a flat in St James's in the heart of London, he moved back to Worcestershire, to the village of Kempsey, where he lived from 1923 to 1927. He did not wholly abandon composition in these years. He made large-scale symphonic arrangements of works by Bach and Handel and wrote his ''Empire March'' and eight songs ''Pageant of Empire'' for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition. Shortly after these were published, he was appointed Master of the King's Musick on 13 May 1924, following the death of Sir Walter Parratt.

From 1926 onwards, Elgar made a series of recordings of his own works. Elgar, described by the music writer Robert Philip as "the first composer to take the gramophone seriously", had already recorded much of his music by the early acoustic-recording process for His Master's Voice (HMV) from 1914 onwards, but the introduction of electrical microphones in 1925 transformed the gramophone from a novelty into a realistic medium for reproducing orchestral and choral music. Elgar was the first composer to take full advantage of this technological advance. Fred Gaisberg of HMV, who produced Elgar's recordings, set up a series of sessions to capture on disc the composer's interpretations of his major orchestral works, including the ''Enigma Variations'', ''Falstaff'', the first and second symphonies, and the cello and violin concertos. For most of these, the orchestra was the LSO, but the ''Variations'' were played by the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra. Later in the series of recordings, Elgar also conducted two newly founded orchestras, Boult's BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir Thomas Beecham's London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Elgar's recordings were released on 78-rpm discs by both HMV and RCA Victor. After World War II, the 1932 recording of the Violin Concerto with the teenage Menuhin as soloist remained available on 78 and later on LP, but the other recordings were out of the catalogues for some years. When they were reissued by EMI on LP in the 1970s, they caused surprise to many by their fast tempi, in contrast to the slower speeds adopted by many conductors in the years since Elgar's death. The recordings have subsequently been issued on compact disc. These were reissued on CD in the 1990s.

In November 1931, Elgar was filmed by Pathé for a newsreel depicting a recording session of ''Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1'' at the opening of EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London. It is believed to be the only surviving sound film of Elgar, who makes a brief remark before conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, asking the musicians to "play this tune as though you've never heard it before." A late piece of Elgar's, The ''Nursery Suite'', was an early example of a studio premiere; its first performance was in the Abbey Road studios. For this work, dedicated to the wife and daughters of the Duke of York, Elgar once again drew on his youthful sketch-books.

In his final years, Elgar experienced a musical revival. The BBC organised a festival of his works to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday, in 1932. He flew to Paris in 1933 to conduct the Violin Concerto for Menuhin. While in France, he visited his fellow composer Frederick Delius at his house at Grez-sur-Loing. He was sought out by younger musicians such as Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent and John Barbirolli, who championed his music when it was out of fashion. He began work on an opera, ''The Spanish Lady'', and accepted a commission from the BBC to compose a Third Symphony. His final illness, however, prevented their completion. He fretted about the unfinished works. He asked Reed to ensure that nobody would "tinker" with the sketches and attempt a completion of the symphony, but at other times he said, "If I can't complete the Third Symphony, somebody will complete it – or write a better one." After Elgar's death, Percy M. Young, in cooperation with the BBC and Elgar's daughter Carice, produced a version of ''The Spanish Lady'', which was issued on CD. The Third Symphony sketches were elaborated by the composer Anthony Payne into a complete score in 1998.

Inoperable intestinal cancer was discovered during an operation on 8 October 1933. Elgar died on 23 February 1934 at the age of seventy-six and was buried next to his wife at St. Wulstan's Church in Little Malvern.

Music

Influences, antecedents and early works

Elgar was contemptuous of folk music and had little interest in or respect for the early English composers, calling William Byrd and his contemporaries "museum pieces". Of later English composers, he regarded Henry Purcell as the greatest, and he said that he had learned much of his own technique from studying Hubert Parry's writings. The continental composers who most influenced Elgar were Handel, Dvořák and, to some degree, Brahms. In Elgar's chromaticism, the influence of Wagner is apparent, but Elgar's individual style of orchestration owes much to the clarity of nineteenth century French composers, Berlioz, Massenet, Saint-Saëns and, particularly, Delibes, whose music Elgar played and conducted at Worcester and greatly admired.

Elgar began composing when still a child, and all his life he drew on his early sketchbooks for themes and inspiration. The habit of assembling his compositions, even large-scale ones, from scraps of themes jotted down randomly remained throughout his life. His early adult works included violin and piano pieces, music for the wind quintet in which he and his brother played between 1878–81, and music of many types for the Powick Asylum band. Diana McVeagh in ''Grove's Dictionary'' finds many embryonic Elgarian touches in these pieces, but few of them are regularly played, except ''Salut d'Amour'' and (as arranged decades later into ''The Wand of Youth'' Suites) some of the childhood sketches. Elgar's sole work of note during his first spell in London in 1889–91, the overture ''Froissart'', was a romantic-bravura piece, influenced by Mendelssohn and Wagner, but also showing further Elgarian characteristics. Orchestral works composed during the subsequent years in Worcestershire include the ''Serenade for Strings'' and ''Three Bavarian Dances''. In this period and later, Elgar wrote songs and partsongs. W. H. Reed expressed reservations about these pieces, but praised the partsong ''The Snow'', for female voices, and ''Sea Pictures'', a cycle of five songs for contralto and orchestra which remains in the repertory.

Elgar's principal large-scale early works were for chorus and orchestra for the Three Choirs and other festivals. These were ''The Black Knight'', ''King Olaf'', ''The Light of Life'', ''The Banner of St George'' and ''Caractacus''. He also wrote a ''Te Deum'' and ''Benedictus'' for the Hereford Festival. Of these, McVeagh comments favourably on his lavish orchestration and innovative use of leitmotifs, but less favourably on the qualities of his chosen texts and the patchiness of his inspiration. McVeagh makes the point that, because these works of the 1890s were for many years little known (and performances remain rare), the mastery of his first great success, the ''Enigma Variations'', appeared to be a sudden transformation from mediocrity to genius, but in fact his orchestral skills had been building up throughout the decade.

Peak creative years

Elgar's best-known works were composed within the twenty-one years between 1899 and 1920. Most of them are orchestral. Reed wrote, "Elgar's genius rose to its greatest height in his orchestral works" and quoted the composer as saying that, even in his oratorios, the orchestral part is the most important. The ''Enigma Variations'' made Elgar's name nationally. The variation form was ideal for him at this stage of his career, when his comprehensive mastery of orchestration was still in contrast to his tendency to write his melodies in short, sometimes rigid, phrases. His next orchestral works, ''Cockaigne (In London Town)'', a concert-overture (1900–1901), the first two ''Pomp and Circumstance'' marches (1901), and the gentle ''Dream Children'' (1902), are all short: the longest of them, ''Cockaigne'', lasting less than fifteen minutes. ''In the South (Alassio)'' (1903–1904), although designated by Elgar as a concert-overture, is, according to Kennedy, really a tone poem and the longest continuous piece of purely orchestral writing Elgar had essayed. He wrote it after setting aside an early attempt to compose a symphony. The work reveals his continuing progress in writing sustained themes and orchestral lines, although some critics, including Kennedy, find that in the middle part "Elgar's inspiration burns at less than its brightest." In 1905 Elgar completed the ''Introduction and Allegro for Strings''. This work is based, unlike much of Elgar's earlier writing, not on a profusion of themes but on only three. Kennedy called it a "masterly composition, equalled among English works for strings only by Vaughan Williams's ''Tallis Fantasia''." Nevertheless, at less than a quarter of an hour, it was not by contemporary standards a lengthy composition. Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony, composed at the same time, runs for well over an hour.

During the next four years, however, Elgar composed three major concert pieces, which, though shorter than comparable works by some of his European contemporaries, are among the most substantial such works by an English composer. These were his First Symphony, Violin Concerto, and Second Symphony, which all play for between forty-five minutes and an hour. McVeagh says of the symphonies that they "rank high not only in Elgar's output but in English musical history. Both are long and powerful, without published programmes, only hints and quotations to indicate some inward drama from which they derive their vitality and eloquence. Both are based on classical form but differ from it to the extent that ... they were considered prolix and slackly constructed by some critics. Certainly the invention in them is copious; each symphony would need several dozen music examples to chart its progress."

Elgar's Violin Concerto and Cello Concerto, in the view of Kennedy, "rank not only among his finest works, but among the greatest of their kind". They are, however, very different from each other. The Violin Concerto, composed in 1909 as Elgar reached the height of his popularity, and written for the instrument dearest to his heart, The Cello Concerto, composed a decade later, immediately after World War I, seems, in Kennedy's words, "to belong to another age, another world ... the simplest of all Elgar's major works ... also the least grandiloquent." Between the two concertos came Elgar's symphonic study ''Falstaff'', which has divided opinion even among Elgar's strongest admirers. Donald Tovey viewed it as "one of the immeasurably great things in music", with power "identical with Shakespeare's", while Kennedy criticises the work for "too frequent reliance on sequences" and an over-idealised depiction of the female characters. Reed thought that the principal themes show less distinction than some of Elgar's earlier works. Elgar himself thought ''Falstaff'' the highest point of his purely orchestral work.

The major works for voices and orchestra of the twenty-one years of Elgar's middle period are three large-scale works for soloists, chorus and orchestra: ''The Dream of Gerontius'' (1900), and the oratorios ''The Apostles'' (1903) and ''The Kingdom'' (1906); and two shorter odes, the ''Coronation Ode'' (1902) and ''The Music Makers'' (1912). The first of the odes, as a ''pièce d'occasion'', has rarely been revived after its initial success, with the culminating "Land of Hope and Glory". The second is, for Elgar, unusual in that it contains several quotations from his earlier works, as Richard Strauss quoted himself in ''A Hero's Life''. The choral works were all successful, although the first, ''Gerontius'', was and remains the best-loved and most performed. On the manuscript Elgar wrote, quoting John Ruskin, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another. My life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw, and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory." All three of the large-scale works follow the traditional model with sections for soloists, chorus and both together. Elgar's distinctive orchestration, as well as his melodic inspiration, lifts them to a higher level than most of their British predecessors.

Elgar's other works of his middle period include incidental music for ''Grania and Diarmid'', a play by George Moore and W. B. Yeats (1901), and for ''The Starlight Express'', a play based on a story by Algernon Blackwood (1916). Of the former, Yeats called Elgar's music "wonderful in its heroic melancholy". Elgar also wrote a number of songs during his peak period, of which Reed observes, "it cannot be said that he enriched the vocal repertory to the same extent as he did that of the orchestra." Payne also subsequently produced a performing version of the sketches for a sixth ''Pomp and Circumstance March'', premiered at the Proms in August 2006. Elgar's sketches for a piano concerto dating from 1913 were elaborated by the composer Robert Walker and first performed in August 1997 by the pianist David Owen Norris. The realisation has since been extensively revised.

Reputation

Views of Elgar's stature have varied in the decades since his music came to prominence at the beginning of the twentieth century. Richard Strauss, as noted, hailed Elgar as a progressive composer; even the hostile reviewer in ''The Observer'', unimpressed by the thematic material of the First Symphony in 1908, called the orchestration "magnificently modern". Hans Richter rated Elgar as "the greatest modern composer" in any country, and Richter's colleague Arthur Nikisch considered the First Symphony "a masterpiece of the first order" to be "justly ranked with the great symphonic models – Beethoven and Brahms." By contrast, the critic W. J. Turner, in the mid-twentieth century, wrote of Elgar's "Salvation Army symphonies," and Herbert von Karajan called the ''Enigma Variations'' "second-hand Brahms". Elgar's immense popularity was not long-lived. After the success of his First Symphony and Violin Concerto, his Second Symphony and Cello Concerto were politely received but without the earlier wild enthusiasm. His music was identified in the public mind with the Edwardian era, and after the First World War he no longer seemed a progressive or modern composer. In the early 1920s, even the First Symphony had only one London performance in more than three years. Henry Wood and younger conductors such as Boult, Sargent and Barbirolli championed Elgar's music, but in the recording catalogues and the concert programmes of the middle of the century his works were not well-represented.

In 1924, the music scholar Edward J. Dent wrote an article for a German music journal in which he identified four features of Elgar's style that gave offence to a section of English opinion (namely, Dent indicated, the academic and snobbish section): "too emotional", "not quite free from vulgarity", "pompous", and "too deliberately noble in expression". This article was reprinted in 1930 and caused controversy. In the later years of the century there was, in Britain at least, a revival of interest in Elgar's music. The features that had offended austere taste in the inter-war years were seen from a different perspective. In 1955, the reference book ''The Record Guide'' wrote of the Edwardian background during the height of Elgar's career:

By the 1960s, a less severe view was being taken of the Edwardian era. In 1966 the critic Frank Howes wrote that Elgar reflected the last blaze of opulence, expansiveness and full-blooded life, before World War I swept so much away. In Howes's view, there was a touch of vulgarity in both the era and Elgar's music, but "a composer is entitled to be judged by posterity for his best work. ... Elgar is historically important for giving to English music a sense of the orchestra, for expressing what it felt like to be alive in the Edwardian age, for conferring on the world at least four unqualified masterpieces, and for thereby restoring England to the comity of musical nations."

In 1967 the critic and analyst David Cox considered the question of the supposed Englishness of Elgar's music. Cox noted that Elgar disliked folk-songs and never used them in his works, opting for an idiom that was essentially German, leavened by a lightness derived from French composers including Berlioz and Gounod. How then, asked Cox, could Elgar be "the most English of composers"? Cox found the answer in Elgar's own personality, which "could use the alien idioms in such a way as to make of them a vital form of expression that was his and his alone. And the personality that comes through in the music is English." This point about Elgar's transmuting his influences had been touched on before. In 1930 ''The Times'' wrote, "When Elgar's first symphony came out, someone attempted to prove that its main tune on which all depends was like the Grail theme in Parsifal. ... but the attempt fell flat because everyone else, including those who disliked the tune, had instantly recognized it as typically 'Elgarian', while the Grail theme is as typically Wagnerian." As for Elgar's "Englishness", his fellow-composers recognised it: Richard Strauss and Stravinsky made particular reference to it, and Sibelius called him, "the personification of the true English character in music ... a noble personality and a born aristocrat".

Among Elgar's admirers there is disagreement about which of his works are to be regarded as masterpieces. The ''Enigma Variations'' are generally counted among them. ''The Dream of Gerontius'' has also been given high praise by Elgarians, and the Cello Concerto is similarly rated. Many rate the Violin Concerto equally highly, but some do not. Sackville-West omitted it from the list of Elgar masterpieces in ''The Record Guide'', and in a long analytical article in ''The Musical Quarterly'', Daniel Gregory Mason criticised the first movement of the concerto for a "kind of sing-songiness ... as fatal to noble rhythm in music as it is in poetry." ''Falstaff'' also divides opinion. It has never been a great popular favourite, and Kennedy and Reed identify shortcomings in it. In a ''Musical Times'' 1957 centenary symposium on Elgar led by Vaughan Williams, by contrast, several contributors share Eric Blom's view that ''Falstaff'' is the greatest of all Elgar's works.

The two symphonies divide opinion even more sharply. Mason rates the Second poorly for its "over-obvious rhythmic scheme", but calls the First "Elgar's masterpiece. ... It is hard to see how any candid student can deny the greatness of this symphony." However, in the 1957 centenary symposium, several leading admirers of Elgar express reservations about one or both symphonies. In the same year, Roger Fiske wrote in ''The Gramophone'', "For some reason few people seem to like the two Elgar symphonies equally; each has its champions and often they are more than a little bored by the rival work." The critic John Warrack wrote, "There are no sadder pages in symphonic literature than the close of the First Symphony's Adagio, as horn and trombones twice softly intone a phrase of utter grief", whereas to Michael Kennedy, the movement is notable for its lack of anguished yearning and ''angst'' and is marked instead by a "benevolent tranquillity."

Despite the fluctuating critical assessment of the various works over the years, Elgar's major works taken as a whole have in the twenty-first century recovered strongly from their neglect in the 1950s. ''The Record Guide'' in 1955 could list only one currently available recording of the First Symphony, none of the Second, one of the Violin Concerto, two of the Cello Concerto, two of the ''Enigma Variations'', one of ''Falstaff'', and none of ''The Dream of Gerontius''. Since then there have been multiple recordings of all the major works. More than thirty recordings have been made of the First Symphony since 1955, for example, and more than a dozen of ''The Dream of Gerontius''. Similarly, in the concert hall, Elgar's works, after a period of neglect, are once again frequently programmed. The Elgar Society's website, in its diary of forthcoming performances, lists performances of Elgar's works by orchestras, soloists and conductors across Europe, North America and Australia.

Honours, awards and commemorations

Elgar was knighted in 1904, and in 1911 he was appointed a member of the Order of Merit. In 1920 he received the Cross of Commander of the Belgian Order of the Crown; in 1924 he was made Master of the King's Musick; the following year he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society; and in 1928 he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO). Between 1900 and 1931, Elgar received honorary degrees from the Universities of Cambridge, Durham, Leeds, Oxford, Yale (USA), Aberdeen, Western Pennsylvania (USA), Birmingham and London. Foreign academies of which he was made a member were Regia Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome; Accademia del Reale Istituto Musicale, Florence; Académie des Beaux Arts, Paris; Institut de France; and American Academy of Arts. In 1931 he was made a Baronet, of Broadheath in the County of Worcester. In 1933 he was promoted within the Royal Victorian Order to Knight Grand Cross (GCVO). In Kennedy's words, he "shamelessly touted" for a peerage, but in vain.

The house in Lower Broadheath where Elgar was born is now the Elgar Birthplace Museum, devoted to his life and work. Elgar's daughter, Carice, helped to found the museum in 1936 and bequeathed to it much of her collection of Elgar's letters and documents on her death in 1970. Carice left Elgar manuscripts to musical colleges: ''The Black Knight'' to Trinity College of Music; ''King Olaf'' to the Royal Academy of Music; ''The Music Makers'' to Birmingham University; the Cello Concerto to the Royal College of Music; ''The Kingdom'' to the Bodleian Library; and other manuscripts to the British Museum. The Elgar Society dedicated to the composer and his works was formed in 1951. The University of Birmingham's Special Collections contain an archive of letters written by Elgar.

thumb|right|upright|alt=photograph of a blue plaque associating Elgar and his works with a house in Bray-upon-Thames|A blue plaque mentioning Elgar in Bray, BerkshireElgar's statue at the end of Worcester High Street stands facing the cathedral, only yards from where his father's shop once stood. Another statue of the composer by Rose Garrard is at the top of Church Street in Malvern, overlooking the town and giving visitors an opportunity to stand next to the composer in the shadow of the Hills that he so often regarded. In September 2005, a third statue sculpted by Jemma Pearson was unveiled near Hereford Cathedral in honour of his many musical and other associations with that city. It depicts Elgar with his bicycle. From 1999 until early 2007, new Bank of England twenty pound notes featured a portrait of Elgar. The change to remove his image generated controversy, particularly because 2007 was the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth. From 2007 the Elgar notes were phased out, ceasing to be legal tender on 30 June 2010.

There are around 65 roads in the UK named after Elgar, including six in the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Among these are eleven Elgar Avenues, including one in Malvern, Worcestershire, and another close to the house where Elgar lived, Plâs Gwyn in Hereford. A street in North Springfield, Virginia and a major road in Box Hill, Melbourne, are also named after him. Elgar had three locomotives named in his honour. The first "Sir Edward Elgar" was a Bulldog class locomotive, number 3414; it was built in 1906 and withdrawn from service in 1938. The second was a Great Western Railway Castle Class locomotive in the post WWII 7000 series. Built in 1946 and withdrawn from service in 1964, its original name was replaced by "Sir Edward Elgar" in 1957. The third was a Brush type 47 diesel locomotive, for which nameplates were specially cast in the former Great Western Railway style. On 25 February 1984, this locomotive was officially named "Sir Edward Elgar" at Paddington station in London by Simon Rattle, then conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Elgar's life and music have inspired works of literature including the novel ''Gerontius'' and several plays. ''Elgar's Rondo'', a 1993 stage play by David Pownall depicts the dead Jaeger offering ghostly advice on Elgar's musical development. Pownall also wrote a radio play, ''Elgar's Third'' (1994); another Elgar-themed radio play is Alick Rowe's ''The Dorabella Variation'' (2003). David Rudkin's BBC television "Play for Today" ''Penda's Fen'' (1974) deals with themes including sex and adolescence, spying, and snobbery, with Elgar's music, chiefly ''The Dream of Gerontius'', as its background. In one scene, a ghostly Elgar whispers the secret of the "Enigma" tune to the youthful central character, with an injunction not to reveal it. ''Elgar on the Journey to Hanley'', a novel by Keith Alldritt (1979), tells of the composer's attachment to Dora Penny, later Mrs Powell, (depicted as "Dorabella" in the ''Enigma Variations''), and covers the fifteen years from their first meeting in the mid-1890s to the genesis of the Violin Concerto when, in the novel, Dora has been supplanted in Elgar's affections by Alice Stuart-Wortley.

Perhaps the best-known work depicting Elgar, is Ken Russell's 1962 BBC television film ''Elgar'', made when the composer was still largely out of fashion. This hour-long film contradicted the view of Elgar as a jingoistic and bombastic composer, and evoked the more pastoral and melancholy side of his character and music.

Selected works

The following have been selected as representative of Elgar's works, based on quality, significance and popularity.

Orchestral

''Froissart'', concert overture, Op. 19 (1890)

''Serenade for Strings'', Op. 20 (1888–1892)

''Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma)'', Op. 36 (1899)

* includes Variation 9 ''Nimrod''

''Cockaigne (In London Town)'', concert overture, Op. 40 (1900–1901)

''Pomp and Circumstance'', five marches, all Op. 39 (1901–1930)

*March No. 1 in D (1901) (The trio contains the tune known as ''Land of Hope and Glory'')

''In the South (Alassio)'', concert overture, Op. 50 (1903–1904)

''Introduction and Allegro'' for strings (quartet and orchestra), Op. 47 (1904–05)

''The Wand of Youth'', suites Nos. 1 and 2, Opp. 1a/b (1867–71, rev. 1907/8)

Symphony No. 1 in A-flat, Op. 55 (1907–1908)

Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61 (1909–1910)

Romance for bassoon and orchestra, Op. 62 (1910)

Symphony No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 63 (1909–1911)

''Falstaff'', symphonic study, Op. 68 (1913)

Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 (1918–1919)

''The Severn Suite'', Op. 87 (1930) (for brass band, trans. for orchestra 1932)

Cantatas and Oratorios

''The Black Knight'', symphony/cantata for chorus and orchestra, Op. 25 (1889–1892)

''The Light of Life (Lux Christi)'', oratorio for soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 29 (1896)

''Scenes From The Saga Of King Olaf'', cantata for soprano, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 30 (1896)

''Caractacus'', cantata for soprano, tenor, baritone and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 35 (1897–1898)

''The Dream of Gerontius'', for mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 38 (1899–1900)

''The Apostles'', oratorio for soprano, contralto, tenor and three bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 49 (1902–1903)

''The Kingdom'', oratorio for soprano, contralto, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 51 (1901–1906)

''The Music Makers'', ode for contralto or mezzo-soprano soloist, chorus and orchestra, Op. 69 (1912)

Songs

''"The Wind at Dawn"'', poem by C. Alice Roberts (1888)

''Sea Pictures'', song cycle for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, Op. 37 (1897–1899)

''"Land of Hope and Glory"'', words by Arthur Christopher Benson (1902)

''Seven Lieder of Edward Elgar'' (1907)

Partsongs

''"O Happy Eyes"'', SATB unacc., words by C. Alice Elgar, Op. 18 No.1 (1890)

''"My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land"'', SATB unacc., words by Andrew Lang, dedicated to Rev. J. Hampton (1890)

''"The Snow"'', SSA acc. 2 violins and piano, words by C. Alice Elgar, dedicated to Mrs. E. B. Fitton, Op. 26 No.1 (1894) (also with orchestral accompaniment, 1903, and various other combinations of voices SATB etc.)

''"Go, Song of Mine"'', SSAATB unacc., words by Cavalcanti, tr. D. G. Rossetti, dedicated to Alfred H. Littleton, Op. 57 (1909)

''"The Shower"'' and ''"The Fountain"'', SATB unacc., words by Henry Vaughan, Op. 71 Nos.1 and 2 (1914)

Church music

Three motets: ''"Ave verum corpus"'', ''"Ave Maria"'' and ''"Ave Maris Stella"'', Op. 2 (1887)

''Te Deum and Benedictus'', Op. 34 (1897)

Chamber music

''Romance'', violin and piano, Op. 1 (1878)

''Salut d'Amour'' (''Liebesgruss''), violin and piano, Op. 12 (1888)

''Chanson de Nuit'' and ''Chanson de Matin'', violin and piano, Op. 15 Nos. 1 and 2 (1897/1899).

Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82 (1918)

String Quartet in E minor, Op. 83 (1918)

Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84 (1918–1919)

Keyboard

Organ Sonata in G, Op. 28

''Concert Allegro'', piano, Op. 46 (1901; unpublished)

Arrangements

J. S. Bach, ''Fantasia and Fugue in C minor'', BWV 537, tr. for orchestra, Op. 86 (1921–1922)

Handel, ''Overture in D minor'' (Overture to Chandos Anthem "In the Lord put I my Trust", HWV247), tr. for orchestra (1923)

See also

Dorabella Cipher

Notes and references

;Notes ;References

Sources

Further reading

External links

The Elgar Society (cache), official site.

The Elgar Foundation and Birthplace Museum, official site.

Elgar in Hereford, official site.

"Elgar and the occult" at ''On An Overgrown Path'', January 2011.

"Elgar, Sir Edward William" at The National Archive

"Sir Edward Elgar, Bt." at National Portrait Gallery

"The Growing Significance of Elgar", lecture by Simon Mundy, Gresham College, 29 June 2007

"Elgar, Edward, Sir" at Open Directory Project

Works by or about Edward Elgar at Internet Archive and Google Books (scanned books original editions color illustrated)

Category:1857 births Category:1934 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Academics of the University of Birmingham Category:Ballet composers Category:Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Category:Brass band composers Category:Composers for pipe organ Category:English composers Category:English conductors (music) Category:English Roman Catholics Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Category:London Symphony Orchestra principal conductors Category:Masters of the Queen's Music Category:Members of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Category:Members of the Order of Merit Category:People associated with Durham University Category:People associated with Malvern, Worcestershire Category:People from Worcester Category:People illustrated on sterling banknotes Category:People of the Edwardian era Category:People of the Victorian era Category:Romantic composers Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists

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Coordinates	39°16′01″N86°14′57″N
name	Chris Colfer
birth name	Christopher Paul Colfer
birth date	May 27, 1990
birth place	Clovis, California, United States
occupation	Actor, singer, producer and writer
years active	2009–present
spouse	}}

Christopher Paul "Chris" Colfer (born May 27, 1990) is an American actor, singer, and writer known for his portrayal of Kurt Hummel on the television series ''Glee'', for which he won a 2011 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and is also nominated for a 2011 Emmy.

Colfer was named to ''Time'' magazine's 2011 list of the world's 100 most influential people.

Early life and education

Colfer was born in Clovis, California, the son of Irish parents Karyn (née Boling) and Tim Colfer. MSN UK Colfer has Irish ancestry, "I’m very Irish, my family is all Irish and St. Patrick’s day in my house is crazy." While a student at Clovis East High School, Colfer was involved with the Speech & Debate program where he won "many speech and debate Champion titles," including placing 9th in the State Competition for Dramatic Interpretation, the drama club, the FFA, "was president of the Writer’s Club, editor of the school's literary magazine, and captain of Destination ImagiNation." As a high school senior, he wrote, starred in, and directed a spoof of ''Sweeney Todd'' entitled "Shirley Todd", in which all of the roles were gender-reversed. One of his real in-school experiences was later turned into a sub-plot for his character on ''Glee'', when the high school teachers denied him the chance to sing "Defying Gravity" from the musical ''Wicked'' because it is traditionally sung by a woman. His grandmother, a minister, let him sing the song in her church.

Career

When he was younger, he also starred in a version of ''The Sound of Music'' as the character 'Kurt'.

At the age of eighteen, Colfer starred as Russel Fish in ''Russel Fish: The Sausage and Eggs Incident,'' a short film where an awkward teenager must pass a Presidential Physical Fitness test or fail gym class and lose his admission to Harvard University.

''Glee''

Colfer's first TV role came in 2009 when he was cast as Kurt Hummel on Fox's ''Glee'' - a fashionable gay countertenor who is routinely bullied at school, not only for being gay, but also for being part of the very unpopular Glee Club; and is dating Blaine Anderson played by Darren Criss. Colfer auditioned for the part of Artie Abrams, who uses a wheelchair, which eventually went to Kevin McHale. The show's creator, Ryan Murphy, was so impressed with Colfer that he created the role of Kurt specifically for him, and in the process, scrapped a planned character called Rajish so they could add Hummel. In a 2010 interview with Allison Kugel, Colfer stated that "There have been a couple of times when I have gone to Ryan Murphy and told him a couple of things that have happened to me, and then he writes it into the show. Or he’ll ask me what song I would want to sing, in this situation or in that situation. I don’t think any of us directly try to give input on the character or on the storyline, but they definitely steal things from us."

Ryan Murphy revealed in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that at the conclusion of ''Glee'''s third season, Colfer's character Kurt will graduate from Mckinley High along with Rachel (actress Lea Michele) and Finn (Cory Monteith). At the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, producer Brad Falchuk stated that "because they’re graduating doesn’t mean they’re leaving the show." Falchuck also stated "it was never our plan or our intention to let them go…. They are not done with the show after this season."

Hummel's characterization

Colfer has explained that Hummel "puts on a very confident, 'I'm better than you' persona, but underneath it all he's the same anxious and scared teen everyone is/was at some point. In later episodes, he goes through an identity crisis, accepting and finding acceptance for who he is. [...] He's a tough guy in designer clothes." The character is also gay, which is at the crux of many of his conflicts on the show. Colfer has a high vocal range, as displayed in the episode "Wheels", in which his character demonstrates the unusual ability (for a man) of singing a "high F" (actually an F5). However, his character deliberately pretends to be unable to sing the note in order to spare his father the harassment he would receive for having a gay son.

At 20 years old, Colfer won the 2010 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series for his performance as Kurt Hummel. He was twice nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category for his portrayal of Kurt.

Writing and other work

Colfer will star in the coming-of-age comedy ''Struck by Lightning'' that has been set up with David Permut (''Youth in Revolt''). The plot revolves around Chris Colfer's character is struck and killed by a bolt of lightning and chronicles his exploits as he blackmails his fellow senior classmates into contributing to a literary magazine he's publishing. Colfer also wrote the script for ''Lightning'', which is to be shot during the ''Glee'' hiatus in the summer of 2011.

On June 8, 2011, Colfer signed a book deal to write two novels for kids, the first of which, ''The Land of Stories'', is scheduled for release in 2012.

Personal life

Colfer is openly gay and shared on ''Access Hollywood'' that his parents were accepting of him but he was frequently bullied at school. Colfer's sister, Hannah, suffers from severe epilepsy, and often experiences over fifty seizures in an hour. Colfer has commented that when he was younger he used acting as a method of escaping the stress involved with having a family member with disabilities.

Colfer appeared on the English chat show ''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross'' on June 18, 2010, along with his fellow ''Glee'' co-stars Amber Riley and Matthew Morrison. He demonstrated his skill with a pair of sai, revealing that he bought a pair of them on eBay and regularly practices in his trailer when not shooting. He also mentioned during the interview that he would like it if his sai swords could be worked in to an episode of Glee.

Filmography

Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes
rowspan	2009	''Russel Fish: The Sausage and Eggs Incident''	Russel Fish
2009–present		Kurt Hummel	Main CastGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film (2011)Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (2010)Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (2010)Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (2011)Nominated - Monte-Carlo TV Festival Award for Outstanding Actor - Comedy SeriesNominated - Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film (2009–2010)Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series (2010)Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (2011)Nominated - Lesbian/Bi People's Choice Awards "Favorite Music Duo or Group" (shared with ''Glee'' Cast) (2011)
	2010	''Marmaduke (film)	Marmaduke''	Drama Dog #2Shrooms Dog #1Beach Dog No.4
2011	''The Cleveland Show''	Kurt Hummel	Season 2, Episode 11, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Roberta?"(Voice Role)
2011	''Glee: The 3D Concert Movie''	Kurt Hummel/Himself
2011			Writer, Producer
2011	''Saturday Night Live''	Himself (cameo)	Appeared in the What Up With That sketch, had no lines
2012		Carson Phillips	Lead role, Writer, Producer

Discography

''Glee: The Music, Volume 1'' (2009)

''Glee: The Music, Volume 2'' (2009)

''Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna'' (2010)

''Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers'' (2010)

''Glee: The Music, Journey to Regionals'' (2010)

''Glee: The Music, The Rocky Horror Glee Show'' (2010)

''Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album'' (2010)

''Glee: The Music, Volume 4'' (2010)

''Glee: The Music, Volume 5'' (2011)

''Glee: The Music Presents the Warblers'' (2011)

''Glee: The Music, Volume 6'' (2011)

''Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (Motion Picture Soundtrack)'' (2011)

References

Further reading

External links

Category:1990 births Category:Actors from California Category:American male singers Category:American television actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Countertenors Category:Gay actors Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:Living people Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Clovis, California Category:Singers from California

cs:Chris Colfer da:Chris Colfer de:Chris Colfer es:Chris Colfer fr:Chris Colfer hr:Chris Colfer id:Chris Colfer it:Chris Colfer he:כריס קולפר nl:Chris Colfer ja:クリス・コルファー nn:Chris Colfer pl:Chris Colfer pt:Chris Colfer ru:Колфер, Крис fi:Chris Colfer sv:Chris Colfer tr:Chris Colfer uk:Крістофер Колфер