For many, Sir Edward Elgar is inseparable from “Pomp and Circumstance.” His ceremonial music conjures thoughts of Imperial England (and Stateside graduation ceremonies), though anyone with a sensitive ear will detect the melancholy underpinnings of the artist.

Elgar was a soulful composer, whose faith, love of country, love of his wife and love of animals enriched his existence and informed his music. However, all was not peaches and cream. A Catholic in overwhelmingly Protestant England, of humble origins in a class-conscious society (his fiancée was disinherited for accepting his proposal), Elgar was seldom completely comfortable in his own skin.

He was also a grand procrastinator, often getting lost in his experiments as an amateur chemist and shirking his duties in favor of slipping off to the races.

Though he loved his wife devotedly, he was deprived while she lived of the pleasure of the company of dogs, which he adored. A close friend’s bulldog, Dan, became an honorary pet, and as we know from Elgar’s letters and marginalia scribbled in his manuscripts, the spirit of Dan infuses a surprising number of his works. (An episode in which Dan tumbled into the Thames is immortalized as one of the “Enigma Variations.”)

After the death of his wife, Elgar was able to openly indulge his passion for dogs, right down to setting places for them at the table. One of these was a cairn terrier named Mina, who was the inspiration for a charming miniature, his very last work (performed here a mite under tempo):

Happy Birthday, Sir Edward Elgar!

PHOTO: Elgar with his spaniel Marco