Elgar was 57 when the First World War broke out, and was living with his wife (eight years older than he) in a large house in London . In 1910 his violin concerto had met with a rapturous reception, but his second symphony the following year met with a cooler response. He began to feel that perhaps his music was old-fashioned for the times. He wrote little in the first years of the war, and was often ill - then moved out of London to a rented cottage in Sussex , called Brinkwells. Here he regained both his health and his confidence, and in the two years 1918 / 1919 wrote four works, all in a new style, leaner and less lush than before. The first three were chamber music – a violin sonata, a string quartet and a piano quintet. The fourth was the cello concerto, the last major work he was to complete.

The cello concerto was premiered in 1919, in the opening concert of the LSO's first post-war season. Elgar conducted but it was not a success; another conductor took the rest of the programme and he left Elgar almost no rehearsal time, and the orchestra will not have been expecting the lean, spare texture. But the quality of the work shone through: an astute critic noted “… a profound wisdom and beauty underlying its simplicity ... a fine spirit's lifelong wistful brooding upon the loveliness of earth." It was given a new lease of life by the emotional interpretations of Jacqueline du Pre in the 1970s.

The concerto is a very fine work, but its familiarity should not conceal from us what a remarkable one it is, too. The solo part is never showy, and has none of the usual brilliant passage work to show off the soloist's skills. The scoring is very thin, with often just a single line or a few delicate pointings to accompany the soloist. Except for the last movement, the tunes are hardly developed at all, just repeated. Yet despite all that, it is incredibly emotional – so much yearning, love, loss, grief, and even anger is conveyed by these few notes.

The cello solo opens the work with a bravura flourish – which rapidly fades out and the violas introduce the first main theme. This has several repetitions by soloist and orchestra, which are followed by a central section which is warmer and more hopeful, with a swaying melody. Then the first theme returns, and the movement ends bleakly. The second movement follows with no break, with a cello solo opening again, which is a variant on that in the first movement. It soon becomes a rapid, skittering dance, like the flight of birds. The accompaniment is of the utmost delicacy, with occasional darker colours caused by the rather unstable harmony, but mostly this movement flies in the light.

The third movement is very simple, a song for the soloist accompanied by strings alone with just a few wind chords. It is very intimate in its emotion. It ends expectantly, and leads directly in the vigorous finale. The finale, after another thoughtful opening for the soloist alone, tries hard to be a positive conclusion to the concerto. The music is constantly inventive, and expends a lot of energy in the process. But the tonality isn't stable long enough, and once the momentum starts to give out all the pent up pain and hurt, the passion and regret, come flooding out. Eventually we hear the opening flourish of the concerto again, with just one difference – this time it is punctuated by two savage chords from the whole orchestra. The final bars are no reconciliation.