Elgar's compositional style did not change much throughout his mature career. A comparison of the Cello Concerto, his last completed major work, with the "Enigma" Variations, which first brought him to international attention, reveals musical characteristics that were important to him throughout his artistic life. Specifically, the harmony is firmly rooted in traditional practices of the Nineteenth Century, the architecture is clear and unmannered, and the instrumentation aims to project the melodic lines rather than pursue an unusual range of texture. For these reasons, it is perhaps not surprising that Elgar stopped serious composing in his early sixties, while still in good health, in spite of being held in the highest esteem throughout England. (His later years produced only orchestral arrangements of other composers' music and festival choral pieces for local events.) Elgar's music can sometimes sound "behind the times" when compared to the work of contemporaries like Mahler, Debussy, or Stravinsky. Nonetheless, his music remains popular (particularly in his native England), and his Cello Concerto is easily among the finest ever written for the instrument.
In the spirit of the other great Romantic cello concertos, i.e. those by Schumann and Dvorák, the emphasis is on the nobility of the instrument's sound and its great melodic range rather than sheer virtuosity. The brief melody offered by the soloist at the beginning of the work serves as a reference point throughout, returning between the first and second movements and then again at the conclusion of the piece. The effect is that, although the piece is thirty minutes long and journeys through a variety of styles, the listener is never far from the atmosphere of the beginning. Indeed, for all of the length and variety, the emotional range is conspicuously confined: the piece lacks heroism, celebration, or much of any optimistic attitude. The only genuinely lively section is the skittish second movement, whereas the passionate second section of the finale suggests desperation rather than triumph. The rest of the piece is contemplative, as in the first and third movements, or grimly determined, as in most of the fourth. Nonetheless, the lyrical writing, for both the soloist and the orchestra, is rewarding, and the concerto is a prime example of how the Romantic spirit of the 1800's was sustained by some well into the present century.