Sir Edward Elgar was born in Worcester in 1857. Until the outstanding success of the 'Enigma' Variations in 1899 he was considered a 'provincial' composer - and a largely self taught one at that.In the earlier part of Elgar's career as a composer he wrote several short pieces which became very popular indeed. Chanson de nuit is one such the second of a pair (Chanson de Matin the other being) which carried his name far and wide before his larger orchestra works appeared. It was published in several versions at once: for string orchestra for small orchestra for violin and piano and so on - so it is almost impossible to say with any degree of certainty which was theoriginal version. This arrangement makes a useful addition to the repertoire for string quartet.