Sir Donald Tovey is remembered nowadays as a critic and teacher rather than as a composer, a strange neglect of a talent that at one time had seemed quite remarkable, from his days at Eton to Oxford, fruitful collaboration with Joachim and, in 1914, a professorship in Edinburgh, where he occupied a dominant position until his death, although his activities now deflected his attention from composition. His Cello Sonata was completed in 1900 and the Elegiac Variations were written in memory of Robert Hausmann, cellist in the Joachim Quartet.
