Background: Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet  (2 June 1857 - 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.
Context: During the 1890s, Elgar gradually built up a reputation as a composer, chiefly of works for the great choral festivals of the English Midlands. The Black Knight (1892) and King Olaf (1896), both inspired by Longfellow, The Light of Life (1896) and Caractacus (1898) were all modestly successful, and he obtained a long-standing publisher in Novello and Co. Other works of this decade included the Serenade for Strings (1892) and Three Bavarian Dances (1897). Elgar was of enough consequence locally to recommend the young composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to the Three Choirs Festival for a concert piece, which helped establish the younger man's career. Elgar was catching the attention of prominent critics, but their reviews were polite rather than enthusiastic. Although he was in demand as a festival composer, he was only just getting by financially and felt unappreciated. In 1898, he said he was "very sick at heart over music" and hoped to find a way to succeed with a larger work. His friend August Jaeger tried to lift his spirits: "A day's attack of the blues ... will not drive away your desire, your necessity, which is to exercise those creative faculties which a kind providence has given you. Your time of universal recognition will come."  In 1899, that prediction suddenly came true. At the age of forty-two, Elgar produced the Enigma Variations, which were premiered in London under the baton of the eminent German conductor Hans Richter. In Elgar's own words, "I have sketched a set of Variations on an original theme. The Variations have amused me because I've labelled them with the nicknames of my particular friends ... that is to say I've written the variations each one to represent the mood of the 'party' (the person) ... and have written what I think they would have written - if they were asses enough to compose". He dedicated the work "To my friends pictured within". Probably the best known variation is "Nimrod", depicting Jaeger. Purely musical considerations led Elgar to omit variations depicting Arthur Sullivan and Hubert Parry, whose styles he tried but failed to incorporate in the variations. The large-scale work was received with general acclaim for its originality, charm and craftsmanship, and it established Elgar as the pre-eminent British composer of his generation.  The work is formally titled Variations on an Original Theme; the word "Enigma" appears over the first six bars of music, which led to the familiar version of the title. The enigma is that, although there are fourteen variations on the "original theme", there is another overarching theme, never identified by Elgar, which he said "runs through and over the whole set" but is never heard. Later commentators have observed that although Elgar is today regarded as a characteristically English composer, his orchestral music and this work in particular share much with the Central European tradition typified at the time by the work of Richard Strauss. The Enigma Variations were well received in Germany and Italy, and remain to the present day a worldwide concert staple.
Question: did critics like him?
Answer: 

Problem: Background: Polly Jean Harvey was born on 9 October 1969 in Bridport, Dorset, the second child of Ray and Eva Harvey, who owned a stone quarrying business, and grew up on the family's farm in Corscombe. During her childhood, she attended school in nearby Beaminster, where she received guitar lessons from folk singer-songwriter Steve Knightley, and her parents introduced her to music that would later influence her work, including blues music, Captain Beefheart and Bob Dylan. Her parents were avid music fans and regularly arranged get-togethers and small gigs; among their oldest friends was Ian Stewart. As a teenager, Harvey began learning saxophone and joined an eight-piece instrumental group Bologne, based in Dorset.
Context: As Harvey embarked on her solo career, she explored collaborations with other musicians. In 1995 she released her third studio album, To Bring You My Love, featuring former bandmate John Parish, Bad Seeds multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and French drummer Jean-Marc Butty, all of whom would continue to perform and record with Harvey throughout her career. The album was also her first material to be produced by Flood. Simultaneously a more blues-influenced and more futuristic record than its predecessors, To Bring You My Love showcased Harvey broadening her musical style to include strings, organs and synthesisers. Rolling Stone said in its review that "Harvey sings the blues like Nick Cave sings gospel: with more distortion, sex and murder than you remember. To Bring You My Love was a towering goth version of grunge." During the successive tours for the album, Harvey also experimented with her image and stage persona.  The record generated a surprise modern rock radio hit in the United States with its lead single, "Down by the Water." Three consecutive singles -- "C'mon Billy", "Send His Love to Me" and "Long Snake Moan" -- were also moderately successful. The album was a commercial success selling one million copies worldwide including 370,000 in the United States. It was also certified Silver in the United Kingdom within seven months of its release, having sold over 60,000 copies. In the United States, the album was voted Album of the Year by The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, USA Today, People, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Rolling Stone also named Harvey 1995's Artist of the Year and Spin ranked the album third in The 90 Greatest Albums of the '90s, behind Nirvana's Nevermind (1991) and Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet (1990).  In 1996, following the international success of To Bring You My Love and other collaborations, Harvey began composing material that would end up on her fourth studio album, during what she referred to as "an incredibly low patch." The material diverged significantly from her former work and introduced electronica elements into her song-writing. During recording sessions in 1997 original PJ Harvey Trio drummer Rob Ellis rejoined Harvey's band, and Flood was hired again as producer. The sessions, which continued into April the following year, resulted in Is This Desire? (1998). Though originally released to mixed reviews in September 1998, the album was a success and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance. The album's lead single, "A Perfect Day Elise," was moderately successful in the United Kingdom, peaking at number 25 on the UK Singles Chart, her most successful single to date.
Question: Was the single successfull?
Answer: