Sic!

[gradus]

English-of-its-time sums it up well. Wouldn't the Finns say that Sibelius's music expresses the spirit of his country and I daresay the Czechs might say the same of Smetana, Janacek or Dvorak, add other countries at will.

[amateur51]

Thanks for he insights into the use of elgar's music in French television, visualnickmos

So if, say, RVW had written a Suite Espanol, would that still be English music?

What about Elgar In The South/Alassio?

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for he insights into the use of elgar's music in French television, visualnickmos

What about Elgar In The South/Alassio?

Or the 3 Bavarian Dances!

[Pabmusic]

Or the 3 Bavarian Dances!

Or Sevillaña?

[visualnickmos]

Sevillaña, Three Bavarian Dances, Alassio, and no doubt there are many more similar examples...... - Florida Suite.......

But I think this sort of illustrates my point - or more accurately, my question. I don't know if there can be a definitive answer.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sevillaña, Three Bavarian Dances, Alassio, and no doubt there are many more similar examples...... - Florida Suite.......

But I think this sort of illustrates my point - or more accurately, my question. I don't know if there can be a definitive answer.

Apologies to anyone who might be responding to my original message in this slot (as if!) - Having expressed what I was trying to say very badly I've decided to delete. I may have another go if I can get my brain in gear!

[Ferretfancy]

Hiya Pabmusic,

Elgar's music as been used as processional music for many state occasions and used on tv and radio for royal family, state ceremony or some English event that it has become firmly associated to this sense of Englishness. In the same way Parry's I was Glad and Jerusalem is used to accompany English events.

The lighter 'salon' music that Elgar wrote at intervals throughout his life certainly reflects a typically English adoption of a style derived from continental models that were very popular.

It's interesting that the catholic Elgar made no attempt to seek inspiration from the wonders of English tudor polyphony or reach back further. Neither did he find English folk song as a starting point. In that respect I think that his contemporaries Vaughan Williams and Holst have more claim to be truly English in their music.

Apart from the two great symphonies and the violin concerto, it would have been nice if he had also been able to imagine works like the Tallis Fantasia or Egdon Heath.

[kea]

Elgar and Walton sound rather German to me. RVW sounds French, and Britten could pass for American (though many of the Americans also sound French). Tippett does sound English after a while, but the early works are definitely Italian. Holst is also rather Italian, except for The Planets which is Russian.

Conversely, Franck is English through and through, as are Myaskovsky and Barber. And sometimes Borodin. It's a tricky business, assigning composers' music to the correct national stereotypes.

[richardfinegold]

I was watching a Public Television broadcast on the Origins of WW 1 recently. It may have been a BBC production, as our Public Television is underfunded and relies on BBC content. At one point the shows discussed the British Royals.
The music that accompanied footage of the King? It was the tutti from Borodin In The Steppes Of Central Asia. Apparentlyly music written to celebrate the Romanovs appeared quintessentially British to the producers.

[Ferretfancy]

I was watching a Public Television broadcast on the Origins of WW 1 recently. It may have been a BBC production, as our Public Television is underfunded and relies on BBC content. At one point the shows discussed the British Royals.
The music that accompanied footage of the King? It was the tutti from Borodin In The Steppes Of Central Asia. Apparentlyly music written to celebrate the Romanovs appeared quintessentially British to the producers.

richardfinegold

Judging from my experience mixing documentaries,( admittedly from a way back) many TV directors have little or no musical knowledge, they simply get stuff from the gram library and pick what fits. I lost count of the number of times I tried to talk them out of bunging on Spring from The Seasons, even Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet got chosen occasionally. Most of the younger ones only know rock music, and try to find a way to squeeze in their current favourites.

[Sir Velo]

Elgar and Walton sound rather German to me. RVW sounds French, and Britten could pass for American (though many of the Americans also sound French). Tippett does sound English after a while, but the early works are definitely Italian. Holst is also rather Italian, except for The Planets which is Russian.

Conversely, Franck is English through and through, as are Myaskovsky and Barber. And sometimes Borodin. It's a tricky business, assigning composers' music to the correct national stereotypes.

You had me going for a while!

[Serial_Apologist]

You had me going for a while!

Well here's me thinking kea was being serious!

In contrast to Ferret in #22 I do find traces of the modal in Elgar - cf. the opening of the slow movement of the second symphony comes most immediately to mind. Then there is the pronoucedly pre-Renaissance feel of the open fifths organum texture of the opening of the Third, with its nods in the direction of Havergal Brian, noted by Anthony Payne. Notably much of the harmonic/contrapuntal language of the Introduction and Allegro is modal - there is a robust rusticality about the work that must as surely express Elgar's love of the Mendips as Ken Russell's 1962 portrayal of the boyhood Edward's horeseback gallop across their summits makes as real an image as any imagined transcription to film on a landscape theme. Can there be any doubt that this work influenced later composers with pastoralism strong in their makeup: Bliss in the Music for Strings; Tippett in the Double Concerto? One should not forget that there is a great deal of the modal in Brahms' music - another big influence of course, and that it may not be folk music-inspired but liturgical music of the Renaissance absorbed through the composer's Catholicism that renders passages in the music folk-like - Elgar did say he used a WELSH folk song for the broad climaxing theme (not the fugal one though that is modal too). Of course, Elgar notoriously said "I AM folk song" when asked about its presence in his music.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i no longer know what 'English' or 'England' refers to; the land that is here seems awfully reductive as in music from the land that is here [and not there] ... but the minute one brings in the notion of the culture history and societies of the people who live/have lived on the land that is here ... well it gets tricky eh? i have the same difficulties with the term 'Scottish' bagpipes and all ... the common root stock dna of the people of these islands pre-dates all this national stuff

Eighty percent of the DNA of most Britons, according to modern research, has been passed down from a few thousand individuals who hunted in this region during the last Ice Age. Compared to this, subsequent migrations from mainland Europe had little genetic impact on the British.
wicki

.... is Elgar a part of the Victorian invention of tradition?

[Pabmusic]

...the common root stock dna of the people of these islands pre-dates all this national stuff...

And that must be true. A fairly recent study, using population genetics, examined the question, "What was the smallest number of modern humans (that is, homo sapiens) necessary to have resulted in the genetic variety we see worldwide now?" The answer was 1,250. In other words, 180,000 years ago there were not many more than 1,250 humans in the world, most of whom were in Africa. The group that left Africa about 75,000 years ago and from which almost all non-Africans alive now descend was probably no more than a few hundred. There are many signs we went through a population bottleneck around then.

[Richard Barrett]

Here in France, the music of Elgar is used in bucket-loads as background to numerous documentaries, or programmes that demand a certain level of reverence.

In connection with which: a few months ago I was at a Belgrade Philharmonic concert which opened with a public presentation to the outgoing general manager, accompanied by the orchestra playing Pomp and Circumstance no.1. So while to many English people it seems to sound highly "English", to others it's just Gebrauchsmusik. From which we could conclude that its "Englishness" is by no means situated in the sound, nor (which I found a bit surprising somehow) can it be the reason why I find his music so uninteresting...