Elgar/Payne Symphony No 3 - is it to fade out of sight ?

[Beef Oven!]

As you most probably know Beefy, the Elgar Estate commissioned AP to make this a realisation happen before the copyright runs out. They wanted to make sure that the music was given good service, to which, imo, AP did a fantastic job. also he has done the P&C March No.6.

Thanks for the info, BBM

I love Elgar's Marches* - top-notch music, IMO.

*Doesn't count as 'regular Elgar'

[BBMmk2]

It's older than that, IIRC, Bbm. Payne had been fascinated by the sketches since he first saw some of them in the W H Reed book, Elgar as I knew Him, when he was a teenager. He'd been "dabbling" with the sketches for many years, and approached the Elgar Estate several times request that he might do something more substantial with them. The Estate refused each request, until they realized that, with copyright coming to an end, they'd no longer have control over the sketches, and it was better for them to work with Payne than to have him or somebody else produce something over which they had no influence.


(I think I might have got some of the details about copyright wrong - does it extend to sketches? )

Thanks for that Ferney. My memory not as good as yours!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As you most probably know Beefy, the Elgar Estate commissioned AP to make this a realisation happen before the copyright runs out. They wanted to make sure that the music was given good service, to which, imo, AP did a fantastic job. also he has done the P&C March No.6.

He also orchestrated The Crown of India. The composer had already done this, but the score was subsequently lost. Payne's orchestration is as idiomatic as could possibly be imagined.

[Pabmusic]

As I see it, we have Elgar's 1st movement exposition all by the composer, but with Payne doing most of the orchestration. The development section is good, though there are moments where, I think Elgar would have added or deleted a bar or two, and it would have felt better balanced.

The second movement is from a nearly complete sketch by the composer.

The third (slow movement) seems to me to be Payne's greatest achievement, pulling together fragmented sketched, with a strong influence of the slow movement of Elgar 2. I wouldn't change a note

The finale lifts large chunks of Elgar's King Arthur music, as well as other sketches, but does it convincingly. Not so sure about the tam-tam at the end.

The second movement is drawn largely from the King Arthur music; it's certainly not from something the composer had almost finished.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I didn't know about the Crown of India - there's also the Sixth P&C March.

[Pabmusic]

He also orchestrated The Crown of India. The composer had already done this, but the score was subsequently lost. Payne's orchestration is as idiomatic as could possibly be imagined.

If we're talking about the parts of the score other than in the Suite, you're right. But the Suite (most of the substance) was published about 1912.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Not so sure about the tam-tam at the end.

That's always struck me as Payne's way of saying very clearly and emphatically at the close, "You have been listening to the Elgar/ Payne 3rd Symphony". It opens up a sudden non-Elgarian perspective while somehow still making a fully satisfactory conclusion.

[teamsaint]

There are any number of works , even those in the thoroughly mainstream repertoire that don’t get programmed very often, so the apparent increasing neglect of this just puts it in some other very good company.

Sadly.

[ARBurton]

Sorry for slightly clumsy wording, the first performance was at the RFH in February 1998 as I well knew. I attended the first Proms performance as well as the fascinating pre-Proms talk which Payne gave.

I was there too! Mozart in the first half, as I recall. It was televised and I have it on dvd (although have failed to spot myself in the audience...)

[ahinton]

It's older than that, IIRC, Bbm. Payne had been fascinated by the sketches since he first saw some of them in the W H Reed book, Elgar as I knew Him, when he was a teenager. He'd been "dabbling" with the sketches for many years, and approached the Elgar Estate several times request that he might do something more substantial with them. The Estate refused each request, until they realized that, with copyright coming to an end, they'd no longer have control over the sketches, and it was better for them to work with Payne than to have him or somebody else produce something over which they had no influence.


(I think I might have got some of the details about copyright wrong - does it extend to sketches? )

Yes, it does; also, even when the Elgar Estate gave its final refusal before changing its mind at last, Anthony Payne had already done much of the work and had resolved to complete whether permission to do anything with it thereafter was or was not to be forthcoming. The remainder of what you write here's spot on!

[ahinton]

He also orchestrated The Crown of India. The composer had already done this, but the score was subsequently lost. Payne's orchestration is as idiomatic as could possibly be imagined.

Now that's one thing that I DO believe that Tony Payne could have put to one side in order to concentrate on his own music! Yes, he's made a fine job of it but the work itself strikes me as a Pandora's box full of embarrassments!

[ahinton]

That's always struck me as Payne's way of saying very clearly and emphatically at the close, "You have been listening to the Elgar/ Payne 3rd Symphony". It opens up a sudden non-Elgarian perspective while somehow still making a fully satisfactory conclusion.

That could be the case but I suspect that it could as easily have been something that might have occurred to Elgar himself; OK, we don't know how he'd have ended the symphony but one of the problems with what faced Tony Payne was the fact that Elgar had written so little since the cello concerto of 15 years earlier and so his appraoch and ideas might have been somewhat different to his earlier music anyway.

[ahinton]

I was there too! Mozart in the first half, as I recall. It was televised and I have it on dvd (although have failed to spot myself in the audience...)

No. I was also there and the first half of the programme was a piece by Turnage (whose title I've now forgotten) and then Thibaudet as soloist in Rachmaninoff's Fourth Piano Concerto.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's always struck me as Payne's way of saying very clearly and emphatically at the close, "You have been listening to the Elgar/ Payne 3rd Symphony". It opens up a sudden non-Elgarian perspective while somehow still making a fully satisfactory conclusion.

- like somebody making a very good imitation of a Turner painting, but making sure that the "Fred Bloggs" signature is clearly on view.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tht could be the case but I suspect that it could as easily have been something that might have occurred to Elgar himself; OK, we don't know how he'd have ended the symphony but one of the problems with what faced Tony Payne was the fact that Elgar had written so little since the cello concerto of 15 years earlier and so his approch might have been somewhat different to his earlier music anyway.

And also

One problem I imagine facing anybody who sets out to "complete" or make performable an unfinished late work by a composer is how much do you base your own work on what the composer had done in previous works and how much you try to second guess what innovations the composer might have done had s/he lived and continued to develop their expressive language.