"Elgar: the Man behind the Mask" on BBC4

[verismissimo]

Have we had a thread on this before?

I thought it was a really excellent programme, presumably now on iPlayer.

A device the director used to great effect was to show musicians on camera simply listening to the music.

Having said that, the presumption that Elgar is simply a tub-thumping imperialist would not be shared by most music-lovers, who would probably constitute a good deal of their audience.

[Mandryka]

I'd intended to watch this last night, as I'd missed the first half of the programme on its original broadcast. What I did see I liked - definitely a cut above most current BBC music programming and streets ahead of Stephen Fry's onanistic Wagner programme.

I'm not sure that the part of it I took in had any thesis about Elgar, beyond the (not very controversial) assertion that he was a deeply insecure man who felt socially out of his depth for much of his career and was painfully conscious (if not ashamed) of his petit-bourgeois origins. A lot of modish criticism centres on his mildly right of centre politics: the implication being that, because E.E. was a Tory, his music 'represents' Edwardian Tory values. Not so at all, I'd say.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes there was a thread about this on the old BBC messageboard. I caught part of it yesterday, and recorded the nighttime repeat. As I recall, it was very much in the style of the VW documentary, dwelling on Elgar's women. Bur from a musical point of view, it was the interest in "The Apostles" that I found fascinating.

[Barbirollians]

Yes we did and as at the time I thought the omission of the Cello Concerto was startling.

[Daring Tripod]

I have seen the first broadcast and the repeat. For me, it opened my eyes as to the other, hidden side of Elgar. I remember the comments made on the old Message Baord by obviously an Elgar expert who made the comment that 'it said nothing new'. Well, that may have applied to him but certainly to many of us it revealed a man with a lot of inner passion and who so effectively wore the mask of Edwardian respectability till his dying day. He is just lucky that he did not live in today's England where the gutter press would be on to him in no time! That Sospiri still haunts me.

[amateur51]

I have seen the first broadcast and the repeat. For me, it opened my eyes as to the other, hidden side of Elgar. I remember the comments made on the old Message Baord by obviously an Elgar expert who made the comment that 'it said nothing new'. Well, that may have applied to him but certainly to many of us it revealed a man with a lot of inner passion and who so effectively wore the mask of Edwardian respectability till his dying day. He is just lucky that he did not live in today's England where the gutter press would be on to him in no time! That Sospiri still haunts me.

Good points Daring Tripod but I was most taken by the revelation (to me) that Elgar was a keen self-publicist - David Owen-Norris was very beady and amusing about this.

I'd never seen Elgar walking before and to see his confident stride & big cigar opened up another side of him to me.

I think the omission of the cello concerto was probably to do with time - one could argue the toss for the inclusion or not of other pieces too - neither here nor there in my opinion.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i've seen the programme twice, who was it at the end who referred to how Elgar's sorrow spoke to the people .... his music is a melancholy tinged glory ....

i could stand an analysis of his personality and the aesthetic sense through which he judged his own creation ...when i listen to his music [much of it] i wonder how it knows how i might feel .... such a likeable egoist as the lady said in her letter .... i do not feel that the programme got near to such an understanding .... the social status and vanity imply a desire for acceptance and recognition ... but do they really tell us about his aesthetic sense, what he desired in his music?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There was an emphasis on Elgar's wartime music. It was one his leaner periods. His major composition was The Spirit of England - most moving. At the other end of the scale was his Polonia, a tribute to Polish people that brought out Elgar's "grand" style. The success of his music recitation "Carillon" led to two more - "Le Drapeau Belge" and the rather wonderful "Une Voix Dans le Deserte" with its sense of utter desolation.
"The Starlight Express" was his only lighter piece during this period.
"Fringes of the Fleet" was quite a success, but Kipling later withdrew the right to perform his texts. Elgar was often unlucky.

There was just one more burst of creativity, after WWI concluded, but this ended abruptly after Lady Elgar's death.

[Uncle Monty]

his aesthetic sense, what he desired in his music?

Yes, I think I think you've hit on something there, CDJ. We can have views on whether we'd have found him a likeable personality, but where is the information on, if you like, just what he thought he was doing? Most composers can be (inaccurately, no doubt, but helpfully) pigeonholed in terms of what they are "about", but I haven't read anything that gives me a comparable sense of Elgar. It's as if he worked in secret, with either a hidden agenda, or no agenda at all. I thought Bridcut's film was good at bringing out the obvious contradictions in his personality, less good at explaining the work as a whole. (Some individual works, better perhaps.)

[salymap]

I think his agenda was his Englishness as he saw it. Not necessarily 'Pomp and Circumstance'but his love of the Malvern Hills and what he saw as the English way of life. All his music,whether abstract or not,seems to
express that implicitly to me.

[Uncle Monty]

I think his agenda was his Englishness as he saw it. Not necessarily 'Pomp and Circumstance'but his love of the Malvern Hills and what he saw as the English way of life. All his music,whether abstract or not,seems to
express that implicitly to me.

Yes, that makes sense, and it's certainly how we hear a lot of his work, isn't it? He must have thought in some ways he was pretty central to English culture, saying "Folk music? I am folk music!". But he was also part of the European (more specifically Germanic) musical tradition too. Everyone points to the influence of Brahms, and I hear a lot of Dvorak there too. I am wondering where he saw himself "fitting in" (something that seems to have worried him in all sorts of ways).

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

Is there a difference between English nationalism and other nationalisms? Is it a historico-political thing? Are we mindful of Dr Johnson: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"? How does the Knightsbridge March compare to Vysehrad? Chelsea Reach to Vltava? [I have just been listening to tonight's concert: Estancia, a bandoneon concerto, Nights in the Gardens of Spain... all nationalistic, but not - perhaps - marginal?]

And how did he feel about being a Catholic?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Is there a difference between English nationalism and other nationalisms? Is it a historico-political thing? Are we mindful of Dr Johnson: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"?

It depends what you mean by nationalism. It can refer to preserving a cultural heritage, based upon the way of life and the arts of the people. On the other hand it can be patriotism of the worst kind - "We're better than you."
Politically. is there such a thing as English nationalism? There's Scottish Nationalism, and there's Welsh Nationalism.
In music, English nationalism seems to to revolve around Vaughan Williams. Elgar is more "British" than English in his (very few) deliberately nationalistic works.

[subcontrabass]

Everyone points to the influence of Brahms, and I hear a lot of Dvorak there too.

There is also a major influence of Wagner in such works as The Dream of Gerontius which is built on the use of leitmotifs.

[Uncle Monty]

There is also a major influence of Wagner in such works as The Dream of Gerontius which is built on the use of leitmotifs.

That's true.

But perhaps we're being unreasonable, after all, to expect Elgar, or any other composer, to come out with a closely-argued and coherent artistic/cutural manifesto. Some do it anyway (and in many cases we wish they hadn't), others simply don't -- they just write the music they have to write. I believe, without looking it up again, Elgar got a rough ride when he did deliver a big lecture containing some of his opinions on music, and didn't do it again. No doubt biographers like to be able to say there was an Enigma at the heart of Elgar and of his music, but it's true, I'm sure. He didn't care to be self-revealing, for all sorts of reasons, good and bad.