Why doesn't Europe get Elgar ?

[Beef Oven!]

And even a Gerontius.

http://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en...r-berlin-elgar

Grrr-ontius is poor man's Parsifal

Love it though!

[Roehre]

.... Ultimately, these labels are meaningless, to me anyway.

For you, ER and for me meaningless, but something makes these works/composers less able to get a foothold in, or penetrate if you like, non-British concert halls.
Not hearing European works like those of Hindemith or Hartmann here is our loss, btw.
We are all losing out by this eventually.

[Mary Chambers]

Um (or erm as people write now).....we ARE Europe, aren't we? Just not mainland Europe.

I once sang Gerontius in Germany. The audience seemed to like it, but they certainly weren't familiar with it.

[teamsaint]

It does occur to me that there aren't perhaps all that many Elgar works that feature even on the regular UK orchestral concert circuit.
The Violin concerto.
The Cello Concerto.
Symphonies 1 and 2.
Enigma.
Falstaff.
Introduction and Allegro.
(no doubt I have missed some stuff).


If you ignore the overtures and the Choral works, (and of course the P and C marches which may have understandably limited appeal to foreign conductors and audiences) it doesn't leave a vast body of work to choose from.

I suppose its fair to say that other major composers have similarly few works in the regular repertoire, but opportunities are scarce I suppose once the inevitable seat fillers have been pencilled in.

That doesn't explain why a major artist would ignore the violin Concerto, but might explain why he gets left off programmes more than we might like.

[Serial_Apologist]

For you, ER and for me meaningless, but something makes these works/composers less able to get a foothold in, or penetrate if you like, non-British concert halls.
Not hearing European works like those of Hindemith or Hartmann here is our loss, btw.
We are all losing out by this eventually.

One might well be right in speaking of "Englishness" vis-a-vis Elgar's and VW's music - there is a feeling of the open air about some composers of different aesthetics, for example Debussy, Falla, Milhaud, Malipiero, that makes their music less easily exportable than composers whose music does not particularly evoke the great outdoors, eg Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schoenberg, unless the listener is acquainted with particular landscapes abroad and their associations and ambiences. Malipiero's music powerfully evokes Italy for me, notwithstanding having only visited that country once, as Debussy's "Iberia" did Spain for Falla; on the other hand Brahms's music evokes a way of thinking referential to music in itself as opposed to being expressive of something outside its own inner workings, and this mode of expression may be more universally communicable. This is all guesswork, I must admit!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I wouldn't say that Elgar's music is particularly English, the style and some of the texture having been inherited from Schumann-Brahms-Parry. The only convincing theory I've heard about "Englishness" in Elgar is the suggestion that the movement of EE's melodic lines resembles the up and down nature of spoken English.

[salymap]

I feel that Elgar's 'Nursery Suite' could take its place alongside Bizet "Jeux d'enfants' and the String Serenade would be a change from the Tchaikovsky.

Some of his lighter works are very attractive IMHO

[Barbirollians]

The BPO are to be found playing Salut D Amour with Ion Marin too on YT.

[slarty]

Um (or erm as people write now).....we ARE Europe, aren't we? Just not mainland Europe.

that is another can of worms, although it deserves a different thread.
How Europeans perceive us would shock most Brits. they don't consider us a being an integral part of Europe because of all the problems we cause and all the exceptions we are forever seeking. Currency, Bail-outs, laws, and border control(Shengen).
so,we are part of Europe, but our island mentality can sometimes cause animosities that don't happen between countries on mainland Europe because they share common borders, so until Britain joins the Shengen community, it will most likely remain so.

[EdgeleyRob]

I wouldn't say that Elgar's music is particularly English, the style and some of the texture having been inherited from Schumann-Brahms-Parry. The only convincing theory I've heard about "Englishness" in Elgar is the suggestion that the movement of EE's melodic lines resembles the up and down nature of spoken English.

That's interesting EA.
As I said in my post #22,EE's music(and that of RVW)evokes varied images and thoughts.
Take the 3rd movement of Elgar 2 for example.
Starts with the rustle of the wind through Herefordshire grass,butterflies,then a theme that sounds like the drudgery of everyday routine,then that relentless rhythmic section (sorry don't know the term,the trio maybe?) that sounds like a factory production line....and so on.
All human life is there in his music to my ears.

[pastoralguy]

that is another can of worms, although it deserves a different thread.
How Europeans perceive us would shock most Brits. they don't consider us a being an integral part of Europe because of all the problems we cause and all the exceptions we are forever seeking. Currency, Bail-outs, laws, and border control(Shengen).
so,we are part of Europe, but our island mentality can sometimes cause animosities that don't happen between countries on mainland Europe because they share common borders, so until Britain joins the Shengen community, it will most likely remain so.

The trouble with Europe is that it's full of foreigners! Why can't they just be like us...?

[Richard Barrett]

I don't get Elgar either.

But strangely enough, last Thursday evening I was at a performance by the Belgrade Philharmonic in their home town, and before the concert started there was a bit of business associated with the orchestra's manager - credited with bringing about massive improvements there during his tenure - having just resigned (in order to become Minister of Culture: imagine something like that happening in the UK). To greet his arrival on the stage to make a speech, receive a gift and so on, the orchestra played (part of) Elgar's P&C no.1, which came as quite a shock to my system I must say.

[johnb]

that is another can of worms, although it deserves a different thread.
How Europeans perceive us would shock most Brits. they don't consider us a being an integral part of Europe because of all the problems we cause and all the exceptions we are forever seeking. Currency, Bail-outs, laws, and border control(Shengen).
so,we are part of Europe, but our island mentality can sometimes cause animosities that don't happen between countries on mainland Europe because they share common borders, so until Britain joins the Shengen community, it will most likely remain so.

A friend whose job entailed meetings and dealings with insurance companies at across Europe once told me that they regard the English as duplicitous!

[verismissimo]

A friend whose job entailed meetings and dealings with insurance companies at across Europe once told me that they regard the English as duplicitous!

Albion perfide.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

We didn't exactly help ourselves by belittling Elgar in the 50s and 60s, when he was - to a not inconsiderable extent - a composer non grata at the music colleges. His star was at its lowest in Britain about the year of his centenary, and it's really since Ken Russell's film (1962), Michael Kennedy's biography (1968?) and Solti's recording of the first symphony (1971?) that his reputation has grown generally.

I think Elgar was back on the map well before the Solti symphony recordings. If any organisation deserves credit for the Elgar revival, it is EMI records, who, in the 1960s and early 1970s, recorded most of the major works with Boult and Barbirolli.
Michael Kennedy's biography? I think not. It was based very much on Percy Young's Elgar OM. Many of Kennedy's references to works that had not been recorded at that time (e.g. Caractacus) showed quite blatantly his lack of knowledge of these works. It's a good read, but it isn't scholarly.