Why doesn't Europe get Elgar ?

[Pabmusic]

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.

I disagree. No-one here is a greater Boult fan than I am, but it was not Boult (nor Sargent, nor Barbirolli) who spearheaded the revival; they were the great conductors who kept the flame alight. But the Solti 1st captured the imaginations of young enthusiasts in a way the older conductors hadn't (and perhaps couldn't at that time). Yes, EMI had been a stalwart, too, particularly for Barbirolli in the late 50s and 60s, but apart from his stereo recordings of the symphonies, Falstaff and Gerontius, most of the major (and minor) works were not recorded before the very late 60s (The Kingdom) and during the 70s (almost everything else).

As for writers, Percy Young's book was successful - about the only thing from the centenary year of 1957 that was - but Michael Kennedy's Portrait of Elgar was different, an outstanding success that seemed to take a different view of Elgar - something that links it closer to Ken Russell's film than to Young's earlier biography. Again, Elgar became accessible to a younger generation. It's not scholarly, no, but that may have been its very success.

Of course it's all much more complex than this, but I would pinpoint Russell, Kennedy and Solti as being significant moments in the Elgar revival.

[EDIT]

On reflection, I'm being harsh. After the centenary in 1957, EMI promoted Barbirolli's Elgarian credentials more than they did Boult's, and he made some fine recordings (including the du Pre/Baker coupling) in the 60s. I remember the 2nd Symphony took 3 sides of an LP! I don't want to diminish that achievement. But from 1968 onward the pace quickened, and in particular other labels began to record Elgar. Decca, CBS and RCA especially started to widen the scope of what was available (Britten's Gerontius, Solti's 1st Symphony), particularly using non-British conductors such as Solti, Barenboim and Previn. Lyrita brought out the Boult symphonies. Philips and DG were slower (late 70s) and Chandos wasn't even a label then, but by the 80s almost everything was on record and all the main labels had both symphonies at least, conducted by big names. And of course EMI made that clutch of late Boult records as well as bringing along Vernon Handley to the party.

That's the 'Elgar revival' I was talking about. It was slow coming about, but it really took off.

[MrGongGong]

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

Welcome back Simon

[Roehre]

.....That's the 'Elgar revival' I was talking about. It was slow coming about, but it really took off.

But I'm afraid it's a bit pale compared with Mahler (1960 nil cycles by one conductor, 1970 around 4, 1980 dozen, now: don't start counting) or Shostakovich (1975 1 cycle available [by 2 conductors IIRC], 1980 1 western [Haitink], 1 Russian, since then....)

[Pabmusic]

But I'm afraid it's a bit pale compared with Mahler (1960 nil cycles by one conductor, 1970 around 4, 1980 dozen, now: don't start counting) or Shostakovich (1975 1 cycle available [by 2 conductors IIRC], 1980 1 western [Haitink], 1 Russian, since then....)

I've never thought it was useful to compare the popularity of composers (or writers, or artists, or football teams). I'm talking about Elgar and his particular history.

What do you intend - that we needn't appreciate Elgar as much as Mahler?

[Richard Barrett]

Another way of looking at this question maybe is to ask whether "not getting" Elgar is a sad condition limited to the European continent. So, do Americans, Chinese and Australians "get Elgar"? On the other hand, do most British people "get Elgar"? - or is "getting Elgar" in fact an extremely limited phenomenon whose adherents for some reason assume ought to be universal (if it weren't somehow tragically misunderstood by the vast majority of music lovers in the world)? Why should it be? What's so important about Elgar's music? Most British people I know personally wouldn't cross the street to hear it.

[Roehre]

I've never thought it was useful to compare the popularity of composers (or writers, or artists, or football teams). I'm talking about Elgar and his particular history.

I am not comparing Mahler/DSCH/Elgar, I am comparing the Elgar revival with those of Mahler of DSCH.

What do you intend - that we needn't appreciate Elgar as much as Mahler?

perhaps Elgar's music's lacking something Mahler's has got?
Not a very nice, but certainly a viable and possible conclusion.

[ahinton]

Another way of looking at this question maybe is to ask whether "not getting" Elgar is a sad condition limited to the European continent. So, do Americans, Chinese and Australians "get Elgar"? On the other hand, do most British people "get Elgar"? - or is "getting Elgar" in fact an extremely limited phenomenon whose adherents for some reason assume ought to be universal (if it weren't somehow tragically misunderstood by the vast majority of music lovers in the world)? Why should it be? What's so important about Elgar's music? Most British people I know personally wouldn't cross the street to hear it.

Good points all - but let's look briefly at what they raise. Whether "not getting" it is a "sad condition" has first to be considered on its own merits or otherwise. Whether or to what extent "getting" or not "getting" his work (and, even then, to "get" either all or none of its seems to me to be rather unrealistically over-prescriptive) is a specifically European mainland issue is as questionable as it is uncertain; how does one measure this? - in numbers of live performances, record sales, broadcasts? You mention "Americans, Chinese or Australians" in this context; I have no idea of the figures but would question the relevance of "Chinese" in this, to the extent that the Chinese acceptance and appreciation of Western European music as a whole (not just Elgar's) is, even today, arguably rather less than it would be in America and Australia.

You ask - more pertinently, I think - whether most British people "get Elgar" and the answer would surely have to be no, if only because, for the most part, they don't, by the same token, "get" Byrd, Purcell, Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Bridge, Bush, Rubbra, Tippett, Britten, Simpson, Goehr, Ferneyhough, Holloway, Knussen, Benjamin, Anderson or Adès because such music is all minority interest stuff.

You ask whether "getting Elgar" is "in fact an extremely limited phenomenon whose adherents for some reason assume ought to be universal (if it weren't somehow tragically misunderstood by the vast majority of music lovers in the world)?" I have no idea. Does anyone? I wasn't aware of the existence of any cliqueish "special pleading" on behalf of Elgar's music - or indeed the perceived need for such - until reading this thread. I don't actually care that much, either. Elgar's music will register with some listeners just as it won't with others, wherever they may be. I've never held to view that English listeners have - or would even expect to have - some kind of "key" to Elgar that might somehow be denied to listeners elsewhere.

"What's so important about Elgar's music" is inevitably a question that some who don't care for it might well ask and others with whom it registers probably won't feel much of a need to ask. To say that "most British people [that you] know personally wouldn't cross the street to hear it" arguably tells us less about Elgar's music than it does about the company that you keep"; I'm not so sure, however, that if most British people with whom you're acquainted would cross the street to hear it (assuming that they all lived oppositge a concert venue) it would tell us any more about the importance of that music in more general terms.

What I do think might have stood in the way and perhaps brought about the kind of questions that you ask, however, is what I've long found to be a most strange and incomprehensible perception that Elgar's music is somehow specifically and identifiably "English" and would accordingly speak more eloquently to English listeners than to those elsewhere; perhaps, even as an admirer of his best works, I don't "get" Elgar either, because I certainly don't "get" that idea at all, either in principle or as a result of listening to his works. Busoni conducted the Enigma Variations when it was relatively new and Strauss's admiration for Elgar is well known; the implied twin accusation of insularity and parochiality (not that I ascribe these to you) seems rather implausible to me.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

perhaps Elgar's music's lacking something Mahler's has got?
Not a very nice, but certainly a viable and possible conclusion.

And then we get into a dogfight between the merits of two great composers - like Haydn and Mozart; Bach and Handel; Brahms and Wagner; Birtwistle and PMD ().
Not really worth it.

[Historian]

Jeffrey Tate performed the Dream of Gerontius in Hamburg last year, to some acclaim, I believe. The Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the (British) Philharmonia Chorus. The review from the Hamburger Abendblatt makes a similar point about knowledge of Elgar in Germany being restricted to Pomp and Circumstance.

Mind you, he's bringing coals to Newcastle this year, as the Philharmonia Chorus are taking part in Brahms' German Requiem.

[Pabmusic]

I am not comparing Mahler/DSCH/Elgar, I am comparing the Elgar revival with those of Mahler of DSCH...

Surely you are rather splitting hairs here. Your attack amounts to little more than "My dad's car is better than your dad's".

...perhaps Elgar's music's lacking something Mahler's has got?
Not a very nice, but certainly a viable and possible conclusion.

It is only a possibility if you first consider that the test of musical worth is limited to whatever characterises Mahler's music. And, come to that, that you are the arbiter of this anyway.

[Pabmusic]

Seeing as how Barbirollians began this thread by talking about the Violin Concerto, this site contains two live performances - Znaider and Jurowski with the Concertegebouw in 2010, and Daniel Hope and Pletnev with the Russian National in Moscow in 2012. There's also a 2012 concert from Moscow with Froissart, the Intro & Allegro, and the Enigma conducted by Rozhdestvensky. (The latter slightly annoying because each variation is introduced by an announcer.)

http://panovnik.blogspot.com/search/label/Elgar

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Surely you are rather splitting hairs here. Your attack amounts to little more than "My dad's car is better than your dad's".

I don't think Roehre's point is as simple as this, Pabs; in the 1960s there was a revival of interest in two composers whose work had been neglected in the years since their deaths - Mahler and Elgar. ("Neglected", rather than "never performed" - both had occasional performances and recordings that attracted people who were already attracted to their Music.) The "Mahler revival" was world-wide (even France wasn't immune) whereas Elgar's Music largely remained a British phenomenon. This comes back to the OP - why should that be so? Why don't Elgar's works attract, for example, the same enthusiasm amongst, say, Viennese CD buyers that Mahler's works achieve from CD buyers in London? What is it that the Symphony recordings - by Boult, Barbirolli, Solti, Slatkin, Davis, t'other Davis, Menuhin, Handley, Haitink, Sinopoli and the composer himself (there's no shortage of recordings) - "lack" for Austrian, German, Finnish, Japanese, Italian, Korean, Spanish, American, Czech, Norwegian etc etc etc etc that they find in recordings of Mahler's symphonies? It's must be more than squabbles about parental automobilia.

It is only a possibility if you first consider that the test of musical worth is limited to whatever characterises Mahler's music. And, come to that, that you are the arbiter of this anyway.

Again, I think there's more involved than Roehre's opinions: he doesn't stand by the Channel Tunnel preventing exports of Elgar's Music (and if he had such arbitrary influence, the Beethoven Ninth wouldn't get performed in its entirity!) - there evidently is something in Mahler's Music for listeners in Austria, Germany, Sweden, Argentina, Latvia, Denmark, et al that just isn't there (is "lacking") for them in Elgar's. As someone who regards a lot of that Music as astonishing, I don't know what this "missing link" is, but it does seem as if most listeners in Paris regard listening to the Second Symphony as a similar experience to that of many of Elgar's admirers when listening to Falstaff.

[Hornspieler]

I am prompted to ask this question by the press release put out by DG concerning Anne Sophie Mutter's new recording of the Dvorak Violin Concerto announcing that

"Here, she records Dvořák’s Violin Concerto – the last of the great Romantic violin concertos not yet in her discography"

ASM has never recorded it - I don't know whether she has ever played it though in the dim and distant past I recall her being complimentary about it an interview in Gramophone. Only a non-UK press release could suggest that the Elgar was not a great romantic violin concerto .

It seems that Elgar is considered a minor composer in Europe - why is this I wonder ?

Why? ... just as the music of Charles Ives is largely ignored in this country; with the exception of the occasional outing during the Prom season.

When did you last see anything by Ives, Harris, Elliott Carter or any other American composer of the last century, programmed by any of the orchestras outside of the BBC?

Is Vaughan Williams any more favoured than Elgar across the channel? Or Bax? Or Tippet?
At the present time, we are enjoying a plethora of Scandinavian music in this country.
Hardly surprising. We are also enjoying a plethora of Vanskas, Jukka-Pekkas, Jansens et al.
So naturally they bring their own country's music with them. How many British conductors are working in Europe?

HS

[MrGongGong]

I think (this might be to do with the childhood trauma of having a bonkers piano teacher who was in love with Elgar, was the president of the local branch of the Elgar society and believed that he spoke to her from beyond the grave ) that some of the Elgar enthusiasts don't do themselves too many favours by emphasising the "Englishness" thing, more specifically the fantasy (?) of a "Great England" centred around the whole Malvern Hills with Elgar strolling up in Edwardian costume etc etc
The parts (Not sure whether they are really to do with Elgar or adopted ?) of the music which has become part of a narrative that is more than a little "little englander" ? (Pomp & Circumstance and so on) as well the "tragic" Cello concerto which is forever part of the story of Jacqueline du Pre (not that there is anything wrong with that in itself).......

Elgar wrote some really great music IMV as well as some pieces (a bit like the Grateful Dead ? ) which in their time were wonderful but don't "travel very well".

[ahinton]

I don't think Roehre's point is as simple as this, Pabs; in the 1960s there was a revival of interest in two composers whose work had been neglected in the years since their deaths - Mahler and Elgar. ("Neglected", rather than "never performed" - both had occasional performances and recordings that attracted people who were already attracted to their Music.) The "Mahler revival" was world-wide (even France wasn't immune) whereas Elgar's Music largely remained a British phenomenon. This comes back to the OP - why should that be so? Why don't Elgar's works attract, for example, the same enthusiasm amongst, say, Viennese CD buyers that Mahler's works achieve from CD buyers in London? What is it that the Symphony recordings - by Boult, Barbirolli, Solti, Slatkin, Davis, t'other Davis, Menuhin, Handley, Haitink, Sinopoli and the composer himself (there's no shortage of recordings) - "lack" for Austrian, German, Finnish, Japanese, Italian, Korean, Spanish, American, Czech, Norwegian etc etc etc etc that they find in recordings of Mahler's symphonies? It's must be more than squabbles about parental automobilia.


Again, I think there's more involved than Roehre's opinions: he doesn't stand by the Channel Tunnel preventing exports of Elgar's Music (and if he had such arbitrary influence, the Beethoven Ninth wouldn't get performed in its entirity!) - there evidently is something in Mahler's Music for listeners in Austria, Germany, Sweden, Argentina, Latvia, Denmark, et al that just isn't there (is "lacking") for them in Elgar's. As someone who regards a lot of that Music as astonishing, I don't know what this "missing link" is, but it does seem as if most listeners in Paris regard listening to the Second Symphony as a similar experience to that of many of Elgar's admirers when listening to Falstaff.

I think that this all makes very good sense but, of course, doesn't answer the question - which is fair enough as you admit to not knowing the answer (any more than I do)!