Elgar 29 Jul - 2 Aug

[Nimrod]

I like that point very much. Elgar's appeal to non-British musicians is (and always has been) just as intense and personal (Haitink, Solti, Svetlanov et al) as it is to Brits. They clearly see (and hear) an composer whose appeal is international. In works like the symphonies and concertos he's never struck me as particularly British anyway, but simply as a great and marvellous composer. Like you, my life would be immensely the poorer without Elgar, particularly (if I had to limit things) the symphonies and Gerontius. Incidentally, I have a very early full score of Gerontius (inscribed by Elgar) which includes not only the German translation that was used a few times, but also a French translation. So clearly Novello had far-reaching hopes for it!

How interesting to hear you have a score inscribed by Elgar of Gerontius. As previously mentioned by another correspondent yesterday was the 49th anniversary of the death of Sir John Barbirolli, who was once playing in the cello section in the orchestra at a Three Choirs performance of Gerontius conducted by Elgar. Could it be that the score you have was in the same place as EE & JB?? Now there's a thought!
I played the Kings Lynn performance of Elgar's 1st yesterday in memory of JB.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm not particularly patriotic or jingoistic,

I for one certanly wouldn't have imagined you were, LMcD!

[...] but quite a few of Elgar's works - not just the Pomp and Circumstance marches, the symphonies and the concertos - bring a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. It's not just what the music seems to be saying to me and what it represents, but also the way it's structured and scored.

So then, what is it that the music is saying to you and what does it represent? Do treat these as rhetorical questions if you like, because I've never managed to shed my ambivalence about what the latter might be. We have to take an artist widely regarded as great and, by some, as expressing universals, things beyond the merely local, as giving us his "take" on life. Putting it in context, which is what life is all about, Elgar was unquestionably innately gifted, but for that giftedness to be fulfilled in the only circumstances possible for his exposure where it really mattered, he smoothed his own path into the late Victorian and Edwardian world of privilege; and it was this world, built out of the ashes of Empire, economic and military dominance, that gave him the space and financial wherewithal, to effectively indulge his halcyon vision of his green and pleasant land. I love some of his music - the more intimate side of it (if one excludes Gerontius!!!), the orchestral colours and harmonic richness - as I do such qualities in the music of Debussy, another about whose personality otherwise I in common probably with most others I have huge misgivings.

Elgar may not have had the same qualitative influence on the "musical succession" as either Debussy or Wagner, though one can more than detect sensitive echoes in Vaughan Wiliams, Ireland, Finzi, Bliss and Walton in their time. I would think that people who identify with his hyper-exalted view of nation through the patriotic and monarchical take less interest in his passion for nature and the landscape of Severnside and the Malverns area, or the self-doubts concerning class, status and position that in all probably inspired the private moments in his music, and the delicacy with which, with time on his hands, he was able to invest them, as much as the peculiarities of the persona he constructed, with help from those around him. Elgar seems to have entertained many doubts about these and other things, religion included, in later life; had he lived to his centenary he would in all probability have been podiumized as a great and humble symbol of national unity in the face of Nazism - and my guess is that he would have re-taken great comfort in that, following his two decades in the cultural wilderness.

[LMcD]

I for one certanly wouldn't have imagined you were, LMcD!



So then, what is it that the music is saying to you and what does it represent? Do treat these as rhetorical questions if you like, because I've never managed to shed my ambivalence about what the latter might be. We have to take an artist widely regarded as great and, by some, as expressing universals, things beyond the merely local, as giving us his "take" on life. Putting it in context, which is what life is all about, Elgar was unquestionably innately gifted, but for that giftedness to be fulfilled in the only circumstances possible for his exposure where it really mattered, he smoothed his own path into the late Victorian and Edwardian world of privilege; and it was this world, built out of the ashes of Empire, economic and military dominance, that gave him the space and financial wherewithal, to effectively indulge his halcyon vision of his green and pleasant land. I love some of his music - the more intimate side of it (if one excludes Gerontius!!!), the orchestral colours and harmonic richness - as I do such qualities in the music of Debussy, another about whose personality otherwise I in common probably with most others I have huge misgivings.

Elgar may not have had the same qualitative influence on the "musical succession" as either Debussy or Wagner, though one can more than detect sensitive echoes in Vaughan Wiliams, Ireland, Finzi, Bliss and Walton in their time. I would think that people who identify with his hyper-exalted view of nation through the patriotic and monarchical take less interest in his passion for nature and the landscape of Severnside and the Malverns area, or the self-doubts concerning class, status and position that in all probably inspired the private moments in his music, and the delicacy with which, with time on his hands, he was able to invest them, as much as the peculiarities of the persona he constructed, with help from those around him. Elgar seems to have entertained many doubts about these and other things, religion included, in later life; had he lived to his centenary he would in all probability have been podiumized as a great and humble symbol of national unity in the face of Nazism - and my guess is that he would have re-taken great comfort in that, following his two decades in the cultural wilderness.

Elgar's music tells me, among other things, that it's possible to admit to one's tenderer feelings without letting them run away with one, and also that it's OK to be proud of one's culture and country without wishing to impose them view on others who may feel differently. I believe that he expressed what he felt should be the limitations of those feelings in the structure of his works. His (self)discipline enabled him, in particular in the case of the symphonies for example, to say what he had to say, as truly and as powerfully as he felt necessary, and then stop - unlike certain other composers who couldn't help hammering home their 'message' ad nauseam. He is, IMHO, to be congratulated on resisting the temptation to write a blood-stirring, over-emotional final movement to the 2nd symphony, choosing instead to depict a rather noble resignation and acceptance. (I think Anthony Payne echoed his approach with his quiet, subdued conclusion to the '3rd symphony'). I guess that it is this combination of an essentially 'Romantic' view of life and the restraints inherent in 'Classical' art that lead me to revisit his work time and again.
(In 1967 I attended a concert at the Herkulessaal in Munich in which Jacqueline du Pre played the cello concerto. The programme note commenced as follows: 'Elgar litt vor einer verspaeteten Spaetromantik' ('Elgar suffered from delayed late Romanticism'). I think the suffering is there in the music, but he never lets it get the better of him - an admirable attitude that we might do well to at least attempt to cultivate in our own lives.

[Serial_Apologist]

Back five years on, I remain as conflicted about Elgar as I was in 2019!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001408w

[ucanseetheend]

Still Britains greatest classical music composer and never had a formal music education.

[silvestrione]

Still Britains greatest classical music composer and never had a formal music education.

Depends what you mean by 'classical', I suppose. I think William Byrd, Henry Purcell, and perhaps John Dowland, have a more substantial achievement.

And some other 20th century figures will have their supporters!

[ucanseetheend]

It's all opinion sure! Just as you say certain composers 'more substantial achievement'

[LMcD]

Still Britains greatest classical music composer and never had a formal music education.

I would say that Britain's greatest classical music composer is indeed Elgar ... or Britten ... or Vaughan Williams ... or Tallis ... or Byrd ... or Tippett ....(depending on when you ask me )

[smittims]

I've become suspicious of the word 'great' or 'greatest' recently. But certainly I think Elgar's music has a depth and vision which no other British composer can equal, except Vaughan Williams. They both have a very special place in my love of music.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I wouldn’t have spent the last 43 years collecting the Elgar Complete Edition if I didn’t think he was more than just special.

[LMcD]

I've become suspicious of the word 'great' or 'greatest' recently. But certainly I think Elgar's music has a depth and vision which no other British composer can equal, except Vaughan Williams. They both have a very special place in my love of music.

Notwithstanding the humorous tone of my previous post, I couldn't agree more! Only Mozart is of equal importance to me.

[Keraulophone]

Elgar's smaller-scale religious music is alive and well in churches, chapels and cathedrals throughout the land. His early Ave Verum, Op 2 No 1 is probably the most often sung, but we most looked forward to singing the dramaticsetting of Psalm 29, Give unto the Lord, Op 74 and Great is the Lord, Op 67, which includes a gracious bass solo. Pentecost is the obvious occasion on which to extract the sublime opening movement, The Spirit of the Lord, from The Apostles, Op 49. My personal favourite is the little gem that Elgar wrote for the Coronation of King George V, O hearken Thou, Op 64, an intense and intimate setting of two verses from Psalm 5, sung while the King took communion. All these pieces were orchestrated, either for their first performance or subsequently.

All the above can be found on the fine recordings from Westminster Abbey/James O'Donnell (Hyperion) and St John's Cambridge/Christopher Robinson (Naxos).

[pastoralguy]

For my 40th birthday I treated myself to a letter written by Elgar to Ernest Newman on the subject of enlarging photographs! It was part of a collection of letters that were collected by Walter Legge and were inherited by his wife Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. They were sold by an antique shop in Worcester who created facsimiles of the entire collection.

The shop had been approached by a Japanese businessman who wanted to buy the entire collection but they were determined they should be sold to admirers of the great man. I know at least four letters and cards came to Scotland including mine. I do, occasionally, take it out of its tissue paper and protective box and marvel that the same person who wrote that that rather facetious letter also wrote all that wonderful music!

[ucanseetheend]

I would say that Britain's greatest classical music composer is indeed Elgar ... or Britten ... or Vaughan Williams ... or Tallis ... or Byrd ... or Tippett ....(depending on when you ask me )

RVW is Britains greatest symphonist

[LMcD]

RVW is Britains greatest symphonist

I'll try to remember that next time I play one of my many recordings of Elgar's 1st! (note the apostrophe)