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John W -
Transported by tank?Originally posted by John Wright View Post
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I think this is a non-story. We're not talking about the Elgin Marbles here. The new arrangement fits with Elgar's daughter's will and doesn't decrease accessibility. The only thing I would say is that housing all documents in one place does have its risks.Comment
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I know Egar Society policy is to say what a jolly good thing it is that the National Trust has taken responsibility for the birthplace, but I can't help feeling regret that a national and non-musical body now has control. You'll never get the Elgar Soc establishment to voice anything other than support for the NT (in public), but I feel that the special quality which the birthplace had must have been sacrificed. I know there are other Elgar Soc members on here, so I expect to be shot down for this opinion.
The fact that the NT has removed the name of the composer from the birthplace and now calls it The Firs says it all. It seems that Elgar documents etc will no longer be at the birthplace or in Worcester. I believe that Elgar books, CDs and so on have been replaced by extra space for tea and cakes. It was bound to happen; now the birthplace has to make a profit.
(I expect someone to say that the changes at the birthplace are what Carice wanted. It strikes me that there are similarities between 'what Carice wanted in her will' and 'what Brexit voters wanted in the referendum'. In both cases any variety of claims can be made and no-one can prove or disprove them.)Comment
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I agree with much of this. "The Firs" means nothing, and I fear the shop will no longer stocks Elgar CDs and scores, but has tacky souvenirs made in China. I very much hope I'm wrong.Originally posted by VodkaDilc View PostComment
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I agree with this too and I'm very happy to have visited the Elgar Birthplace on several occasions before the NT took it over. To be honest, I can't understand why the takeover has been welcomed so warmly.Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View PostComment
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There was a long discussion in another place about this.
Now, I'm not the greatest Elgar enthusiast
BUT it does seem to me to be a rather bad idea to separate things from their contexts in this way.
Some of the arguments put forward about why these things should be in London are rather missing the point IMV
Context and provenance do matter I think
Why can't the British Library have the digitised versions (which wouldn't really be "anywhere" anyway) so that the vast army of specialist musicologists who are so interested in Elgar but too lazy to get a train to Worcester can have a look in that way?Comment
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Oh, that's simple. The Romans chose London as their new capital, because it was more convenient for them, having only conquered SE England at the time. It was their decision alone, and we have to lump it, however inconvenient and divisive it might be.Originally posted by MrGongGong View Post
(Pssst - don't mention Canberra or Brasilia)
But I'm not sure whether this instance is worth getting upset about.Comment
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I'm not upset about ElgarOriginally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
BUT I do object to the way in which so many things are moved to London and the South East
(I might have said this one before so apologies if I have)
I was part of a consultation group a few years ago about the National Sound Archive that is now housed at the BL. One of the things that was discussed was how to make the recordings more widely available. They were embarking (and are continuing) on the process of digitising the recording collections. As part of this, we were played some examples. One of these was from a collection of recordings of children's playground games from the first part of the last century. The person who was presenting this was talking about how he had "cleaned up" the recordings to get rid of the "background hiss" and "noise". At which point someone interrupted to say that her particular interest wasn't the words or songs on recordings BUT the way in which one could gather information from the unintended background "noise" and how the particular recording methods left traces in the timbre of the "noise" and "hiss". So in making these "clean" and "accessible", the vital information was thrown away (in the same way that I discovered that the BBC archive of older Wigmore Hall recordings has all the applause edited out. Not much use if you, as I did, wanted to make a piece out of the applause between pieces !).
What is one persons "noise" is anothers "signal"
For many people, the context of these things is as much a part of their significance as the content.
Maybe it's part of a plan for the BBC to save money for their R4 "Tales of the Stave" ? if everything is in London then there is no need to get on a train to smell the autumn in Worcester?Comment
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Quite. Regrettably, we seem to live in an increasingly metrocentric kingdom. Anybody who's that interested in Elgar could surely make the effort to travel outside the Great Wen - they might even enjoy the scenery and the change of pace.Originally posted by MrGongGong View PostI'm not upset about Elgar
BUT I do object to the way in which so many things are moved to London and the South East
(I might have said this one before so apologies if I have)
I was part of a consultation group a few years ago about the National Sound Archive that is now housed at the BL. One of the things that was discussed was how to make the recordings more widely available. They were embarking (and are continuing) on the process of digitising the recording collections. As part of this, we were played some examples. One of these was from a collection of recordings of children's playground games from the first part of the last century. The person who was presenting this was talking about how he had "cleaned up" the recordings to get rid of the "background hiss" and "noise". At which point someone interrupted to say that her particular interest wasn't the words or songs on recordings BUT the way in which one could gather information from the unintended background "noise" and how the particular recording methods left traces in the timbre of the "noise" and "hiss". So in making these "clean" and "accessible", the vital information was thrown away (in the same way that I discovered that the BBC archive of older Wigmore Hall recordings has all the applause edited out. Not much use if you, as I did, wanted to make a piece out of the applause between pieces !).
What is one persons "noise" is anothers "signal"
For many people, the context of these things is as much a part of their significance as the content.
Maybe it's part of a plan for the BBC to save money for their R4 "Tales of the Stave" ? if everything is in London then there is no need to get on a train to smell the autumn in Worcester?
In the unlikely event of my becoming Benevolent Dictator, I shall seriously consider requiring everybody to live for at least 6 months in London if only to discover how nice it is to leave. (I did live in London at one time).Comment
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QuiteOriginally posted by LMcD View Post
I do think (and i'm not as articulate about this as I would like to be) that there is a huge missing of the point going on when these things happen.
Some things are often presented as "sensible" and "practical" when they are really attempts for some people to have more control.
My hope is that someone will find the letter Elgar wrote where he said "What on earth was I thinking? Why did I set that doggerel verse when I could have used something with quality?"
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Not all of London fits the hectic stereotype you know! - I live just 6 miles from Traf. Sq. and it's not like that at all here; and even right in the centre there are islands of peace & quiet: visit the Kings X nature park for a start. True, the countryside is nice for the odd outing - and the living allows you to miss some if not all our pollution levels (but Mayor Sadiq is doing something about that, doncher know!); instead you have rural smells, including those of agribusiness; low-flying military aircraft; pubs, village shops and post offices closed down; few or no remaining public transport links; and the politically backward opinions of your lovely cuddly nosey neighbours!Originally posted by LMcD View PostComment
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... growing up in the country, and moving away from it as soon as I could, I'm with Hazlitt :
"All country people hate each other. They have so little comfort, that they envy their neighbours the smallest pleasure or advantage, and nearly grudge themselves the necessaries of life. From not being accustomed to enjoyment, they become hardened and averse to it -- stupid, for want of thought -- selfish, for want of society. There is nothing good to be had in the country, or, if there is, they will not let you have it. They had rather injure themselves than oblige any one else. Their common mode of life is a system of wretchedness and self-denial, like what we read of among barbarous tribes. You live out of the world. You cannot get your tea and sugar without sending to the next town for it; you pay double, and have it of the worst quality. The small-beer is sure to be sour -- the milk skimmed -- the meat bad, or spoiled in the cooking. You cannot do a single thing you like; you cannot walk out or sit at home, or write or read, or think or look as if you did, without being subject to impertinent curiosity. The apothecary annoys you with his complaisance; the parson with his superciliousness. If you are Poor, you are despised; if you are rich, you are feared and hated. If you do any one a favour, the whole neighbourhood is up in arms; the clamour is like that of a rookery; and the person himself, it is ten to one, laughs at you for your pains, and takes the first opportunity of showing you that he labours under no uneasy sense of obligation. There is a perpetual round of mischief-making and backbiting for want of any better amusement. There are no shops, no taverns, no theatres, no opera, no concerts, no pictures, no public buildings, no crowded streets, no noise of coaches, or of courts of law, -- neither courtiers nor courtesans, no literary parties, no fashionable routs, no society, no books, or knowledge of books. Vanity and luxury are the civilizers of the world, and sweeteners of human life. Without objects either of pleasure or action, it grows harsh and crabbed: the mind becomes stagnant, the affections callous, and the eye dull. Man left to himself soon degenerates into a very disagreeable person. Ignorance is always bad enough; but rustic ignorance is intolerable. Aristotle has observed that tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity. If so, a company of tragedians should be established at the public expense, in every village or hundred, as a better mode of education than either Bell's or Lancaster's. The benefits of knowledge are never so well understood as from seeing the effects of ignorance, in their naked, undisguised state, upon the common country people. Their selfishness and insensibility are perhaps less owing to the hardships and privations, which make them, like people out at sea in a boat, ready to devour one another, than to their having no idea of anything beyond themselves and their immediate sphere of action. They have no knowledge of, and consequently can take no interest in, anything which is not an object of their senses, and of their daily pursuits. They hate all strangers, and have generally a nick-name for the inhabitants of the next village. The two young noblemen in "Guzman d'Alfarache," who went to visit their mistresses only a league out of Madrid, were set upon by the peasants, who came round them calling out, "a wolf." Those who have no enlarged or liberal ideas, can have no disinterested or generous sentiments. Persons who are in the habit of reading novels and romances are compelled to take a deep interest, and to have their affections strongly excited by fictitious characters and imaginary situations; their thoughts and feelings are constantly carried out of themselves to persons they never saw, and things that never existed; history enlarges the mind, by familiarizing us with the great vicissitudes of human affairs, and the catastrophes of states and kingdoms; the study of morals, accustoms us to refer our actions to a general standard of right and wrong; and abstract reasoning in general, strengthens the love of, truth, and produces an inflexibility of principle which cannot stoop to low trick and cunning. Books, in Lord Bacon's phrase, are "a discipline of humanity." Country people have none of these advantages, nor any others to supply the place of them. Having no circulating libraries to exhaust their love of the marvellous, they amuse themselves with fancying the disasters and disgraces of their particular acquaintance. Having no hump-backed Richard to excite their wonder and abhorrence, they make themselves a bugbear of their own out of the first obnoxious person they can lay their hands on. Not having the fictitious distresses and gigantic crimes of poetry to stimulate their imagination and their passions, they vent their whole stock of spleen, malice, and invention on their friends and next-door neighbours. They get up a little pastoral drama at home, with fancied events, but real characters. All their spare time is spent in manufacturing and propagating the lie for the day, which does its office, and expires. The next day is spent in the same manner. It is thus that they embellish the simplicity of rural life! The common people in civilized countries are a kind of domesticated savages. They have not the wild imagination, the passions, the fierce energies, or dreadful vicissitudes of the savage tribes, nor have they the leisure, the indolent enjoyments and romantic superstitions, which belonged to the pastoral life in milder climates, and more remote periods of society. They are taken out of a state of nature, without being put in possession of the refinements of art. The customs and institutions of society cramp their imaginations without giving them knowledge. If the inhabitants of the mountainous districts described by Mr. Wordsworth are less gross and sensual than others, they are more selfish. Their egotism becomes more concentrated, as they are more insulated, and their purposes more inveterate, as they have less competition to struggle with. The weight of matter which surrounds them crushes the finer sympathies. Their minds become hard and cold, like the rocks which they cultivate. The immensity of their mountains makes the human form appear little and insignificant. Men are seen crawling between Heaven and earth, like insects to their graves. Nor do they regard one another more than flies on a wall. Their physiognomy expresses the materialism of their character, which has only one principle -- rigid self-will. They move on with their eyes and foreheads fixed, looking neither to the right nor to the left, with a heavy slouch in their gait, and seeming as if nothing would divert them from their path. We do not admire this plodding pertinacity, always directed to the main chance. There is nothing which excites so little sympathy in our minds as exclusive selfishness. -- If our theory is wrong, at least it is taken from pretty close observation... "Comment
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I think that it's already fairly well documented that Elgar did this against his own better judgement and, after all, he'd already written the tune to which the said doggerel came to be appended, so it was not what one could really call a "setting" by Elgar. I refer to this in my notes for a spoof march genre "Pomp and Circumstance" wot I wrote a few years ago and to which I appended a verse of my own devising, again after the compositional event; the note and the verse are as follows:Originally posted by MrGongGong View PostMy hope is that someone will find the letter Elgar wrote where he said "What on earth was I thinking? Why did I set that doggerel verse when I could have used something with quality?"
"Like so many others, Elgar had been profoundly affected by World War I and its aftermath and, in 1933, the year before his death, complained bitterly to Delius about the madness once again rearing itself in Germany as though no lessons had been learned from that "war to end all wars", as it was then widely perceived. Despite Elgar’s eventual reservations as to having consented to King Edward VII’s suggestion that certain words by Arthur Christopher Benson be appended to part of his Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1, Land of hope and glory has become so firmly attached to it as to seem inseparable from it, as evident from its long established status as a staple of the last night of the Proms; it appears somehow to have prompted a kind of anti-jingoist verse to the central tune of this march, with due apologies to William Blake (whose Parry-ed Jerusalem in Elgar's orchestration is another Last Night of the Proms stalwart) and it runs
No land, nor hope, nor glory's to be won;
For our march is not a military one.
No! no bombs nor muskets – we disapprove of these;
No more army, no more air force – a plague on IEDs
Forever. And my sword shall sleep in someone else's hand.
No Empire; the map's not coloured pink!
Bring me my pen and ink.
© Brigadoon-General Sir Anonymous Nobody (nd)
The composer understandably hopes that these words "never never shall be" sung to his tune (and, in that, he is reasonably confident)..."
Ahem...Last edited by ahinton; 06-07-18, 16:07.Comment
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vints! 
(Just saving a few virtual trees by not reproducing vints' wonderful quote there. People of course love to evoke a once-rural idyll, as refracted through the music of Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Bridge, Ireland and, yes, Elgar too; but in VW's case it was known that for all his love and encouragement of rural communal life he actually preferred London life - and imv reproduced its contrasts of calm and noisome crowdedness rather well in the London Symphony; as also did Holst in his own "Hammersmith" - a place well worth visiting for its exemplification of these qualities alone. Oh yes, turn of 20th century London suddenly was hectic, as was clear from that footage of Hyde Park Corner showing horse-driven buses.)
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