In the South (Alassio)

Background and first performance#

After years of struggle, by 1903 Elgar had become well known. It was an open secret that Elgar was planning to compose a symphony for the festival. He intended to work on it while holidaying in Italy over Christmas 1903. He and his wife and daughter stayed first at Bordighera and then at the Villa San Giovanni, Alassio. Inspiration for the symphony eluded him, but the local atmosphere – “the thoughts and sensations of one beautiful afternoon in the Vale of Andora” – gave him the ideas for a concert overture. He later recalled: The work is dedicated “To my friend Leo F. Schuster”, the driving force behind the 1904 Elgar Festival. The first American performance was given by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Theodore Thomas on 4 November 1904. Walter Damrosch conducted the New York premiere the following day. and it was given in Vienna in March 1905, Cologne, under Fritz Steinbach, the following month, and Prague the following year.

Analysis#

The work is written for a full symphony orchestra comprising 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 3 timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, side drum, triangle and glockenspiel), harp and the string section. It opens with a vigorous theme that he had written in 1899 in the visitors’ book of his friend G. R. Sinclair to illustrate the latter’s bulldog “triumphant after a fight”. The music critic Michael Kennedy writes that “nothing in the whole of Elgar is more thrilling than the leaping opening”. The ebullient opening is followed by a calmer, pastoral section. The music then becomes agitated and moves into a grandioso section in A minor, illustrative of the days of the Roman empire, with what Elgar called “the relentless and domineering onward force of the ancient day” and the “drums and tramplings of a later time”. This passage was inspired by the ruins of a huge Roman viaduct. From this theme a brilliant “striding” theme emerges and leads, through muted strings, to the second episode, quickly dubbed the “canto popolare”. Kennedy suggests that giving this theme to the viola is a conscious homage to Berlioz’s Harold in Italy. \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key c \major \time 3/4 \clef C c2 _\markup \dynamic pp \italic con molto express. ( e4~ e2 f4) d2. g,2.~ g2 c4( e2\ ( g,2.!) The theme recurs as a horn solo, before returning, over a drum-roll, to the viola, after which Elgar returns to the beginning of the overture for a formal recapitulation. After that, a nobilmente theme from the opening is transmuted into a gentle melody, which is developed to a final climax for full orchestra.

Arrangements#

The “canto popolare” so convincingly struck an authentically Italian note that it was widely assumed to be an adaptation of a popular local song, although it was entirely of Elgar’s own invention. Elgar later published a version of it with words taken from a poem by Shelley, as a song for soprano or tenor, under the title “In Moonlight”. Ernest Newman, commented that the words and music were not a good match, with the rhythms of the verse “pushed and pulled” to fit the music: “you finally declare that by similar treatment anything – an Act of Parliament or a patent medicine advertisement – could be made to ‘go with’ the melody equally well”. Elgar made an arrangement of the “canto popolare” for violin and piano, in collaboration with the violinist Isabella Jaeger, wife of his close friend August Jaeger. At the same time, he made an arrangement for solo piano, and his publisher, Novello, also issued an arrangement of the whole concert overture for piano duet, made by Adolf Schmid.

Critical reception#

The initial reception of In the South was generally enthusiastic. After the premiere The Musical Times found the themes “subjected to elaborate and remarkably individual treatment”, the scoring “superb”, and the whole piece “perhaps the most beautiful orchestral work which the composer has given to the world”. The Monthly Musical Record called the piece “as brilliant and inspiring a piece of writing as anything that Dr Elgar has produced”. and Percy Young similarly comments on an overextended structural design.

Performances and recordings#

In the South is less often heard in the concert hall than many of Elgar’s other major orchestral works. Remarking on the fact, The Musical Times speculated in 1973, “Why has Elgar’s In the South failed to catch on even with today’s enthusiasm for his music? The subtitle ‘Alassio’ and the modest description ‘concert overture’ for what is virtually a tone-poem may have proved discouraging or confusing – unfortunately, in the early stages of appreciation, titles do matter.” The work is well represented on record, with recordings from every decade since the 1920s:

External links#

• • *Faith Court Orchestra Subiaco, Perth, Australia, 2009 *