Edward Elgar on Music Theory Print

A Child Asleep

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References#

*Percy Young, Elgar O.M.

A Song of Autumn

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Lyrics#

A Song of Autumn Where shall we go for our garlands glad At the falling of the year, When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad, When the boughs are yellow and sere? Where are the old ones that once we had, And where are the new ones near? What shall we do for our garlands glad At the falling of the year? Child! can I tell where the garlands go? Can I say where the lost leaves veer On the brown-burnt banks, when the wild winds blow, When they drift through the dead-wood drear? Girl! When the garlands of next year glow, You may gather again, my dear— But I go where the last year’s lost leaves go At the falling of the year. Herbstlied Wo soll ich pflücken den Blumenstrauss, Wenn der Herbst zieht in das Land, Wenn die dürren Blätter gelb sind und kraus, Und der Büsche Grün verschwand? Wo sind die einst schmückten unser Haus, Und wann sind die neuen zur Hand? Wo soll ich pflücken den Blumenstrauss, Wenn der Herbst zieht in das Land? Kind! kann ich sagen wo Blumen blüh’n? Wohin Blatt, wohin Blüte schwand? Ob sie fielen unter der Sonne Glühn, Ob die Winde sie streuten ins Land? Frühling bringt Blumen für dich, mein Kind, Pflücke sie mit der weissen Hand; Doch ich werde ruh’n, wo die Blätter sind, Wenn der Herbst zieht in das Land.

A War Song

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

A SOLDIER’S SONG / A WAR SONG :Hear the whiz of the shot as it flies, :Hear the rush of the shell in the skies, :Hear the bayonet’s clash, ringing bright, :See the flash of the steel as they fight, :Hear the conqueror’s shout ! :As the foe’s put to rout ! :Hear the cry of despair :That is rending the air – :Now the neigh of a horse, now the bugle’s loud blast. :See! anger and pain, passion and shame, :A struggle for life, a thirst for fame. ::::Ah ! ::Glory or death, for true hearts and brave, ::Honour in life, or rest in a grave. :Now the warfare is o’er, life is past, :Now in peace lie the dead, still at last ; :Bronzed and brown, wan and pale, side by side, :Side by side, as they fought, fell and died ; :There they lie, rank and pride, :Rags and wealth, proved and tried. :Youth and age, fear and trust, :Scarred and scorched, in the dust ; :Gone for ever their pain, anger, passion, and shame, :Gone! tumult and smoke, conflict and din, :Gone, anguish and trouble, sorrow and sin, - ::::Ah ! ::Glory or death, for true hearts and brave, ::Honour in life, or rest in a grave.

As I laye a-thynkynge

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Elgar omitted the two verses enclosed in square brackets – the fifth and sixth verses of the poem.

References#

Banfield, Stephen, Sensibility and English Song: Critical studies of the early 20th century (Cambridge University Press, 1985)
Kennedy, Michael, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968)

Recordings#

*Songs and Piano Music by Edward Elgar Premiere recording of “As I laye a-thynkynge” performed by Amanda Pitt (soprano), with David Owen Norris (piano).

Big Steamers

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Songs#

The poem has been set to music by two English composers: Edward German and Edward Elgar. The poem was also put to music by English folk singer and Kipling Society Fellow Peter Bellamy. German’s setting was for baritone voice with piano accompaniment, and published by Cramer in 1911. Elgar set the poem to music late in World War I, with the permission of Kipling, and it was published in “The Teacher’s World”, June 19, 1918. This was in response to a request from the Ministry of Food Control to set the poem to music, with the intention that it would be sung in schools and bring to the attention of children the importance of merchant ships - at a time when many ships had been lost to German U-boats and food rationing had just been introduced. It was a simple song with piano accompaniment, suitable for children, and the first music Elgar had written for about a year. Elgar wrote to Lord Rhondda: :“The occasion seemed to call for something exceptionally simple and direct, and I have endeavoured to bring the little piece within the comprehension of very small people indeed.”

Caractacus (Elgar)

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Background#

Elgar was approaching forty before making much impact on the British musical scene. He later said that he could have written Caractacus ten years earlier if he had not been obliged to devote himself to earning a living by teaching and helping behind the counter in his father’s music-shop in Worcester. In December 1897 he was invited to compose a work for the Leeds Triennial Musical Festival. He suggested an orchestral piece but the festival organisers wanted a choral work. Elgar’s choice of the ancient Briton chief Caractacus as his subject was prompted by his mother, who suggested that he write some “tale” about the Herefordshire Beacon in the Malvern Hills, where, according to legend, Caractacus had made his last stand against the Romans and been defeated. For the libretto of the work, Elgar turned to Harry Arbuthnot Acworth, a retired civil servant and sometime poet. He had worked with the composer to adapt Longfellow’s poem The Saga of King Olaf in 1896. The resulting cantata had been well received at the North Staffordshire Music Festival and had later been performed in London. Acworth provided some love interest by supplying Caractacus with a daughter, Eigen, and a prospective son-in-law, Orbin, a member of a “half-priestly order of minstrels”. By the middle of 1898 the cantata was complete. Queen Victoria consented to be the dedicatee of the work.

Carillon (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

History records the reasons why Germany invaded and occupied “neutral” Belgium in August 1914, and the horrific events which followed when Belgium showed armed resistance: cities and people were destroyed, and the country put to almost complete ruin. King Albert and his army resisted but were quickly forced back to West Flanders on the Flemish side of the country. There was much national sympathy: in London, at Christmas, a patriotic anthology called King Albert’s Book (“A tribute to the Belgian King and people from representative men and women throughout the world”) was organised by Hall Caine with contributions from leading artists, writers and musicians. Elgar was asked to contribute, and he remembered reading in The Observer a poem by Émile Cammaerts. Cammaerts was married to Tita Brand, the daughter of the singer Marie Brema who had sung in the first performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, and Elgar had her immediate approval for the use of the poem. Elgar’s friend and candid biographer, Rosa Burley, recalled: Elgar took Miss Burley’s advice, and set the poem as narratives and recitatives interspersed with orchestral interludes. Miss Burley was present at the premiere by Tita Brand at Queen’s Hall, and related how it had to be arranged for her state to be hidden from the audience: The version for voice with piano accompaniment was published, with the French words only, in King Albert’s Book.

Cello Concerto (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Elgar is not known to have begun work on the concerto until 1919. In 1900 the cellist of the Brodsky Quartet, , had obtained the composer’s agreement to write something for the cello one day. Fuchs and his friend the cellist Paul Grümmer later reminded Elgar of this. The composer’s biographer Jerrold Northrop Moore speculates that Elgar may have recalled the promise when planning a new concerto in 1919. In 1918 Elgar underwent an operation in London to have an infected tonsil removed. The night after his return from hospital to his London house he wrote down the melody that would become the first theme of the concerto. He and Alice, his wife (Lady Elgar), soon retired to their secluded country cottage “Brinkwells” near Fittleworth, Sussex. During 1918 Elgar composed three chamber works there which his wife commented were noticeably different in style and character from his previous compositions. After their premieres in the spring of 1919, he began realising his idea of a cello concerto. The work is dedicated to Sidney Colvin and his wife, who were his friends. The concerto had a disastrous premiere, at the opening concert of the London Symphony Orchestra’s 1919–20 season on 27 October 1919. Apart from the concerto, which the composer conducted, the rest of the programme was conducted by Albert Coates, who overran his rehearsal time at the expense of Elgar’s. Lady Elgar wrote, “that brutal selfish ill-mannered bounder … that brute Coates went on rehearsing.” The critic of The Observer, Ernest Newman, wrote, “There have been rumours about during the week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever the explanation, the sad fact remains that never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself. … The work itself is lovely stuff, very simple – that pregnant simplicity that has come upon Elgar’s music in the last couple of years – but with a profound wisdom and beauty underlying its simplicity.” Elgar attached no blame to his soloist, Felix Salmond, who played for him again later. Elgar said that if it had not been for Salmond’s diligent work in preparing the piece, he would have withdrawn it from the concert entirely. In contrast with the First Symphony, which received a hundred performances worldwide in just over a year from its premiere, the Cello Concerto did not have a second performance in London for more than a year. Elgar’s music was by this time widely seen as old-fashioned, less appropriate to the post-war era than to the Edwardian. The American premiere of the concerto was given in Carnegie Hall, New York on 21 November 1922 by Jean Gerardy with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. It was received with little enthusiasm: The New York Herald found most of the work “reflective, melancholy and generally depressing”; Gerardy later introduced the concerto in Poland and Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald found the work original, musicianly and an admirable addition to the cello repertoire, but “without the qualities that kindle the imagination of the listener”. Later the concerto gained greater appreciation. In 1955 the authors of The Record Guide wrote of “the irresistible appeal of the Cello Concerto”, although “the task of interpreting the solo is extremely difficult”, requiring “a reserved dignity that is peculiarly English”. By 1967, according to the critic Edward Greenfield, Jacqueline du Pré was “convincing audiences from New York to Moscow that Elgar is – on occasion at least – exportable”. The work has become, along with Dvořák’s Op. 104, one of the two most frequently performed cello concertos in the international repertoire.

Chanson de Matin

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Allegretto, 2/4, G major \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key g \major \time 2/4 g4–\markup \dynamic p \italic dolce g– g8( fis) e( fis16 g) d8( c) a4~ a2 b'4–\markup \italic poco cresc. b– b8( a) g( a16 b) g8( fis) d4~> > Elgar being a violinist himself, the main melody of the piece is scored for the aforesaid instrument. Following a short two-bar introduction on the piano the violin soars high with a G and sings the first part of the song. Following this the piano takes the baton for a short passage before handing it back to the violinist. This pattern happens once again. As the ending comes, the violin sings an accentuated G, then B as the piano slowly brings it to a close. It means ‘morning song’

Chanson de Nuit

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Andante, 4/4, G major \relative c’ \key g \major \time 4/4 d2._\markup \dynamic p \italic espress. e sostenuto (\downbow b4–)\upbow g2 a b2~( b8 c)\ g,! g’ fis8( e) fis– g– a2.( a,4–) a8\cresc( b)! d– fis– b4. b8– b2.(\upbow cis4) A performance will take around three and a half minutes.

Instrumentation#

Elgar scored Chanson de Nuit (and Chanson de Matin) for a small orchestra consisting of one flute, one oboe, two clarinets, one bassoon, two horns, the string section, and a harp.

Cockaigne (In London Town)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The success of Elgar’s Enigma Variations in 1899 was followed by the initial failure of The Dream of Gerontius, which caused the composer to become dispirited and declare that God was against art. Nevertheless, he received a commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society and began work on a new piece and soon reported that it was “cheerful and Londony, ‘stout and steaky’… honest, healthy, humorous and strong, but not vulgar”. The first performance was in the Queen’s Hall, London at a Royal Philharmonic Society concert, on 20 June 1901, conducted by the composer. He dedicated the work to his “many friends, the members of British orchestras.”

Concert Allegro (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background of composition#

Elgar was not a great lover of the piano, and he was busy organising the first performance of his oratorio The Dream of Gerontius in Düsseldorf. He wrote the piece reluctantly, only after constant pleading from Davies for a new piece for her repertoire. Elgar consulted Fanny Davies during the writing of the work, and she made a number of suggestions for improvements, signing her notations “Humbly, F.D.”.

Coronation Ode

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Structure#

The ode has six parts: In section V, the chorus performs unaccompanied, but the section is introduced by pairs of clarinets, bassoons, and horns plus strings; those instruments also accompany the solo quartet in the middle of the section.

History#

Queen Victoria died in January 1901 and preparations for the coronation of her son King Edward VII were soon under way. Late that year the Covent Garden Grand Opera Syndicate commissioned Elgar to write a work to be premiered at a Royal gala on the eve of the Coronation which was planned for June of the following year. Elgar himself invited A. C. Benson (perhaps at the instance of the King) to provide the libretto: Benson was a musician as well as a writer, and the collaboration was close and successful. The King suggested to Elgar that words could be provided to the Trio section of the first Pomp and Circumstance March, which he liked: Elgar took up the King’s suggestion and asked Benson to provide words so that the tune could form the climax of the Ode. Elgar began writing in February 1902 and by the end of March he had finished the vocal score, which at that time consisted of parts I, III, IV, V and VI. Benson then realised that there needed to be a song referring to Queen Alexandra, and added Daughter of ancient Kings which Elgar reluctantly placed after Crown the King, as he had wanted to follow that with “Britain, ask of thyself”. In June of that year, Elgar prepared the Ode for a State performance, with a choir rehearsal in Sheffield followed by an orchestra (with military band) rehearsal in London at Covent Carden. He took Melba, Kirkby Lunn, Ben Davies and David Ffrangcon-Davies through their solo parts. But the planned performance on 30 June never took place, for the Coronation, planned for 26 June, was cancelled only two days before due to the King suddenly being taken ill with appendicitis, which required an operation. The Ode was not performed in the royal presence until a year later, to mark the anniversary of the Coronation. It was the last item in a gala concert, in the presence of the King and Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales, on 25 June 1903, at the Royal Albert Hall. It was organised by Lady Maud Warrender in aid of the Union Jack Club. The chorus was the 400-strong choir of the Leeds Choral Union, with the augmented Queen’s Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry Wood, and the Band of the Coldstream Guards. The Ode was conducted by Elgar. who was afterwards presented to the King. The soloists were Mme Albani, Clara Butt, Ben Davies and Andrew Black. The concert opened with Elgar’s arrangement of God Save the King for singers and orchestra. The publishers, Boosey & Co., realising its popularity, asked Elgar to revise Land of hope and glory so it could be produced as a separate song, and this was in fact sung by Clara Butt with great success at a “Coronation Concert” a week before the Ode was first performed in London. The Ode was used again for the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. The chorus for the Danish-born Queen Alexandra Daughter of ancient Kings in 1902 was unsuitable to refer to Queen Mary, and was replaced by a new chorus True Queen of British homes and hearts (called simply The Queen) with lyric again by Arthur Benson. The other (ominous) change was the omission of Peace, gentle Peace which had been the preface to Land of hope and glory. There is a part for a military band. This was desired by Elgar: ‘Edward made the tonic key E-flat: he wanted to add a military band to the orchestra and organ.’ This is shown in the first edition of the complete score as a two-stave condensed score above which are written two staves for the band percussion. The band plays on occasions in sections I, III, and VI, only, including fanfares which are also cued in the orchestra parts where necessary. The work was published for five royal occasions: *the Coronation of King Edward VII in 1902 – “Daughter of ancient Kings”, personal to Queen Alexandra, was only used for this occasion – used parts I, II (b), III, IV (a & b), V and VI *the Coronation of King George V in 1911 – “The Queen” replaced “Daughter of ancient Kings”, and the prayer “Peace, gentle peace” was omitted – used parts I, II (a), III, IV (a & b) and VI *the Jubilee Edition for King George V in 1935 used parts I, II (a), IV (a & b) and VI only *the Coronation of King George VI in 1937 used parts I, II (a), IV (b) and VI only *the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 – “Crown the King” became “Crown the Queen” – used parts I, II (a & b), III, IV (a & b) and VI only

Diarmuid and Grania

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Play#

George Moore wrote a novel based on a translation by Lady Gregory of the Fenian tale The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne. W. B. Yeats then collaborated with Moore in writing the play. The play, in three acts, was dedicated to Henry Wood, and its first performance was by Frank Benson’s English Shakespearean Company at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin on 21 October 1901; it appeared in a double bill, being followed by Douglas Hyde’s Casadh an tSugáin (The Twisting of the Hay Rope) performed by Irish-speaking amateurs supplied by the Gaelic League (the first Irish-language play ever seen on a regular stage). The part of Diarmuid was played by Benson, Grania by his wife Constance, and Laban by Lucy Franklein. Although the collaboration had been difficult – Yeats and Moore disagreed frequently, mainly about style, and there was therefore no final version for publication – the production was well received. There was also controversy because the Irish characters were played by English actors. After the play was produced, Yeats, whose commitment had occasionally seemed to waver, defended it against all criticism.

Dream Children (Elgar)

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History#

These two pieces were written in 1902, when Elgar was approaching the peak of his fame and popularity. Unusually for Elgar they were not written to any commission. Michael Kennedy suggests that they may have been retrieved from the unused material for a symphony celebrating General Gordon which Elgar had been working on since 1898. They are not complete symphonic movements (the first movement takes a little over three minutes to perform and the second a little over four minutes) but it was Elgar’s practice to work in small sections and then put them together into a whole. Ernest Newman described Dream Children as “a couple of delicate little pastels for a small orchestra, inspired by an essay of Charles Lamb. Elia (sc. Lamb), entertaining some children with stories of their grandmother, finds them gradually disappear from his sight he is, indeed, only dreaming”: Newman continues, “The two pieces are very short – 24 and 141 bars respectively. The first, a tender little reverie with much lovely feeling underlying its simplicity, is the better of the two. The second, though charming, is more obvious in its sentiment. At the end of it there is a return to the theme of the first”.

Duett for trombone and double bass

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Description#

The duet is an Allegretto of length 49 bars. It is in the form of a fugue in which the subject is first played by the double bass then imitated by the trombone a fourth higher.

Elegy (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and first performance#

By 1909 Elgar had achieved success as a composer after years of obscurity. He had been knighted in 1904 and among other honours he was an honorary freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. The junior warden of the company, the Rev Robert Hadden, died suddenly of a heart attack in the street near his church in Mayfair on 11 June 1909. After Hadden’s funeral Elgar’s publisher, Alfred Littleton, a fellow member of the company, suggested to the composer that he might write a short “musician’s dirge” for use at such occasions in the future. Elgar agreed, composed the piece within a week, and sent the score with a note: “Here is the little Elegy you asked for – if it will not do, never mind – tear it up. It is not very original I fear, but it is well meant.” It is still (in 2024) played annually in the cathedral, at the company’s annual evensong service, in memory of members who have died during the preceding year.

Enigma Variations

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Background#

Enigma Variations (ballet)

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Background#

Elgar’s variations portray, in his words, “My friends pictured within”, celebrating, and in some cases caricaturing, members of his circle. He commented to one of them, Troyte Griffith, years after the premiere that if the variations had been written by a Russian rather than an Englishman they would long ago have been turned into a ballet. Staff’s ballet focused on the mood of the variations rather than on the personalities who inspired it. Ashton used the whole of Elgar’s published score, with the exception of the finale, for which he went back to the composer’s original ending. When completing the score in 1898, Elgar had been persuaded by his publisher (portrayed as “Nimrod” of the variations) to add a further 96 bars to the ending. With the permission of the Elgar estate, Ashton used the shorter version, previously unheard by even the most dedicated Elgarians. The playing time of the ballet is about half an hour.

Falstaff (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

Falstaff is scored for an orchestra of two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and cor anglais, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (side drum, triangle, tabor, tambourine, bass drum, cymbals), two harps (second harp ad lib), and strings.

Structure#

Elgar set out the divisions of the score in an “analytical essay” in The Musical Times in 1913: *I. Falstaff and Prince Henry *II. Eastcheap – Gadshill – The Boar’s Head. Revelry and sleep – Dream Interlude: ‘Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk’ (Poco allegretto) *III. Falstaff’s march – The return through Gloucestershire – Interlude: Gloucestershire. Shallow’s orchard (Allegretto) – The new king – The hurried ride to London *IV. King Henry V’s progress – The repudiation of Falstaff, and his death In the first section, Elgar establishes the two main themes of the piece, that for Prince Hal (marked grandioso) being courtly and grand, and that for Falstaff himself showing “a goodly, portly man, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage.” Arrigo Boito adapted these words of Falstaff for his libretto for the Verdi opera of the same name, but the Falstaff of the opera is essentially the buffo character from The Merry Wives of Windsor, whereas Elgar’s is the Falstaff of Henry IV. The subsequent development of the score follows closely the key events of the two parts of Henry IV, in which Falstaff features. The Gadshill section (from Henry IV, Part 1) shows him attempting a gold bullion robbery but being himself attacked and robbed by the disguised Hal and his companions. Falstaff returns to his base at the inn and drowns his sorrows in drink. In his drunken sleep, he dreams of his youth, when he was a slim page to the Duke of Norfolk. Here too Boito/Verdi and Elgar treat the same material quite differently: in the opera, Falstaff’s nostalgic reminiscence is a lively little aria (“Quand’ ero paggio”), but Elgar’s treatment is slow and wistful. Part III of the score moves to Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2. After Falstaff’s summons to court and commission to raise soldiers for the King’s army, there is a battle scene and then a second interlude, an English idyll in a Gloucestershire orchard. This is dispelled by the news of the King’s death and Prince Hal’s accession. As in the play, Falstaff hurries to London, confident of favours from the new monarch, but is instead dismissed and banished. Finally the broken Falstaff, having crept away, lies dying – “the king hath killed his heart” – and after a return of the theme of the second interlude, a quiet C major chord in the brass and a hushed roll on the side-drum portray Falstaff’s death. The work ends with a very brief version of Prince Hal’s theme showing, in the composer’s words, that “the man of stern reality has triumphed.”

Follow the Colours

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In January 1907 William Henry Ash, grandson of pioneer dental manufacturer Claudius Ash, as a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians offered a prize of 20 guineas for the words of “a marching song for British soldiers”. The popular writers Kipling and Conan Doyle having refused, the offer was advertised in the newspapers. In November the company announced that the winner (of 96 applicants) was William de Courcy Stretton - a 45 year old retired Royal Artillery captain from Salcombe in Devon - and that the music was to be written by Elgar. Alfred Littleton, chairman of publishers Novello and also a Liveryman of the company, had to plead with Elgar to go ahead, as there was much Elgar disliked about the idea. Elgar eventually wrote an orchestral score to include the four verses, and this was posted to Novello’s on 27 December. At Elgar’s request, his score was arranged for military band by Capt. Arthur J. Stretton, Director of Music at the Royal Military School of Music (Kneller Hall), and first performed by a Kneller Hall band and chorus, conducted by Capt. Stretton, at the annual banquet of the Musicians Company at Stationers Hall on 28 April 1908, when it was for that occasion given the generic title “Marching Song”. Then, with much publicity, and with the title “Follow the Colours” taken from the refrain, it was given its first public performance at the Empire Day concert in the Royal Albert Hall on 24 May 1908, with the London Symphony Orchestra, and the tenors and basses of the Royal Choral Society, conducted by Sir Alexander Mackenzie. A few days later, on 27 May, it was performed at the first Kneller Hall evening concert of the season when the band was conducted by student bandmaster H. Norris. The work was soon published by Novellos and performed at many locations in the UK for the remainder of that year and until 1915. The full orchestral score was presented by Elgar to the Worshipful Company of Musicians on 14 June 1910. Its first wartime performance was at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 10 October 1914, following much publicity. It was at a concert in aid of the Queen’s “Work for Women” Fund, and supported by singers Dame Clara Butt and Kennerley Rumford, with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra and singers of the Royal Choral Society. It was the first concert in a series to be performed at 22 locations throughout the UK. Such was its pre-war success that in 1914 it was republished by Novellos in a version (in key D) with piano accompaniment, with fewer introductory bars and the third verse omitted. There were few performances after 1915. Tragically the author, William de Courcy Stretton, lost four of his five sons, Capt Alexander Lynam (M.C.), Capt William Stapelton, Able Seaman Conrad (Royal Australian Navy) and 2nd Lt John while fighting for the British Empire during the First World War.

Froissart Overture (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Froissart was composed in 1890 to the commission of the Worcester Festival, for a secular concert during that year’s Three Choirs Festival, and was Elgar’s first large-scale work for full orchestra. Ironically, ambitious Elgar, who moved to London for his career, got this major contract from his hometown. The work was finished by July,

Structure#

Allegro moderato, 4/4, B major The work consists of a single movement, lasting a little under a quarter of an hour. The motto written by Elgar on the manuscript score is a quotation from an 1817 poem by Keats: “When Chivalry lifted up her lance on high”. The opening is a graphically chivalric flourish, but commentators have found the subsequent working out of the themes too long and discursive. : \relative c’ \key bes \major \time 4/4 \tempo “Allegro moderato.” r2 r4 bes16-._\markup \dynamic ff \italic brillante bes-. a-. bes-. d2\ bes-> f d bes f g8\ ! 4-! g16-.\downbow g-. fis-. g-. es'2\ c-> g es c g Nevertheless, although an obviously early work, it contains some touches of the mature Elgar. W. H. Reed singles out ’the quick rise from G sharp through two octaves and a semitone to the top A at the ninth bar after letter B’, and notes a ‘growing habit of scattering expression marks in great profusion’, leaving conductors ‘very little room for the introduction of their own idiosyncrasies’. However, it is generally agreed that the piece shows immaturity: Michael Kennedy comments on the ‘weak and too-lengthy development’ and the ‘half digested’ influence of other composers. Elgar himself concluded that the work was too long, but even after he had gone on to write more characteristic and mature compositions he described Froissart as ‘good, healthy stuff.’ Froissart is not a programmatic work: unlike the later Falstaff or even Cockaigne it does not tell a detailed story; it evokes a mood and manner in broad terms.

From the Bavarian Highlands

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Songs#

The six songs are: #The Dance (Sonnenbichl) – Allegretto giocoso #False Love (Wamberg) – Allegretto ma moderato #Lullaby (In Hammersbach) – Moderato #Aspiration (Bei Sankt Anton) – Adagio #On the Alm (True Love, Hoch Alp) – Allegro piacevole #The Marksmen (Bei Murnau) – Allegro vivace Numbers 1, 3 and 6 were later published as a suite for orchestra with the title Three Bavarian Dances. There have been performances and recordings of both the original version with piano and the revised version with orchestra.

Good Morrow

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Though Elgar changed Gascoigne’s verse to modern English, he requested that the original sixteenth-century text be shown on the last page of the vocal score and be printed like that on programmes:

Recordings#

Choral Music of Edward Elgar The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, director Richard Marlow

Imperial March (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The work is written for an orchestra consisting of 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets in B, 3 trombones, tuba, 3 timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, and side drum) and the string section.

Structure#

Pomposo 4/4 B flat major Ex. 1. The opening, quiet and noble, is developed in a lively festive way: \relative c’ \key bes \major \time 4/4 \tempo “Pomposo.” \partial 8 \clef bass f,,8\p ^\markup (Timp) bes4-. \clef treble > r g'4 ^\markup (Vn) _\markup \italic sostenuto \ g16 es4! Ex. 2. The middle section, in E flat major, has violins and clarinets introduce a new theme for development: \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key es \major \time 4/4 \tempo “Poco meno mosso.” bes'8. _\markup \dynamic p \italic dolce molto espress. g16( > aes8. c16( f8.) d16( es8.) c16( > bes8.\ bes16!( > d8. bes16( c8.) g16( bes8.) g16( > f8. g16( aes8.) a16 After the recapitulation of Ex. 1, Ex. 2 leads into the coda, which mainly uses Ex. 1 and magnificently concludes the work. Average performance needs approximately 5 minutes.

In Moonlight

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Elgar used only the first and third stanzas of Shelley’s poem, “An Ariette for Music”. IN MOONLIGHT (ARIETTE)

Recordings#

“The Unknown Elgar” includes “In Moonlight” performed by Teresa Cahill (soprano), with Barry Collett (piano).
Elgar: Complete Songs for Voice & Piano Amanda Roocroft (soprano), Reinild Mees (piano)
Songs and Piano Music by Edward Elgar has “In Moonlight” performed by Amanda Pitt (soprano), with David Owen Norris (piano).
The Songs of Edward Elgar SOMM CD 220 Catherine Wyn-Rogers (soprano) with Malcolm Martineau (piano), at Southlands College, London, April 1999

Videos#

(sound only) - Felicity Lott (soprano) with Graham Johnson (piano) 2008

References#

Banfield, Stephen, Sensibility and English Song: Critical studies of the early 20th century (Cambridge University Press, 1985)
Kennedy, Michael, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968)
Young, Percy M., Elgar O.M. (Collins, 1955)

In the South (Alassio)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Inside the Bar

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

:I knows a town, an’ it’s a fine town, ::An’ many a brig goes sailin’ to its quay; ::::::Yo-ho. :I knows an inn, an’ it’s a fine inn, ::An’ a lass that’s fair to see. :I knows a town, an’ it’s a fine town; ::I knows an inn, an’ it’s a fine inn - :But O my lass, an’ O the gay gown ::Which I have seen my pretty in! :I knows a port, an’ it’s a fine port, ::An’ many a brig is ridin’ easy there; ::::::Yo-ho. :I knows a home, an’ it’s a good home, ::An’ a lass that’s sweet and fair. :I knows a port, an’ it’s a good port; ::I knows a home, an’ it’s a good home - :But O the pretty that is my sort ::What’s wearyin’ till I come! :I knows a day, an’ it’s a fine day, ::The day a sailorman comes back to town; ::::::Yo-ho. :I knows a tide, an’ it’s a good tide, ::The tide that gets you quick to anchors down. :I knows a day, an’ it’s a fine day; ::I knows a tide, an’ it’s a good tide - :An’ Lord help the lubber, I say, ::What’s stole the sailorman’s bride. ::::::Yo-ho!

Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The Introduction and Allegro was written in response to a request from the composer’s publisher and close friend August Jaeger for a work to showcase the virtuoso playing of the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). In a letter dated 28 October 1904, Jaeger recalled an outstanding performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 3 for string orchestra that he and Elgar had heard, conducted by Fritz Steinbach at the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in May: Elgar accepted the challenge, and wrote to Jaeger in January 1905: “I’m doing that string thing in time for the Sym: orch: concert. Intro: & Allegro – no working out part but a devil of a fugue instead. G major & the sd. divvel in G minor”. He later wrote of the piece:

Land of Hope and Glory

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

The music to which the words of the refrain “Land of Hope and Glory” below are set is the ’trio’ theme from Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1. The words were fitted to the melody on the suggestion of King Edward VII who told Elgar he thought the melody would make a great song. When Elgar was requested to write a work for the King’s coronation, he worked the suggestion into his Coronation Ode, for which he used words provided by the poet and essayist A. C. Benson. Owing to the King’s illness, the coronation was postponed. Elgar created a separate song, which was first performed by Madame Clara Butt in June 1902. In fact, only the first of the seven stanzas of the Ode’s final section was re-used, as the first four lines of the second stanza below. This stanza is the part which is popularly sung today.

Le drapeau belge

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

The original words were in French, and an English translation was provided by Lord Curzon of Kedleston.

Recordings#

*Elgar: War Music Richard Pascoe (narrator), Barry Collett (conductor), Rutland Sinfonia

References#

Kennedy, Michael, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968)
Moore, Jerrold N. “Edward Elgar: a creative life” (Oxford University Press, 1984)

Like to the Damask Rose

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Elgar made a few changes to the original words.

Recordings#

Songs and Piano Music by Edward Elgar has “Like to the Damask Rose” performed by Amanda Pitt (soprano), with David Owen Norris (piano).
Elgar: Complete Songs for Voice & Piano Konrad Jarnot (baritone), Reinild Mees (piano)
The Songs of Edward Elgar SOMM CD 220 Neil Mackie (tenor) with Malcolm Martineau (piano), at Southlands College, London, April 1999

References#

Banfield, Stephen, Sensibility and English Song: Critical studies of the early 20th century (Cambridge University Press, 1985)
Kennedy, Michael, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968)
Moore, Jerrold N. “Edward Elgar: a creative life” (Oxford University Press, 1984)

Nursery Suite

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The composition of the Nursery Suite came about when Elgar mentioned in September 1930 to William Laundon Streeton of His Master’s Voice (the Gramophone Company) that he had lately run across a box of musical sketches from the days of his youth. Streeton suggested that, as Master of the King’s Musick, he might suitably draw on them for a work to mark the recent birth of Princess Margaret Rose (then fourth in line to the throne). The suite was dedicated to Princess Margaret, her older sister Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and their mother (the Duchess of York). The Nursery Suite was one of the first pieces of orchestral music to receive its premiere in a recording studio (Kingsway Hall, London) rather than a concert hall (although Elgar’s very first recording session, in January 1914, had included the premiere of the miniature “Carissima”). At its premiere on 23 May 1931, all but the two last movements were recorded under the baton of the composer. The last two movements were added when the whole suite was performed on 4 June 1931 before an invited audience including Princess Elizabeth, aged five, and her parents. The piece takes about 25 minutes to perform. The ballet “Nursery Suite”, with Elgar’s music, choreography by Ninette de Valois and scenery and costumes by Nancy Allen, was first performed by the Vic-Wells Ballet (now Royal Ballet) on 19 March 1932 at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre. The cast included Anton Dolin, Alicia Markova and Joy Newton. The choreographer Frederick Ashton used The Nursery Suite for a new ballet (his last) in 1986 for the Queen’s sixtieth birthday gala at the Royal Opera House.

Oh, soft was the song

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

OH, SOFT WAS THE SONG :Oh, soft was the song in my soul, and soft beyond thought were thy lips, ::And thou wert mine own, and Eden re-conquered was mine: :And the way that I go is the way of thy feet, and the breath that I breathe ::It hath being from thee, and life from the life that is thine.

Recordings#

Songs and Piano Music by Edward Elgar has “Oh, soft was the song” performed by Mark Wilde (tenor), with David Owen Norris (piano).
Elgar: Complete Songs for Voice & Piano Amanda Roocroft (soprano), Reinild Mees (piano)
The Songs of Edward Elgar SOMM CD 220 Christopher Maltman (baritone) with Malcolm Martineau (piano), at Southlands College, London, April 1999

References#

Kennedy, Michael, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968)
Parker, Sir Gilbert, (1894) “Embers” Gutenberg Free Text

Organ Sonata (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The genesis of the work was a request to Elgar to write an organ voluntary for a convention of American organists in the English city of Worcester in 1895. Instead, Elgar decided on a four-movement sonata of nearly half an hour’s length. The four movements are: The opening theme resembles the beginning of Elgar’s The Black Knight, a cantata completed two years earlier and gaining acceptance when Elgar began work on the organ sonata. The outer movements follow the classic sonata form; the inner movements are in three-part A-B-A form. The second movement was the first of the four to be composed; the analyst John Butt comments that the key – G minor – represents “the tonic minor of the entire sonata” and introduces “a typical ambiguity between B major and the tonic at the outset”. In the third movement Elgar reused from an earlier work, his Second Suite for Strings, a theme there named (Dreaming). Elgar wrote, “one week’s work”, in the score inscription, but that measures only the final constructive push. It was given by the Worcester Cathedral organist, Hugh Blair, on 8 July 1895.

Overture in D minor (Handel, arr. Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The transcription was first performed at the Worcester Festival on 2 September 1923, conducted by the composer. It was recorded a month after the first performance. Elgar’s friend W. H. Reed wrote of Elgar’s enthusiasm for Handel: ‘…he would speak of Handel with tears in his eyes… would rub his hands gleefully and look up to heaven at the thought of Handel’s genius’. Elgar wrote to John E. West, music editor at Novello & Co., that he had known the overture since he was a little boy and always wanted it to be heard in a large form. Elgar’s arrangement followed his arrangement for small orchestra of Handel’s overture of Ariodante and two orchestrations of works by another composer he admired: he transcribed J. S. Bach’s Fugue in C minor in 1921 and the Fantasia in C minor in 1922. The Overture in D minor was published by Novello & Co. in 1923.

Pageant of Empire (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Details#

The songs were first performed at the Pageant on 21 July 1924, when they were conducted by the composer. The songs were published by Enoch & Sons. They are: #“Shakespeare’s Kingdom” #“The Islands (A Song of New Zealand)” #“The Blue Mountains (A Song of Australia)” #“The Heart of Canada” #“Sailing Westward” #“Merchant Adventurers” #“The Immortal Legions” #“A Song of Union” Nos. 1–7 are for solo singer with accompaniment. No. 2 “The Islands”, No. 5 “Sailing Westward”, and three other poems by Noyes: “Indian Dawn”, “The Cape of Good Hope” (for South Africa) and “Gloriana” (Queen Elizabeth I) were also arranged for chorus SATB and have the same musical accompaniment. No. 7 “The Immortal Legions” was also arranged for chorus SATB. No. 8 “A Song of Union” is a part-song for chorus SATB written for but not actually performed in the Pageant. Three movements from Elgar’s “The Crown of India” were included in the Pageant, representing “The Early Days of India”: the Introduction, the March of the Mogul Emperors and the Crown of India March. Elgar composed his Empire March for the same occasion, and it was at that time considered part of the Pageant of Empire. However the Empire March was not performed then and Elgar’s Imperial March took its place. The orchestral scores and parts for all the songs with the exception of “Immortal Legions” and the “March” have been lost, but they have been orchestrated by conductor Martin Yates and recorded complete on Dutton Epoch by Baritone Roderick Williams with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Martin Yates.

Piano Quintet (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

There are three movements: In performance, the first movement takes about 14 minutes, the adagio a little under 12, and the last movement a little over 10, making this the longest of Elgar’s chamber works. His wife’s first reaction on hearing the three chamber works was ‘E. writing wonderful new music’, and more than fifty years later The Gramophone agreed: ‘Alice Elgar was quite right: it is a new urgency, pointed and refined by the discipline of writing chamber music, a discipline that clearly rejuvenated Elgar’s imagination. It is big chamber music, with at times an almost orchestral sonority to it…’ The Quintet was first recorded by Ethel Hobday with the Spencer Dyke Quartet for the National Gramophonic Society in December 1925. Compton Mackenzie suggested that Elgar himself should play the piano for the recording, but the composer refused the invitation replying, “I never play the pianoforte - I scramble through things orchestrally in a way that would madden with envy all existing pianists”. It was subsequently recorded electrically for His Master’s Voice by Harriet Cohen and the Stratton Quartet at the beginning of October 1933, immediately before the composer became seriously ill. Test pressings were rushed to Elgar’s bedside; the pleasure he gained from them inspired Fred Gaisberg to record the Quintet as a Christmas present to the ailing composer. The work took some years to establish itself in the repertoire, but in recent years it has been performed and recorded many times.

Pleading (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

PLEADING :Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland, ::Home in the dusk, and speak to me again? :Tell me the stories that I am forgetting, ::Quicken my hopes, and recompense my pain? :Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland? ::I have grown weary, though I wait for you yet; :Watching the fallen leaf, the faith grown fainter, ::The memory smoulder’d to a dull regret. :Shall the remembrance die in dim forgetting– ::All the fond light that glorified my way? :Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland, ::Home in the dusk, and turn my night to day?

Polonia (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

On 13 April 1915 the Polish conductor Emil Młynarski asked Elgar to compose something, thinking of how Elgar’s Carillon had been a recent tribute to Belgium, but this time using Polish national music. The piece was mainly Elgar’s own work, but he included quotations from the Polish National Anthem Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, the Warszawianka and other Polish patriotic songs, and themes by Chopin and Paderewski. It was first performed at the Polish Victims’ Relief Fund Concert in the Queen’s Hall, London on 6 July 1915, with the orchestra conducted by the composer. The Relief Fund was a worldwide effort, organised by Paderewski and Henryk Sienkiewicz, in aid of refugees from the terrible conflict in Poland between the forces of Russia and Germany. There were elaborately engraved programmes, each tied with a red and white ribbon, containing messages from Paderewski. Elgar conducted his première and Thomas Beecham conducted the remainder of the concert. Elgar dedicated Polonia to Paderewski, already a distinguished pianist and composer. Paderewski had written his own “Polonia” in 1908, his Symphony in B minor, to which he had given that subtitle.

Pomp and Circumstance Marches

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origin of the name#

Elgar took the phrase “Pomp and Circumstance” from Act 3, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Othello: Additionally, on the score of the first march, Elgar set as a motto for the whole set of marches a verse from Lord de Tabley’s poem “The March of Glory”, which (as quoted by Elgar’s biographer Basil Maine) begins: The composer said that the title “is merely a generic name for what is a set of six marches. Two … have already appeared and the others will come later. One of them is to be a soldier’s funeral march”.

Powick Asylum Music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In 1879 Elgar, at the age of 22, was appointed bandmaster at the Worcester City and County Lunatic Asylum. The band – formed from the attendants, not the patients – was needed to provide music at the regular dances for the patients. Elgar had already played violin in the band for two years. His one day a week there was his first regular job of composing or conducting. Elgar’s duties were to train and conduct the band, and he was expected to have practical knowledge of the technique of flute, oboe, clarinet, euphonium and all string instruments. He was paid £32 annually – £4 per annum less than his predecessor, no doubt because of his inexperience. Additionally he was paid 5 shillings for each polka and quadrille he composed for the band, and one shilling and sixpence for accompaniments to the Christy’s Minstrels ditties of the day. The Musical Times wrote, “This practical experience proved to be of the greatest value to the young musician. … He acquired a practical knowledge of the capabilities of these different instruments. … He thereby got to know intimately the tone colour, the ins and outs of these and many other instruments.” Although Elgar had no other settled position, increasing demands on his time and his growing aspirations as a composer (an orchestral work Sevillaña had just been written and performed in Worcester and London) led him, in the autumn of 1884, to resign as bandmaster at Powick Asylum. British musicologist Percy M. Young, in his 1973 Elgar O.M.: a study of a musician, relates how, in old age, Elgar liked to deflate affectation on the part of sycophantic visitors by starting a conversation with the words “When I was at the Lunatic Asylum…”

Quand nos bourgeons se rouvriront

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

References#

Kennedy, Michael, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968)
Moore, Jerrold N. “Edward Elgar: a creative life” (Oxford University Press, 1984)

Recordings#

The CD with the book Oh, My Horses! Elgar and the Great War has many historical recordings including Une voix dans le désert with Quand nos bourgeons se rouvriront, a 1985 recording with Alvar Lidell (narrator), Valerie Hill (soprano) and the Kensington Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leslie Head

Queen Alexandra's Memorial Ode

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

It was Masefield’s first commission as Poet Laureate, and Elgar, as Master of the King’s Musick, was requested to set the verses in mid-May 1932, shortly before his seventy-fifth birthday. Elgar originally set the poem to an orchestral accompaniment but, due to a change of plan, the accompaniment was hurriedly re-arranged by Captain Andrew Harris of the Welsh Guards so it could be played by a military band. The day chosen for the unveiling of the memorial by the King was Alexandra Rose Day. At the beginning of the ceremony outside Marlborough House, Elgar, wearing magnificent robes, conducted the chorister children of the Chapels Royal, the choir of Westminster Abbey, and the band of the Guards in a performance of the Ode. The orchestra and band parts have since been lost. The only manuscript of the work is in the Library of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle: a vocal score handwritten by the composer, which includes indications of the orchestral instrumentation.

Queen Mary's Song

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Words used by Tennyson Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing! Beauty passes like a breath and love is lost in loathing: Low, my lute; speak low, my lute, but say the world is nothing - Low, lute, low! Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken; Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken; Low, my lute! oh low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken - Low, dear lute, low! Words used by Elgar and German translation by Ed. Sachs Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing, Beauty passes like a breath and love is lost in loathing: Low! my lute: Speak low, speak low, my lute, but say the world is nothing. Low! lute, low! Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken; Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken; Low, my lute! O low, O low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken. Low, dear lute, low! Glücklos Schicksal des Weibes, Glücklich nur im Wähnen, Schönheit schwindet wie ein Hauch, Und Lieb’ vergeht in Tränen: Leis’, mein Spiel ! Tön’ leis, o leis, mein Spiel, doch sag der Welt mein Sehnen. Sanft! Laute, sanft ! Liebe schützt die zarten Keime, Wenn sie Wurzel fassen; Liebe flieht die welken Blüten, Wenn Farb’ und Leben blassen; Leis’, mein Spiel ! Tön’ leis, o leis, mein Spiel! Verwelkt sind wir verlassen. Sanft, o Laute, sanft!

Romance for violin (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Andante, 12/8, E minor Following a four-bar introduction by the piano, the violin introduces the subject. \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” \key e \minor \time 12/8 e'2.\p \upbow \ ) e4( dis8!) a'4.~~\downbow _\markup \italic restez. ( a8 g– fis–) e4.~~\ ( e8!) e4– dis8–\downbow fis2.\upbow The same piano introduction then leads to the second subject in G minor, played by the violin. \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” \key e \minor \time 12/8 d2.\p ^\markup \italic poco più mosso. ( e\ The music reaches two passionate climaxes before the first theme reappears. Double stops in the violin lead to the quiet conclusion of the work. It is a short piece, with a performance time of approximately five minutes.

Rondel (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine? Nought see I sure or fixed in thee! I do not know thee, – nor what deeds are thine: Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine? Nought see I fixed or sure in thee! Shall I be mute, or vows with prayers combine? Ye who are blessed in loving, tell it me: Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine? Nought see I fixed or sure in thee! Lieb’, Lieb’, was willst du mit dem Herzen mein? Nicht kenn’ ich dich, noch dein Begehr! Nichts scheint mir fest in dir, noch klar zu sein: Lieb’, was willst du mit dem Herzen mein? Nicht kenn’ ich dich, noch dein Begehr! Bleibe ich stumm, soll liebevoll ich sein? Ihr, die ihr liebt, lasst mich nicht zweifeln mehr: Lieb’, Lieb’, was willst du mit dem Herzen mein? Nicht kenn’ ich standhaft dich, noch dein Begehr!

Salut d'Amour

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Elgar finished the piece in July 1888, when he was romantically involved with Caroline Alice Roberts, and he called it “Liebesgruss” (‘Love’s Greeting’) because of Miss Roberts’ fluency in German. On their engagement she had already presented him with a poem “The Wind at Dawn” which he set to music and, when he returned home to London on 22 September from a holiday at the house of his friend Dr. Charles Buck in Settle, he gave her Salut d’Amour as an engagement present. The dedication was in French: “à Carice”. “Carice” was a combination of his wife’s names Caroline Alice, and was the name to be given to their daughter born two years later. It was published a year later by Schott & Co., a German publisher, with offices in Mainz, London, Paris and Brussels. The first published editions were for violin and piano, piano solo, cello and piano, and for small orchestra. Few copies were sold until Schott changed the title to “Salut d’Amour” with Liebesgruss as a sub-title, and the composer’s name as ‘Ed. Elgar’. The French title, Elgar realised, would help the work to be sold not only in France but in other European countries. The first public performance was of the orchestral version, at a Crystal Palace concert on 11 November 1889, conducted by August Manns. The first recording of that version was made in 1915 for The Gramophone Company with an orchestra conducted by the composer. As a violin-and-piano piece Salut d’Amour had been recorded for The Gramophone & Typewriter Ltd (predecessor to The Gramophone Company) as early as 1901 by Jacques Jacobs, leader/director of the Trocadero Restaurant orchestra. Auguste van Biene recorded a cello transcription in 1907.

Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Words#

The text is an adaptation of Longfellow’s The Saga of King Olaf, a poem about the historical figure Olaf Tryggvason, who brought Christianity to Norway. Longfellow’s source had been the medieval Heimskringla. Longfellow’s text was adapted for Elgar by one of his neighbours, H. A. Acworth. Elgar appears to have found Acworth a satisfactory collaborator, as he went on to provide Elgar with another libretto, Caractacus (1898).

Music#

The cantata has a prologue, nine scenes and an epilogue. Of particular note are the forceful first scene (The Challenge of Thor) and the lively fifth (The Wraith of Odin). In the seventh scene (Thyri) there is duet between Thyri and Olaf, ‘The Grey Land Breaks to Lively Green’, through which they express their love. The chorus, ‘A Little Bird in the Air’, has been called highly original, “unlike anything else Elgar composed before or since”. In the epilogue, the final unaccompanied chorus As Torrents in Summer has achieved separate popularity as a partsong. As in the case of some other works by Elgar, reviews have noted the influence on King Olaf of Wagner’s music, for example, in the use of Leitmotifs; the Guardians music critic Andrew Clements refers to “echoes of Wagner” in the score.

Sea Pictures

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Elgar finished scoring his Enigma Variations in February 1899 and immediately began work on an orchestral song-cycle for the Norwich Festival that October. He composed the cycle around “Love alone will stay”, a short song for voice and piano he had written some years earlier to words by his wife, Alice. She revised the poem to give it a maritime flavour and changed the title to “In Haven (Capri)”. This became the second song in the cycle. Elgar then set four other poems to do with the sea, each by a different poet, in the manner of Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, and later favoured by Mahler. The composer’s literary taste in selecting the verse has been adversely criticised: his biographer Michael Kennedy has written, “Today these songs have only to appear in a programme for someone to castigate the words of the poems Elgar chose to set”, and adds that so far as Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sabbath Morning at Sea” and Adam Lindsay Gordon’s “The Swimmer” are concerned the criticism is justified. The music critic Andrew Farach-Colton describes these two poems as “creaky and overblown” and Roden Noel’s ‘Sea Slumber-Song’ as “excessively alliterative” and “simply mediocre”. The premiere took place on 5 October 1899 at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival with Elgar himself conducting and Clara Butt singing, dressed as a mermaid. The work was a success with the critics and the public. “The cycle went marvellously well”, Elgar reported afterwards. Programmes at the Elgar Birthplace Museum document eleven performances between the premiere and June 1901. Soloists included Butt, Crossley, Muriel Foster, Gertrude Lonsdale and Helene Valma. At the time he was composing Sea Pictures Elgar had temporarily fallen out with his usual publishers, Novello and Co, and he offered the new work to Boosey and Co, who bought the copyright for £50, with a royalty payment of 3d a copy for any of the songs published separately. They also secured the Cockaigne overture, and the Pomp and Circumstance Marches Nos. 1 and 2. Elgar’s music went out of fashion in the mid-twentieth century, and Sea Pictures fell out of the regular concert repertoire. The Record Guide, published in 1955, gives no recordings of the work among the sparse Elgar listings. The leading contralto of the post-war years, Kathleen Ferrier, did not like the work, although other singers performed individual numbers from it at five Henry Wood Promenade Concerts in the 1950s. The conductor Sir John Barbirolli continued to champion the work. He said to Kennedy, “He Elgar makes you see the sea lapping over the beach, you can almost feel the pull of the tide.” It was his recording of Sea Pictures with Janet Baker and the London Symphony Orchestra made in 1965 and coupled with the Cello Concerto with Jacqueline du Pré that reintroduced the cycle to popularity.

Serenade for Strings (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and first performances#

In 1892, Elgar had yet to achieve the public recognition that came to him by the end of the decade. His compositions did not earn him enough to support his wife and daughter; he earned most of his living conducting local musical ensembles and teaching in his native Worcestershire, while continuing to compose. The critic Ernest Newman wrote in a 1906 study of Elgar that the Serenade and the concert overture Froissart (1890) were the only two works of importance among the composer’s output before the mid 1890s: “the rest are experiments in various smaller forms – songs, pieces for piano and violin, part songs, slight pieces for small orchestra, &c”. The work was first given in a private performance in 1892 by the Worcester Ladies’ Orchestral Class, with the composer conducting. His first attempt to interest a publisher in the piece was rebuffed on the grounds that though it was “very good”, “this class of music is practically unsaleable”, but he found a publisher in 1893. The Serenade received its first public performance in Antwerp, Belgium on 21 July 1896, but was not given publicly in Britain until 1899. Two movements were played at a concert in the Grand Pump Room at Bath in January of that year; the complete work was played at a concert in York on 5 April 1899, conducted by Thomas Tertius Noble; and the composer conducted it at an all-Elgar concert in the seaside resort New Brighton on 16 July 1899. The work is dedicated to the organ builder and amateur musician Edward W. Whinfield, who had encouraged the composer in his early years.

Sevillana (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

2 flutes (second also piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 cornets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, percussions (snare drum, tambourine, bass drum, cymbals, triangle) and strings.

Structure#

Allegro moderato 3/8 G minor The work commences with a rhythmic lively 3/8 episode, characteristic of the Spanish Sevillana dance. After the brief introduction, violins expose the subject shown in excerpt 1. Excerpt 1 : \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key g \minor \time 3/8 r8 r^\markup Sul. G d\downbow \mf \ ( f!8) d4>( es8) c4>( d8!) bes( f'8.-> es16) d8( c\dim bes!) a4( bes8) g4.~ g8 Codetta dominated by dotted rhythm is followed by refined melody in G major (Excerpt 2). Excerpt 2 : \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key g \major \time 3/8 \tempo “Poco meno mosso.” r16 d\p( g fis a g) b4._\markup \italic dolce ( e,) g~ g8 a b c r c\downbow ( e) r e\downbow ( g,4.) Subsequently, cheerful episode is shown in D major (Excerpt 3). Excerpt 3 : \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key g \major \time 3/8 \partial 4 d16->\ff cis-> d-> cis-> a b a fis d b a fis d cis b-> d a->\ 8\sf ( r16 g-.) g8-. After the short development using excerpts 2 and 3, dotted rhythm reappears, followed by recapitulation of excerpt 1. In the coda, the music accelerates to con fuoco of excerpt 2, then to presto of excerpt 1, and it rushes into the end. Average performance of this work requires approximately 5 minutes.

Sospiri

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Adagio 4/4 d minor After the introduction of two bars, a melancholic melody is played by the first violin (Excerpt 1). Excerpt 1 : \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key d \minor \time 4/4 \tempo “Quasi recit.” r8\fermata e'4\upbow \p \ > a4( c8) d,2~ d8 c\ c ) c4! The other subject is displayed more passionately (Excerpt 2). Excerpt 2 : \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key d \minor \time 4/4 \partial 2.. a'8\mf ( a’) a, g'2~ g8^\markup \bold largamente f\ ( g’) f,! f'2 \p Excerpt 1 reappears, followed by dying end in the harmony of F major.

String Quartet (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The String Quartet lasts for around 25 minutes and is in three movements:

II. Piacevole (poco andante)#

The slow middle movement was a favourite of Elgar’s wife Lady Elgar, who described it as “captured sunshine”. It was played at her funeral in 1920, by Albert Sammons, W. H Reed, Lionel Tertis and Felix Salmond. It contains a quotation from Elgar’s Chanson de Matin. When he visited the composer during his final illness and after having listened to a gramophone recording of the second movement, Arthur Troyte Griffith remarked: ″Surely that is as fine as a movement by Beethoven.″ Elgar agreed: ″Yes it is, and there is something in it that has never been done before.″ When asked what he meant, Elgar merely replied: ″Nothing you would understand, merely an arrangement of notes". Brian Newbould has proposed that Elgar may have hinted at a shortened restatement of the opening theme before the coda. Presumably after the completion of the movement, he crossed the fourth bar (between bb. 263 and 264) through, but was still able to retain the original harmonisation.

Sursum corda (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The work is scored for 2 trumpets in B, 4 horns in F, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, organ, and strings

Structure#

Adagio solenne, B major, The work begins with B call of brass. Strings expose main subject shown in excerpt 1. Excerpt 1 : \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key bes \major \time 2/4 \partial 8. bes16\p \ ( d32) d4( c16) c\ After the climax, the music calms down. A new material is provided in the dialogue between organ and strings following the B call (Excerpt 2). Excerpt 2 : \relative c’ \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key bes \major \time 2/4 \tempo “Poco più mosso.” 8.\mf ^\markup (Org) ( 16 d, ) s2 8. ^\markup (Org) ( 16 f, ) \ s2 \voiceOne \acciaccatura d,8 d'8.\sf ^\markup (Vn) ( c16) bes>( a) d,( es!) s2 » Second climax, developed from excerpt 2, is followed by reappearance of excerpt 1. Brass call indicates the end of the final climax, and coda, using excerpt 1 and other materials, concludes the work with satisfying sound of tutti. Average performance of this work needs approximately 10 minutes.

Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition and première#

Nearly ten years before composing his first symphony, Elgar had been intrigued by the idea of writing a symphony to commemorate General Charles George Gordon rather as Beethoven’s Eroica was originally intended to celebrate Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1899 he wrote to his friend August Jaeger (the “Nimrod” of the Enigma Variations), “Now as to Gordon: the thing possesses me, but I can’t write it down yet.” he continued work on it, finishing the first movement. After his return to England he worked on the rest of the symphony during the summer of 1908. Elgar had abandoned the idea of a “Gordon” symphony, in favour of a wholly non-programmatic work. He had come to consider abstract music as the pinnacle of orchestral composition. In 1905 he gave a lecture on Brahms’s Symphony No. 3, in which he said that when music was simply a description of something else it was carrying a large art somewhat further than he cared for. He thought music, as a simple art, was at its best when it was simple, without description, as in the case of the Brahms symphony. The first page of the manuscript carries the title, “Symphony for Full Orchestra, Op. 55.” To the music critic Ernest Newman he wrote that the new symphony was nothing to do with Gordon, and to the composer Walford Davies he wrote, “There is no programme beyond a wide experience of human life with a great charity (love) and a massive hope in the future.” The London première followed four days later, at the Queen’s Hall, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richter. By February 1909 the New York Philharmonic Orchestra had given two more performances at Carnegie Hall and had taken the work to “some of the largest inland cities … It is doubtful whether any symphonic work has aroused so great an interest since Tchaikowsky’s Pathétique.” In the same period the work was played six times in London, under the baton of Richter, the composer, and Henry Wood. The Musical Times printed a digest of press comments on the symphony. The Daily Telegraph was quoted as saying, " T hematic beauty is abundant. It is exquisite in the adagio, and in the first and second allegros, the latter a kind of scherzo; when the rhythmic impulse, the power and the passion are at their extreme height, when the music becomes almost frenzied in its superb energy, the sense of sheer beauty is still strong." The Morning Post, wrote, “This is a work for the future, and will stand as a legacy for coming generations; in it are the loftiness and nobility that indicate a masterpiece, though its full appreciation will only be from the most serious-minded; to-day we recognise it as a possession of which to be proud.” The Evening Standard said, Here we have the true Elgar – strong, tender, simple, with a simplicity bred of inevitable expression. … The composer has written a work of rare beauty, sensibility, and humanity, a work understandable of all." The Musical Times refrained from quoting The Observer, which was the only dissenting voice among the main newspapers. It complained that the work was derivative of Mendelssohn, Brahms and Wagner, and thought the theme of the slow movement “cheap ready-made material”. It allowed, however, that “Elgar’s orchestration is so magnificently modern that the dress disguises the skeleton.” This adverse view was in contrast with the praise in The Times: " A great work of art, which is lofty in conception and sincere in expression, and which must stand as a landmark in the development of the younger school of English music." In The Manchester Guardian, Samuel Langford described the work as “sublime … the work is the noblest ever penned for instruments by an English composer.” The Times noted the influence of Wagner and Brahms: “There are characteristic reminiscences of Parsifal… and rhythmically the chief theme looks like an offspring of Brahms” but concluded “it is not only an original work, but one of the most original and most important that has been added to the stock of recent music.” The New York Times, which also detected the influence of Parsifal, and, in the finale, of Verdi’s Aida, called the symphony “a work of such importance that conductors will not lightly let it drop.”

Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition and influences#

These remarks, recounted by Elgar’s friend Charles Sanford Terry, shed light on Elgar’s creative process. Some sketches of the Symphony No. 2 date back to 1903, a letter from October of that year indicating an idea for a symphony in E major to be dedicated to his friend and conductor Hans Richter. The symphony was set aside during the composition of In the South, Symphony No. 1, and the Violin Concerto. Rejected ideas from the latter work and earlier sketches joined the material Elgar began developing in late 1910 to complete the piece. The symphony’s thematic material, like much of Elgar’s work, consists of short, closely interrelated motives which he develops via repetition, sequential techniques, and subtle cross references. Elgar also tends to emphasise a tonic-subdominant dichotomy rather than the more typical dominant; examples of this include the C minor Larghetto’s second theme in F major, and the A major beginning to the first movement’s recapitulation. The repetition of similar rhythm forms an essential part of the structural backbone of the piece, much in the manner of Brahms. Various large and small scale musical allusions, both obvious and implied, may be found throughout the work. Robert Meikle draws attention to the Mahlerian treatment of the material in the last movement, as well as likenesses to Brahms’s A German Requiem. Meikle also notes the similarities to certain aspects of Brahms’s Symphony No. 3, in particular the cyclical return of thematic material and the subdued texture which concludes both works. The motive in the first violins at rehearsal 1 of the first movement, reappearing in both the rondo and the finale, resembles both Elgar’s own so-called “Judgment” theme from The Dream of Gerontius and the Dies irae. An inverted chord appears at the conclusion of the work, and Allen Gimbel illustrates many possible links between this symphony and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, a work Elgar admired deeply. Specifically, Gimbel points out the resemblance of the motive on the last three beats of bar 2 of the first movement and the “Abgesang” of Walther’s Prize Song from Die Meistersinger, thus linking the trials of the opera’s hero to Elgar’s desire to assert his independence as an artist.

Symphony No. 3 (Elgar/Payne)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

After the death of his wife in 1920, Elgar retreated into semi-retirement, producing no large-scale works. His friend and champion Bernard Shaw held that the BBC should commission a new Elgar symphony, and with the aid of the conductor Landon Ronald he persuaded the BBC to do so. Elgar worked on the new piece during the last year of his life, jotting down short snatches of bars, as well as composing pages in full score. Realising that he would not complete the score, the dying Elgar did not destroy the sketches, and made contradictory remarks about the unfinished work. He told his friend the violinist W. H. Reed, “Don’t let anyone tinker with it”, but to his doctor he said, “If I can’t complete the Third Symphony, somebody will complete it – or write a better one”. The British composer Anthony Payne had become interested in the sketches in 1972, and in 1993 the BBC invited him to work on them for a workshop performance. In the event the performance did not take place, because of objections from the Elgar family. Payne nevertheless continued to work on the sketches, completing the Scherzo, the Adagio and the first movement of the work. The Elgar family decided to commission Payne to make an authorised version. During 1998-99 it was performed at the BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London (13 August), in Glasgow (24 September), Birmingham (25 September), Bristol (10 October/27 January), Liverpool (24 October), Manchester (17 December) and Cambridge (29 January). International performances were programmed as far afield as Brussels, Ljubljana, St Petersburg, Hong Kong and Winnipeg. The United States premiere took place on 20 November 1998 with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis, followed by performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Davis and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington with Leonard Slatkin.

The Apostles (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Roles#

The Apostles is written for a large orchestra, of typical late Romantic proportions, with the addition of a shofar (usually substituted by a more conventional instrument, such as a flugelhorn), which announces the dawn. There is a double chorus with semichorus, and six solo singers representing:

Synopsis#

The work is in two parts and seven sections, each played without a break. Words were selected by Elgar from the Bible and Apocrypha. # (Part 1) “The Calling of the Apostles”. The music begins just before dawn; the sun rises, and one by one the Apostles are chosen. # “By the Wayside”. This depicts Jesus’ teaching, and particularly evokes the Beatitudes. # “By the Sea of Galilee”. Crossing the sea is incidental; Mary Magdalene is the focus here. After a stormy night scene, her conversion is portrayed, and the scene moves to Caesarea Philippi and Capernaum. The scene is followed by a choral epilogue, “Turn ye to the stronghold,” added late in the composition of the piece. # (Part 2) “The Betrayal”. Although it follows the Passion narrative, the section is chiefly concerned with the character and motivation of Judas. He is shown as trying to maneuver Jesus so that he is forced to show his divine power and establish his kingdom. The events of the trial and condemnation happen “off-stage”, with occasional contributions by the chorus (in the roles of singers in the temple and the mob). In the end Judas gives way to despair. # “Golgotha”. The scene of the crucifixion is, in Elgar’s words, “a mere sketch”. Jesus’ dying words “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani” are declaimed by the orchestra alone; after which the chorus respond pianissimo, “Truly this was the son of God”. # “At the Sepulchre”. The story of the Resurrection is briefly told by the narrator and a chorus of angels, in a blissful, spring-like interlude. # “The Ascension”. The miracle is almost incidental; the point is that the Apostles, though here joining in praise with the angels, are about to establish the church on earth. This idea informs the final climax of the work, scored for the full forces of soloists, chorus and orchestra.

The Black Knight (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Synopsis#

Elgar’s The Black Knight tells the story of the intrusion of a mysterious stranger into a king’s court with disastrous and gruesome result. It starts with a medieval jousting competition held in honor of the feast of Pentecost: in the competition, the king’s son beats everyone in the lists until a mysterious knight arrives and challenges him, and with the sky darkening and the castle rocking, the strange knight fights and wins. Later that evening, during the banquet, the black knight returns to ask the king if he can marry his daughter and begins to dance with her, and as they dance, the little flowers in her hair mysteriously die. Later, noticing the paleness of the king’s two children, the guest offers ‘healing’ wine to them, who collapse and die soon after drinking the poison. The old king begs the knight to kill him as he has nothing left to live for, but he refuses. Music writer Diana McVeagh observes that there seems to be no moral cause or explanation for the gratuitous evil of the stranger.

The Crown of India

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The masque was first performed at the Coliseum Theatre in London on 11 March 1912. Elgar composed twelve pieces for contralto, bass, chorus and orchestra: Tableau I: The Cities of Ind *1a Introduction *1b Sacred Measure *2 – Dance of Nautch Girls *2a India greets her Cities *3 – Song (Agra): ‘Hail, Immemorial Ind!’ (The homage of Ind) *3a Entrance of Calcutta. India: ‘Welcome Calcutta!’ *3b Entrance of Delhi. Delhi: ‘Stop! That place is mine’ *4a Introduction *4b March of the Mogul Emperors. India: ‘Illustrious Emperors!’ *5 – Entrance of John Company. Calcutta: ‘Good John Company, reply’ *5a Entrance of St. George. India: ‘Calcutta, Delhi, give your quarrel pause’ *6 – Song (St. George): ‘The Rule of England’ *7 – Interlude Tableau II: Ave Imperator! *8a Introduction *8b Warriors’ Dance *9 – The Cities of Ind. India: ‘Hail Festal Hour from out the Ages drawn’ *10 – March: ‘The Crown of India’. India: ‘Incessu patuit Imperator’ *10a The Homage of Ind *11 – The Crowning of Delhi *12 – Ave Imperator!

The Dream of Gerontius

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Edward Elgar was not the first composer to think about setting John Henry Newman’s poem The Dream of Gerontius. Dvořák had considered it fifteen years earlier, and had discussions with Newman, before abandoning the idea. Elgar knew the poem well; he had owned a copy since at least 1885, and in 1889 he was given another as a wedding present. This copy contained handwritten transcriptions of extensive notes that had been made by General Gordon, and Elgar is known to have thought of the text in musical terms for several years. Throughout the 1890s, Elgar had composed several large-scale works for the regular festivals that were a key part of Britain’s musical life. In 1898, based on his growing reputation, he was asked to write a major work for the 1900 Birmingham Triennial Music Festival. He was unable to start work on setting the poem that he knew so well until the autumn of 1899, and did so only after first considering a different subject. Composition proceeded quickly. Elgar and August Jaeger, his editor at the publisher Novello, exchanged frequent, sometimes daily, letters, which show how Jaeger helped in shaping the work, and in particular the climactic depiction of the moment of judgment. By the time Elgar had completed the work and Novello had printed it, there were only three months to the premiere. The Birmingham chorus, all amateurs, struggled to master Elgar’s complex, demanding and somewhat revolutionary work. Matters were made worse by the sudden death of the chorus master Charles Swinnerton Heap and his replacement by William Stockley, an elderly musician who found the music beyond him. The conductor of the premiere, Hans Richter, received a copy of the full score only on the eve of the first orchestral rehearsal. The first performance was, famously, a near disaster. The choir could not sing the music adequately, and two of the three soloists were in poor voice. Elgar was deeply upset at the debacle, telling Jaeger, “I have allowed my heart to open once – it is now shut against every religious feeling & every soft, gentle impulse for ever.” once it had had its first London performance on 6 June 1903, at the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral. The work’s first full performance (although using the revised text) Shortly after the premiere, the German conductor and chorus master Julius Buths made a German translation of the text and arranged a successful performance in Düsseldorf on 19 December 1901. Elgar was present, and he wrote “It completely bore out my idea of the work: the chorus was very fine”. Buths presented it in Düsseldorf again on 19 May 1902 in conjunction with the Lower Rhenish Music Festival. The soloists included Muriel Foster and Elgar was again in the audience, being called to the stage twenty times to receive the audience’s applause. Buths’s festival co-director Richard Strauss was impressed enough by what he heard that at a post-concert banquet he said: “I drink to the success and welfare of the first English progressive musician, Meister Elgar”. who considered Strauss to be “the greatest genius of the age”. The strong Roman Catholicism of the work gave rise to objections in some influential British quarters; some Anglican clerics insisted that for performances in English cathedrals Elgar should modify the text to tone down the Roman Catholic references. There was no Anglican objection to Newman’s words in general: Arthur Sullivan’s setting of his “Lead, Kindly Light”, for example, was sung at Westminster Abbey in 1904. Disapproval was reserved for the doctrinal aspects of The Dream of Gerontius repugnant to Anglicans, such as Purgatory. Elgar was unable to resist the suggested bowdlerisation, and in the ten years after the premiere the work was given at the Three Choirs Festival with an expurgated text. The Dean of Gloucester refused admission to the work until 1910. This attitude lingered until the 1930s, when the Dean of Peterborough banned the work from the cathedral. Elgar was also faced with many people’s assumption that he would use the standard hymn tunes for the sections of the poem that had already been absorbed into Anglican hymn books: “Firmly I believe and truly”, and “Praise to the Holiest in the Height”. It was given three days later in Carnegie Hall, New York, with Ada Crossley, Ellison van Hoose and David Bispham, conducted by Frank Damrosch. It was performed in Sydney, in 1903. the Paris premiere was in 1906; and by 1911 the work received its Canadian premiere in Toronto under the baton of the composer. In 1997 it received its Turkish premiere by the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. In the first decades after its composition leading performers of the tenor part included Gervase Elwes and John Coates, and Louise Kirkby Lunn, Elena Gerhardt and Julia Culp were admired as the Angel. Later singers associated with the work include Muriel Foster, Clara Butt, Kathleen Ferrier, and Janet Baker as the Angel, and Heddle Nash, Steuart Wilson, Tudor Davies and Richard Lewis as Gerontius. The work has come to be generally regarded as Elgar’s finest choral composition. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians rates it as “one of his three or four finest works”, and the authors of The Record Guide, writing in 1956 when Elgar’s music was comparatively neglected, said, “Anyone who doubts the fact of Elgar’s genius should take the first opportunity of hearing The Dream of Gerontius, which remains his masterpiece, as it is his largest and perhaps most deeply felt work.” In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Michael Kennedy writes, “the work has become as popular with British choral societies as Messiah and Elijah, although its popularity overseas did not survive 1914. Many regard it as Elgar’s masterpiece. … It is unquestionably the greatest British work in the oratorio form, although Elgar was right in believing that it could not accurately be classified as oratorio or cantata.”

The Fringes of the Fleet

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Kipling’s booklet#

In 1915 Kipling was commissioned by The Daily Telegraph to write a series of six articles on his view of life in less well-known aspects of the defence of the nation on its seas. These were given the general title “The Fringes of the Fleet”, and had three sub-titles “The Auxiliaries”, “Submarines” and “Patrols”, and published between 20 November and 2 December. Each was prefaced by a short poem which did not have a title itself. Immediately afterwards the poems and essays were re-published in a booklet called “The Fringes of the Fleet”. ;1. The Auxiliaries – I The text opens with a poem The Lowestoft Boat which starts with the words “In Lowestoft a boat was laid, / Mark well what I do say!”, later given the title “The Lowestoft Boat” and a subtitle “(East Coast Patrols of the War)”. ;2. The Auxiliaries – II The text opens with a poem which starts “Dawn off the Foreland – the young flood making / Jumbled and short and steep – “, later titled “Mine Sweepers”. ;3. Submarines – I The text opens with a poem which resembles the shanty “Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish Ladies”. The original and final title, “Harwich Ladies”, was for security reasons at the time changed to “Greenwich Ladies”. ;4. Submarines – II The text opens with a very short poem (two verses of four lines) titled “Tin Fish”. The poem starts “The ships destroy us above / And ensnare us beneath.” ;5. Patrols – I The text opens with a poem entitled “A Song in Storm”, which starts with the words “Be well assured that on our side / Our challenged oceans fight.” ;6. Patrols – II The final article begins with a poem later called “The North Sea Patrol”.

The King's Way (song)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

Elgar includes tunes from the Trio (central section) of the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4, which he had composed two years earlier. The principal theme of the Trio introduces the song, and is first sung at bar 8 to the words “The newest street in London town,/ Who’ll pace it up and pace it down?”

Lyrics#

The words, by the composer’s wife Alice, employ the title with different meanings: as the name of the new street, “Kingsway”; as a royal processional avenue, the “King’s Way”; and to show the sympathy of king and queen to the poor, “our King’s way,- and our Queen’s way.”

The Kingdom (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Following The Dream of Gerontius and The Apostles, the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival commissioned Elgar to produce another large choral and orchestral work for the 1906 festival. As a schoolboy he had been impressed by his teacher’s vivid exposition of the character of the apostles; he recalled: As an adult he conceived the idea of a work depicting the Apostles as ordinary men, reacting to extraordinary events. His biographer Percy Young has commented that if Elgar had been a German he would have realised the idea in the form of but “being an Englishman he conceived a work of this magnitude according to the prescriptions of oratorio”. The critic W. J. Turner wrote, “Unlike The Dream of Gerontius, which is definitely Catholic, The Kingdom has no sectarian bias but is broadly Christian. Elgar’s ideas outgrew the confines of a single work: parts of The Kingdom were written before The Apostles, and Elgar conceived the two works as the first parts of a trilogy. The Kingdom is, in effect, its slow movement. The projected third part, The Last Judgement, was never completed, and Elgar repurposed some of his sketches for it in other scores. The general conception of The Kingdom began to take shape as early as 1882, while Elgar was organist at St George’s Church, Worcester. Themes sketched for his early choral works were used in The Apostles and The Kingdom. The music for the Lord’s Prayer at the end of The Kingdom comes from a sketch-book of 1902 between drafts for “Land of Hope and Glory” and the Op. 45 part songs.

The Light of Life (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Elgar was a largely self-taught composer with no influential patrons or sponsors and from the 1870s to the late 1890s he struggled for artistic recognition and financial success. He supplemented the modest income from his early compositions by giving violin lessons. By 1896 his compositions included the concert overture Froissart, a Serenade for Strings and The Black Knight, a symphony for chorus and orchestra completed and premiered in 1893. Elgar’s publishers, Novello and Co, agreed to publish the work but asked that asked that it be kept to less than an hour in length. The working title of the piece – – troubled them: to some in Britain a Latin title carried unwelcome suggestions of Roman Catholicism. Elgar suggested the title The Light that Shineth, but accepted Novello’s suggestion of The Light of Life.

The Music Makers (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Text#

The text of the work is the 1874 poem Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy, which Elgar set in its entirety. He had been working on the music intermittently since 1903, :We are the music makers, : And we are the dreamers of dreams, :Wandering by lone sea-breakers, : And sitting by desolate streams… Later verses celebrate the importance of the artist to his society.

First and later performances#

The Music Makers was commissioned for, and first performed at, the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival on 1 October 1912, with Muriel Foster as the soloist and the composer conducting. Performances are now rare, particularly outside England.

The Pipes of Pan

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

THE PIPES OF PAN :When the woods are gay in the time of June :: With the Chestnut flow’r and fan, :And the birds are still in the hush of noon, - ::Hark to the pipes of Pan ! :He plays on the reed that once was a maid ::Who broke from his arms and ran, :And her soul goes out to the list’ning glade - ::Hark to the pipes of Pan ! :Though you hear, come not near, ::Fearing the wood-god’s ban; :Soft and sweet, in the dim retreat, ::Hark to the pipes of Pan ! :When the sun goes down and the stars are out, ::He gathers his goat-foot clan, :And the Dryads dance with the Satyr rout; ::Hark to the pipes of Pan ! :For he pipes the dance of the happy Earth ::Ere ever the gods began, :When the woods were merry and mad with mirth - ::Hark to the pipes of Pan ! :Come not nigh, pass them by, ::Woe to the eyes that scan ! :Wild and loud to the leaping crowd, ::Hark to the pipes of Pan ! :When the armies meet on the battle field, ::And the fight is man to man, :With the gride of sword and the clash of shield - ::Hark to the pipes of Pan ! :Thro’ the madden’d shriek of the flying rear, ::Thro’ the roar of the charging van, :There skirls the tune of the God of Fear - ::Hark to the pipes of Pan ! :Ours the fray – on and slay, ::Let him escape that can ! :Ringing out in the battle shout, ::Hark to the pipes of Pan !

The River (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

THE RIVER* :River, mother of fighting men, (Rustula !) ::Sternest barrier of our land, (Rustula !) :From thy bosom we drew life : ::Ancient, honoured, mighty, grand ! ::::::::Rustula ! :Oh ! what worship had been thine, (Rustula !) ::Hadst thou held the foe-men, drowned; (Rustula !) :Flood, more precious far than wine, ::Victress, saviour, world-renowned ! ::::::::Rustula ! :Rustula ! :Like a girl before her lover, (Rustula !) ::How thou falterdst, - like a slave; - (Rustula !) :Sank and fainted, low and lower, ::When thy mission was to save. :::Coward, traitress, shameless ! ::::::::Rustula ! :On thy narrowed, niggard strand, (Rustula !) ::Despairing - now the tyrant’s hand (Rustula!) :Grips the last remnant of our land, ::Wounded and alone I stand, :::Tricked, derided, impotent ! ::::::::Rustula ! ::::::::::Pietro d’Alba. ::::::::From a Folk-Song (Eastern Europe) ::::::::::::::(Leyrisch-Turasp, 1909) NOTE-… “The river was in full flood and, had it remained so another twenty-four hours, would undoubtedly have overwhelmed the enemy : but it sank far below its normal level more rapidly than it had risen three days before.” RECORDINGS Tudor Davies (Tenor) and Madam Adami (Piano) His Master’s Voice - Recorded 14/12/1925 and released 7/1926 - (Recorded Hayes, Middlesex). *Elgar: The Collector’s Edition, CD 29 Robert Tear (tenor), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Vernon Handley (conductor) *The Songs of Edward Elgar SOMM CD 220 Neil Mackie (tenor) with Malcolm Martineau (piano), at Southlands College, London, April 1999

The Sanguine Fan

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and first performance#

Elgar’s close friend and confidante, Alice Stuart-Wortley (Lady Stuart of Wortley) asked him to compose the music for a one-act ballet to be given at a fund-raising performance in aid of war charities in March 1917. The scenario was by Ina Lowther (later the founder of the ballet course at the Royal College of Music). Her inspiration came from a decorative fan painted by Charles Conder using mostly the dark red colour sanguine used in heraldry. The fan depicted a glade with on one side the mythical figures of Echo and Pan and on the other mortals in 18th-century costume. Lowther devised a story in which the mortals dance among the trees before one of the men quarrels with his lover and, as they draw apart, he curses the god of love before becoming fascinated by Echo. Pan wakes, strikes the man dead and runs off into the trees with Echo, laughing sardonically as the dead man’s lover kneels in grief over his body. Lowther played Echo. The first performance was part of the revue Chelsea on Tiptoe at the Chelsea Palace Theatre, London on 20 March 1917, and was conducted by the composer. Afterwards he added a further number, a shepherd’s dance, which received its premiere at a second charity performance in May.

The Severn Suite

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work was commissioned by Herbert Whiteley of the National Brass Band Championship committee and head of the brass band publishers R. Smith & Company. Although it is likely that Elgar originally expected only to supply a “short score” to be orchestrated by a brass band expert, in fact Elgar ultimately performed all the orchestration himself. Henry Geehl, a brass band composer and employee of R.Smith, later claimed to have orchestrated the piece, giving a highly circumstantial account of his involvement to several newspapers. However, in 1995 the original manuscript, entirely in Elgar’s hand, resurfaced at auction — its emergence demonstrates that Geehl’s longstanding claim to have orchestrated the work was in fact fraudulent. The manuscript was subsequently acquired by the Elgar Birthplace Museum, where it now resides. The first performance was at the National Brass Band Championship at the Crystal Palace on 27 September 1930, which was won by the Foden’s Motor Works Band. They then recorded excerpts from the work. It was published by R. Smith & Co. that year. Following an invitation to record the work, the composer arranged it for symphony orchestra in 1931, and this had its first performance on 14 April 1932 with the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The full score of this version, first published by Acuta Music in 1991, was based on a handwritten publisher’s fair copy. This publication was subsequently revised following the reappearance of the composer”s original orchestral MS in 2010. Elgar’s friend Ivor Atkins suggested that the Suite should be transcribed for organ. Elgar asked Atkins to work with him on the arrangement. The resulting work was completed in 1932 and published as Elgar’s ‘Second Organ Sonata’. In 2019 Professor Stephen Arthur Allen (Rider University) prepared a new 90th Anniversary Critical Edition of the brass band score correcting all errors made by Geehl when preparing the original published version of 1930.

The Shepherd's Song

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The manuscript is dated 22 August 1892. The song was first published in 1895 by Tuckwood as Elgar’s Op. 16, No. 1, then in 1896 by Ascherberg. It was re-published in 1907 by Ascherberg, Hopwood & Crew, as the last of the Seven Lieder of Edward Elgar (with English and German words). The song may be the same as that called “Muleteer’s Song” for which permission was obtained from Barry Pain to use the words on 3 March 1894.

The Spirit of England

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The first of Binyon’s poems used by Elgar was published within a week of Britain’s entry into World War I. Its title, “The Fourth of August”, marks the date of the declaration of war on Germany. The second, “To Women”, and the third, “For the Fallen”, were written before the end of 1914, after British troops had suffered the first of many great losses during the conflict. Elgar conducted the second and third sections in Leeds in 1916. An abridged version of “For the Fallen”, called “With Proud Thanksgiving”, was sung at the unveiling of the new Cenotaph in Whitehall on 11 November 1920.

The Starlight Express

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Production#

On 9 November 1915, Sir Edward Elgar was invited by Robin Legge, music critic of The Daily Telegraph, to write the music for a children’s fantasy play to be produced at the Kingsway Theatre that Christmas. The play was The Starlight Express, an adaptation of a novel by Algernon Blackwood called A Prisoner in Fairyland, by Blackwood and Violet Pearn. The baritone and composer Clive Carey had already started his own setting, but abandoned it when Elgar was commissioned. The producer was to be Basil Dean: but since he had been called up for army service in France, he was replaced by the actress Lena Ashwell. Elgar was soon shown the script by Ashwell and had successful meetings with her and with Blackwood. The story appealed to Elgar because of its similarities to the private fantasy world of his own childhood which he had depicted in the music he wrote for “The Wand of Youth”; his first thought was to re-use that music, and he wove many reminiscences of it into the score. He worked on it enthusiastically, and in just over a month had produced over 300 pages of score – songs and incidental music – in time for the rehearsals. On 6 December the two chosen singers, the Australian-born soprano Clytie Hine and baritone Charles Mott, rehearsed with Elgar. The Starlight Express was produced by Lena Ashwell at the Kingsway Theatre in London, as one of her high-quality wartime entertainments. The production was announced in The Times, mentioning that the small orchestra pit of the theatre would be enlarged to accommodate a full orchestra. It opened on 29 December 1915. The premiere was to have been the conducted by the composer, but because Lady Elgar had suffered concussion a few days before as the result of a traffic accident, he stayed at home with her, and the conductor was the young Julius Harrison. It ran for only one month, closing on 29 January 1916. The reasons for the failure were inappropriate design of the characters and scenery by Henry Wilson (who had been chosen and his work approved by Lena Ashwell), and the difficulty Pearn had in making something theatrical with her adaptation of the book. Both Blackwood and Elgar had expressed misgivings about the design, and Blackwood had considered using his right to object and get a new artist. Blackwood objected to “this murder of my simple little Play … Arts & Crafts pretentious rubbish stitched onto your music by a silly crank who has never read the play”. Elgar agreed. This would have meant postponement of the opening. The critics who reported their view of the opening night, while praising the music and particular performers, remarked on the lack of substance to the story. The music did not deserve to be forgotten. Elgar negotiated with The Gramophone Company, and on 18 February 1916, the music was recorded on eight sides, with the songs performed by Agnes Nicholls and Charles Mott. Later that year the three Organ Grinder’s Songs were published by Elkin, with a piano accompaniment arranged by Julius Harrison.

The Swimmer (poem)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Square brackets indicate text omitted in Elgar’s song. Italics indicate text repeated in the song. “The Swimmer” With short, sharp, violent lights made vivid, To southward far as the sight can roam; Only the swirl of the surges livid, The seas that climb and the surfs that comb. Only the crag and the cliff to nor’ward, And the rocks receding, and reefs flung forward, And waifs wrecked seaward and wasted shoreward On shallows sheeted with flaming foam. A grim, grey coast and a seaboard ghastly, And shores trod seldom by feet of men -– Where the battered hull and the broken mast lie, They have lain embedded these long years ten. Love! Love! when we wander’d here together, Hand in hand! Hand in hand through the sparkling weather, From the heights and hollows of fern and heather, God surely loved us a little then. The skies were fairer and shores were firmer – The blue sea over the bright sand rolled; Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur, Sheen of silver and glamour of gold – Sheen of silver and glamour of gold - And the sunset bath’d in the gulf to lend her A garland of pinks and of purples tender, A tinge of the sun-god’s rosy splendour, A tithe of his glories manifold. Man’s works are graven, cunning, and skilful On earth, where his tabernacles are; But the sea is wanton, the sea is wilful, And who shall mend her and who shall mar ? Shall we carve success or record disaster On the bosom of her heaving alabaster ? Will her purple pulse beat fainter or faster For fallen sparrow or fallen star ? I would that with sleepy, soft embraces The sea would fold me – would find me rest, In luminous shades of her secret places, In depths where her marvels are manifest; So the earth beneath her should not discover My hidden couch – nor the heaven above her – As a strong love shielding a weary lover, I would have her shield me with shining breast. When light in the realms of space lay hidden, When life was yet in the womb of time, Ere flesh was fettered to fruits forbidden, And souls were wedded to care and crime, Was the course foreshaped for the future spirit – A burden of folly, a void of merit – That would fain the wisdom of stars inherit, And cannot fathom the seas sublime ? Under the sea or the soil (what matter ? The sea and the soil are under the sun), As in the former days in the latter The sleeping or waking is known of none. Surely the sleeper shall not awaken To griefs forgotten or joys forsaken, For the price of all things given and taken, The sum of all things done and undone. Shall we count offences or coin excuses, Or weigh with scales the soul of a man, Whom a strong hand binds and a sure hand looses, Whose light is a spark and his life a span ? The seed he sowed or the soil he cumbered, The time he served or the space he slumbered; Will it profit a man when his days are numbered, Or his deeds since the days of his life began ? One, glad because of the light, saith, ‘Shall not The righteous Judge of all the earth do right, For behold the sparrows on the house-tops fall not Save as seemeth to Him good in His sight ?’ And this man’s joy shall have no abiding Through lights departing and lives dividing, He is soon as one in the darkness hiding, One loving darkness rather than light. A little season of love and laughter, Of light and life, and pleasure and pain, And a horror of outer darkness after, And dust returneth to dust again. Then the lesser life shall be as the greater, And the lover of life shall join the hater, And the one thing cometh sooner or later, And no one knoweth the loss or gain. Love of my life ! we had lights in season – Hard to part from, harder to keep – We had strength to labour and souls to reason, And seed to scatter and fruits to reap. Though time estranges and fate disperses, We have had our loves and our loving-mercies; Though the gifts of the light in the end are curses, Yet bides the gift of the darkness – sleep ! See ! girt with tempest and winged with thunder, And clad with lightning and shod with sleet, The strong winds treading the swift waves sunder The flying rollers with frothy feet. One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade swims on The skyline, staining the green gulf crimson, A death stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun, That strikes through his stormy winding-sheet. Oh ! brave white horses ! you gather and gallop, The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins; Oh! brave white horses! you gather and gallop, The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins; Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop In your hollow backs, on your high arched manes. I would ride as never a man has ridden In your sleepy, swirling surges hidden, I would ride as never man has ridden To gulfs foreshadowed through straits forbidden, Where no light wearies and no love wanes, No love, where no love, no love wanes.

The Torch (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

THE TORCH ::Come, O my love ! :::Come, fly to me; ::All my soul :::Cries out for thee : ::Haste to thy home,- :::I long for thee, :::Faint for thee, :::Worship thee ::Only, - but Come ! Dark is the wood,- :The track’s ever lonely and gray; But joyous the blaze :That welcomes and shows thee the way. ::Come, O my love ! :::Come, fly to me : ::All my soul :::Cries out for thee ! ::Haste to thy rest,- :::I long for thee, :::Sigh for thee, :::Faint for thee; ::Come to my breast. Cold is the stream,- :The ford is a danger to thee : My heart is aflame, :As the beacon that lights thee to me. ::Come, O my love ! :::Come, fly to me ! ::All my soul :::Cries out for thee : ::Haste to thy home,- :::I long for thee, :::Faint for thee, :::Worship thee ::Only,- but Come ! ::::::::Pietro d’Alba. ::::::From a Folk-Song (Eastern Europe)

The Wand of Youth

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Elgar wrote a programme note for Fred Gaisberg of His Master’s Voice in connection with a recording of the suites in 1929. He explained that they were drawn from music he had written as a boy for family theatricals. The note opened: Throughout his life Elgar kept musical sketchbooks in which he jotted down musical ideas as they came to him, to be drawn on as wanted in future compositions. His early sketchbooks, which date back to 1867, show that in addition to the music composed for the family play, some was originally intended for chamber music, or wind quintet or the Powick Asylum dance music he wrote as a young man for the Worcester City and County Lunatic Asylum. At around the time of his fiftieth birthday, with several successes to his credit but struggling to write a symphony and frustrated at his temporary failure of inspiration, Elgar turned to his early sketchbooks. The first Wand of Youth suite was not written to commission but at the composer’s own instigation. The suite remained untitled during its composition and Elgar called it The Wand of Youth only after it was complete; it is not known why he chose that title. The two suites were published by Novello, the first in late 1907 and the second in 1908.

The Wind at Dawn

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The poem was written in 1880 by Roberts before she had met Elgar, though they were married in the year after the song was written. Roberts offered the poem to Edward when they were engaged, and such was the quality of the work that he put into it—the independent brilliant piano part, the voice in turn subtle and heroic—that it won the first prize of £5 in a competition organised by the publishers Joseph Williams. The song consequently appeared in the Magazine of Music of July 1888. Elgar in turn presented her with “Salut d’Amour” as an engagement present, and Jerrold Northrop Moore finds a resemblance in parts between the two works. It was published by Boosey & Co. in 1907, when the dedication to the German tenor Ludwig Wüllner was added. Elgar arranged the song for orchestra in 1912.

Three Bavarian Dances

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sources#

The Elgar Society website (consulted January 2007)
Percy Young: sleeve note to EMI recording ASD 2356 (1968)
Score, Elgar: Three Bavarian Dances, Joseph Williams, London, 1901

Through the Long Days

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

German words by Ed. Sachs Through the Long Days Through the long days and years What will my lov’d one be, Parted from me? Through the long days and years. Always as then she was Loveliest, brightest, best, Blessing and blest, Always as then she was. Never on earth again Shall I before her stand, Touch lip or hand Never on earth again. But, while my darling lives, Peaceful I journey on, Not quite alone, Not while my darling lives, While my darling lives. Tage und Jahre gehen Tage und Jahre geh’n, Wo wird mein Lieb wohl sein. Fremd und allein? Tage und Jahre geh’n. Jedem ein Glück sie war, Lieblich und gut und rein, Wie Sonnenschein. Jedem ein Glück sie war. Nie mehr auf dieser Welt Werde ich vor ihr steh’n, In’s Aug ihr seh’n. Nie mehr auf dieser Welt. Wandr’ ich auch weit von hier, Lebt doch ihr Bild allein Im Herzen mein. Lebt doch ihr Bild allein In dem Herzen mein. Elgar expanded the original poem, which had just the first three lines of each verse.

Une voix dans le désert

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Synopsis#

The reality of the First World War was horrific. In August 1914 Belgium had been invaded by the German army: the big cities had been destroyed, the carnage on both sides was incalculable, and King Albert and his army were driven to the banks of the river Yser in West Flanders. The Pall Mall Gazette in review of Une voix dans le désert described the scene on stage:

Recordings#

Rarely Heard Elgar & Forgotten War Music, Munich Symphony Orchestra, Douglas Bostock conducting, on ClassicO label.
Elgar: War Music Richard Pascoe (narrator), Teresa Cahill (soprano), Barry Collett (conductor), Rutland Sinfonia
The CD with the book Oh, My Horses! Elgar and the Great War has many historical recordings including Une voix dans le désert with Quand nos bourgeons se rouvriront, a 1985 recording with Alvar Lidell (narrator), Valerie Hill (soprano) and the Kensington Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leslie Head
Elgar – Bax – For the Fallen, 2016 (CD HLL7544) recording live 7 April 2016 orchestra and choir The Hallé, cond. Mark Elder, recording including “The Spirit of England”, Op. 80 (The Hallé, Elder Mark, soprano Rachel Nicholls), “Grania and Diarmid”, Op. 42 (mezzo-soprano Shaw Madeleine) and Arnold Bax In Memoriam (only for orchestra) always 2016

References#

Kennedy, Michael, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968)
Moore, Jerrold N. “Edward Elgar: A Creative Life” (Oxford University Press, 1984)

Violin Concerto (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Elgar had begun work on a violin concerto in 1890, but he was dissatisfied with it and destroyed the manuscript. Two years earlier, Kreisler had told an English newspaper: If you want to know whom I consider to be the greatest living composer, I say without hesitation Elgar… I say this to please no one; it is my own conviction… I place him on an equal footing with my idols, Beethoven and Brahms. He is of the same aristocratic family. His invention, his orchestration, his harmony, his grandeur, it is wonderful. And it is all pure, unaffected music. I wish Elgar would write something for the violin. The Royal Philharmonic Society of London formally commissioned the concerto in 1909. Elgar, despite himself being a violinist, called upon W. H. “Billy” Reed, leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, for technical advice while writing the concerto. Reed helped him with bowings, passage-work and fingerings, playing passages over and over again until Elgar was satisfied with them. So great was the impact of the concerto that Kreisler’s rival Eugène Ysaÿe spent much time with Elgar going through the work. There was great disappointment when contractual difficulties prevented Ysaÿe from playing it in London. Elgar told Ivor Atkins that he would like the nobilmente theme in the andante inscribed on his tomb. By the end of the twentieth century, when Elgar’s music was once again in the general repertoire, there were more than 20 gramophone recordings of the concerto. In 2010, the centenary year of the work, the violinist Nikolaj Znaider began a series of performances in venues including Vienna, London and New York, with the Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and conductors Valery Gergiev and Sir Colin Davis. Also in 2010 Philippe Graffin gave a performance at the Three Choirs Festival using Elgar’s original manuscript, and new recordings were issued by Znaider, Thomas Zehetmair, and Tasmin Little.

Violin Sonata (Elgar)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

*Performance by Viviane Hagner (violin) and Tatiana Goncharova (piano) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

Where Corals Lie

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

(Italicised text indicates lines repeated in the song, but not in the original poem.) The deeps have music soft and low When winds awake the airy spry, It lures me, lures me on to go And see the land where corals lie. The land where corals lie. By mount and mead, by lawn and rill, When night is deep, and moon is high, That music seeks and finds me still, And tells me where the corals lie. And tells me where the corals lie. Yes, press my eyelids close, ’tis well, Yes, press my eyelids close, ’tis well, But far the rapid fancies fly To rolling worlds of wave and shell, And all the land where corals lie. Thy lips are like a sunset glow, Thy smile is like a morning sky, Yet leave me, leave me, let me go And see the land where corals lie. The land, the land, where corals lie.