SIR EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934) AMANDA ROOCROFT KONRAD JARNOT REINILD MEES Complete Songs for Voice and Piano Vol
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CHANNEL CLASSICS CCS SA 27507 SIR EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934) AMANDA ROOCROFT KONRAD JARNOT REINILD MEES Complete Songs for voice and piano vol. 1 Like most composers, Sir Edward ser was one of constantly importuning Elgar’s first attempts at composition publishers to take small pieces – were with anthems and small chamber a situation that gradually changed and piano pieces, though unlike most in the 1890s as his early works for young composers of his day, strangely chorus and orchestra appeared. But Elgar wrote few songs until his various it took Elgar a long time to become love affairs from his mid-twenties established, the Enigma Variations SIR onwards. Elgar’s early life as a compo- only appearing when he was 41. EDWARD ELGAR It is doubly interesting then to (1857-1934) encounter so early a song as his setting of Edmund Waller, The Self-Banished, AMANDA ROOCROFT KONRAD JARNOT REINILD MEES which dated from 1875 when he Complete Songs was just 18. It, of course, remained for voice and piano unpublished and unknown until recently when it was printed in the vol. 1 Elgar Collected Edition. In the present selection of Elgar’s songs we move on a dozen years for something more familiar, when the thirty-year old Elgar set Queen Mary’s Song, words by Tennyson. Written in June and July 1887 it was accepted by the London publishers Osborn & Tuckwood and revised for publication in 1889. It later became familiar when included by Elgar in the volume of Seven Lieder which the now celebrated composer Sir Edward Elgar (‘Lewis Foreman Collection’) published in 1907. [3] In The Wind at Dawn the 30 year- niments making them as suitable for on account of the inferior verse that he Britten’s Moonlight in Peter Grimes. old Elgar set words written by his the respectable drawing room as the chose to set. While they were sung by Elgar’s work originated with the future wife, (‘C. Alice Roberts’ it says concert hall. Also from 1892 the Clara Butt, for whom they were writ- second song of the cycle, to words by on the printed copies), about a year wistful A Song of Autumn is perhaps ten, they still attracted a big following; his wife. This became In Haven (Capri) before they were married. Alice was chiefly of note in that it finds Elgar but later it was not until Dame Janet in Sea Pictures, but in fact dated from already a published poet and novelist, setting words by Adam Lindsay Baker’s celebrated recording with Sir two years earlier and had already if a minor one. It was the first time he Gordon, to whom he would return John Barbirolli in 1965 and the appeared in the quarterly periodical had set Alice’s verse. However, the in Sea Pictures. Victorian revival of still more recent The Dome for January 1898 as Lute music’s tremendous character and Dry Those Fair, Those Crystal Eyes years that we have been allowed to for- Song. The invention of the new songs impact was not fully revealed until he was written for a charity concert at get the once embarrassing moments in that Elgar composed in the summer of orchestrated it, in his most sumptuous London’s Royal Albert Hall in June the verse and instead relish Elgar’s glo- 1899 is informed by elements derived mature manner, in July 1912. Here we 1899 and published immediately after- rious orchestral sound, and soaringly from his wife’s song, and various have nothing less than what is, to all wards in the souvenir volume of the memorable vocal line which at times phrases and textures appear in more intents and purposes, a sixth Sea Charing Cross Charity Hospital anticipates the Angel whose music he than one of the songs, giving a unity to Picture. The song dates from May Bazaar, which explains why it was must even then have been sketching in the cycle. By 11 August the voice and 1888, Elgar sending it to the Magazine soon forgotten. Forgotten, too, because Gerontius. And now that we are more piano version was ready for Elgar to of Music which awarded it a prize within a few months Elgar produced familiar with Mahler’s songs with run through with Clara Butt, and at the and published it almost immediately. his cycle Sea Pictures Op. 37. The orchestra we are in a better position to Norwich Festival on the 5 October she However, it was not published Sea Pictures date from a significant consider favourably Elgar’s achieve- had a tremendous success before an separately until 1907, when it had a moment in his emergence as a big name ment in a comparatively new form audience reported as 1,320 though dedication to Ludwig Wüllner, the on the British musical scene. Written when the only widely sung set of seri- even The Times found the concert tenor soloist of the early German for the Norwich Festival in October ous songs with orchestra was Berlioz’s ‘absurdly long’ (it included, among performances and the London 1899, these songs come between the Les Nuits d’Été. With the advantage others, Albani in the Liebestod from premiere of The Dream of Gerontius. Enigma Variations and The Dream of of hindsight it is also worth remember- Wagner’s Tristan). The cycle has a The early songs are all noted for Gerontius in his output, and were an ing Garry Humphreys’ comment that distinguished history with piano their characteristic lyricism, though, as instant success, though later they tend- there is uncanny similarity between accompaniment, and back in London in Like to the Damask Rose of 1892, ed to be regarded – to my mind unfair- points of orchestral accompaniment in Elgar appeared at the piano to accom- very much of their time, their accompa- ly – as less than first rate Elgar, largely Sea Slumber-Song and the opening of pany Clara Butt in four of the songs. [4] [5] On 20 October they were sung by her tators have heard Sabbath Morning as indeed it was the first high profile de Possibly Elgar’s high point as a before the Queen at Balmoral. Three sung in Helen’s voice. facto festival of Elgar’s music, not least songwriter came between 1908 and years later Butt crowned her associa- Elgar was now established as a song the Coronation Ode. Aligned with 1910. Pleading, written in 1908, imme- tion with Elgar’s music by making composer and so it is natural he was Elgar’s music were the words of A. C. diately follows the First Symphony in Land of Hope and Glory all her own. asked for songs, and able to respond Benson (1862-1925), the author of the Elgar’s output, its noble wide-spanning While Elgar’s music must have been with memorable settings. In 1901 the text of Land of Hope and Glory, the melody, quintessentially Elgar, success- very striking in 1899, we should not Irish plays were all the rage and he Coronation Ode and the two songs to fully synthesising the world of art forget that the 27 year-old Clara Butt wrote There Are Seven That Pull the which Elgar gave the opus number 41 song and the drawing room ballad. was 6’ 2” in height, appeared in a stun- Thread for the play Grania and – In the Dawn and Speak, Music! In the Autumn of 1909 Elgar ning uncorsetted dress, and had an Diarmid by George Moore and W. B. completed in August. attempted to produce a song cycle exceptionally powerful voice. She thus Yeats, for which he also wrote a cele- Elgar’s ‘concert overture’ – really on words by Sir Gilbert Parker, intro- possessed all the musical and personal brated funeral march and incidental an extended symphonic poem of a duced by Elgar’s friend Alice Stuart- charisma to be the star turn despite the music. Elgar’s atmospheric song is sung holiday in Italy – In the South (Alassio) Wortley. Six songs were planned and celebrated singers of an older genera- by the druidess Laban who, norn-like, includes an interlude, Canto Popolar, given the opus number 59 but only tion who appeared in the same concert. sits spinning as the tragedy unfolds. in which a shepherd sings an imagined three completed, of which two are Recent research has suggested that Elgar could always be relied on to rise folksong, first heard on the solo viola. sung here: Oh, Soft was the Song this work is connected with Elgar’s to the demands of the theatre. In the South was first heard in 1904 and Twilight. They were first per- Worcester love for Helen Weaver, The early years of the twentieth and this was soon published separately formed by Muriel Foster at the Jaeger who ended their engagement when she century were a fruitful time for Elgar’s in a variety of instrumental arrange- memorial concert on 24 January 1910, emigrated to New Zealand in 1885. It song output and from 1901 we also ments. Elgar fitted words from the elegiac Twilight perfect for the is an interesting speculation whether, have Always and Everywhere and Shelley’s ‘An Ariette for Music’ to occasion with its sorrowing ‘adieu’ with her as his wife, Elgar would have Come, Gentle Night, the latter written make the song In Moonlight, first ostensibly to the setting sun, but all become the celebrated composer he for a Boosey Ballad Concert. Elgar was published as a supplement to the too clearly to a world lost with the did. I do not have space here to relate seen as a writer of popular songs – French magazine L’Illustration.