This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Edward Elgar : a composer at work; a study of his creative processes as seen through his sketches and proof corrections. Kent, Christopher John The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 10. Oct. 2021 1a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. KING'S COLLEGE. "EDWARD EDGAR A COMPOSER AT WORK. A study of his creative processes as seen through his .sketches and proof corrections." by Christopher John Kent. Volume One. Thesis submitted in July 197$ for the degree of Ph.D. Y .., + k. 4 ^ 2a Christopher John Kent. "Edward El e;a r ': A Composer at Work. A study of his creative processes as seen through his sketches and proof corrections . " Abstract of Thesis . El gar is one of the most comprehensively documented composers of recent times. His biographers have had at their disposal a wealth of correspondence, personal papers and - other archival material. Elgar's musical documents: Ms. sketches, scores and proofs, the provenance of the musicologist, have received comparatively limited scholarly attention. The thesis seeks to relate these musical documents to the creative process through an analytical and critical study of a series of transcriptions. The transcriptions are mainly collations, in a stratified format, of the different versions that Elgar made of phrases between the first outline sketches and the final fair copy. The alterations and corrections that he made at the proof stage are considered if this material has been available. A chronological approach has been adopted so that Elgar's stylistic evolution can be traced from the works of his formative years to those of his maturity. The contents of the thesis cover eight chapters, viz: I Introduction: A summary of the information about Elgar's self-tuition , his working methods and the important personal and musical influences on his style. II Juvenilia and Early Works: Fugue in G minor. Fugue in D minor for Oboe and Violin . Easy Studies and Exercises for Violin . III Organ Sonata in G. IV King Olaf. V The Dream of Gerontius . VI The Apostles, The Kingdom and The Last Judgement. VII Symphony No. 2 in E flat. VIII Symphony No. 3 in C minor. The main sources of material are sizable deposits in the British Library Department of Manuscripts and at the Elgar Birthplace. These have been supplemented by sketch-books, scores and other fragments in other libraries and private collections. As well as the published biographies and letters I have used unpublished material from Lady- El gar's diary and from the archives of Novello & Company. 3a CONTENTS. Vol. I Vol. II Preface. 4a Prefatory Note. - 1a Sources and Acknowledgements. 6a I Introduction. 1 II Juvenilia and Early Works. 34 9 III Sonata for Organ (op.28); Cadenza for C.H.Lloyd's Organ Concerto in F minor. 45 16 IV Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf (op.30). 70 31 V The Dream of Gerontius. (OP-38). 90 42 VI The Unfinished Trilogy. 144 81 VII Symphony No. 2 in E flat. (op.63). 179 109 VIII Symphony No. 3 in C minor. 196 119 Conclusion. 217 Bibliography. 229 Appendix. - 136 4a Prefa ce. Over the past two decades a steady stream of biographical and critical material devoted to Elgar has appeared. Only • Dr. Percy Young's Elgar O.M. (1955) has paid any detailed attention to the composer's sketches. These, as Dr. Young points out in his preface, are "as full of interest in their own way as those of Beethoven". Apart from the penetrating examination of the sketches for The Spanish Zady in Elgar O.M., the commentaries of W.H.Reed and Ernest Newman on the unfinished Third Symphony and Professor Brian Trowell's recent work on the Enigma Variations and Violin Concerto (as yet unpublished), little study has been devoted to Elgar's creative processes. There is a vast amount of material that awaits musicological examination, and this study can only serve as a first step towards a complete survey of Elgar's sketches. The works I have chosen follow a chronological sequence, so that the composer's stylistic development can be related to his creative processes. They have been selected both for the amount of insight they give into Elgar's working habits and for the way they show him as a "progressive conservative" and "retrospective romantic". The introductory chapter surveys and summarizes the biographical information about Elgar's self-tuition, his working methods and the relevant personal and musical influences which affected his style. Chapter II is mainly devoted to contrapuntal juvenilia; but Chapter III shows Elgar channelling his increasingly distinctive material into classical structures. King Olaf, the subject of Chapter IV, concentrates on the significance of Wagner's influence on Elgar's rapidly maturing style. The Dream of Gerontius (Chapter V), in view of its position as Elgar's supreme masterpiece and its remarkable number of sketches and proofs, is the most extended section of the study. 5a Chapter VI is devoted to The Unfinished Trilogy; it shows Elgar at work both a librettist and as composer. The Second Symphony also has a particularly full and informative series of sketches which enable us to study Elgar's mature language with its Wagnerian gestures and harmonic nuances, fully integrated into a Brahmsian symphonic structure. It is inevitable that a chronological study of Elgar's creative processes will closely reflect his personality. The works discussed in Chapters V - VII from his period of intense productiveness reflect his highly-strung temperament. As a distinct contrast to this, the final chapter on the Third Symphony emphasises the disorientation that hampered his work after the Great War and the death of Lady Elgar. The transcriptions of the sketches, with the exception of a few fragments, are contained in the second volume; the editorial procedure is explained in a short prefatory note. In the main text Elgar's rehearsal numbers have been used as 10 a means of liaison with the transcriptions: e. g. 1 indicates the tenth bar after figure one of the printed edition. The transcriptions are presented in collations, as far as possible, in chronological order one beneath another, so that the evolution of a phrase can be traced through the various strata from its first known sketch to the finished product. Shortage of space has meant that it has not always been possible to conclude each transcription with the printed version. In view of this, the reader will find it helpful to have copies of the respective scores at hand to make the final comparisons. 6a Sources and Acknowledgements. The main sources of manuscript material have been the extensive collections in the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library (Reference Division) and the Elgar Birthplace. For access to these documents I am indebted to the staff of the British Library and the Curator of the Elgar Birthplace, Mr. Jack Mackenzie. For permission to consult other smaller collections and single items, I must express my gratitude to the librarians of Birmingham Oratory, The Athenaeum, and to Dr. Watkins Shaw, Curator of the Parry Room at the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music, the University of London Libraries at Senate House and King's College, the Library Association and the Bodleian Library. Dr. Percy Young has very kindly made available to me the ten volumes of sketches left in his keeping by the late Mrs. Elgar-Blake. For a most generous supply of unpublished biographical information I must express my sincere thanks to Dr. Jerrold Northrop Moore. Mr. Richard McNutt, Mr. Raymond Monk, Mr. Oliver Neighbour and Mr. Albi Rosenthal have been equally cooperative and forthcoming in allowing me to see material in their possession. For additional financial assistance I am grateful to the University of London Central Research Fund, and to the Editorial Committee of rlusica Britannica for the bestowal of a Louise Dyer Award. Finally I must record my thanks to Professor Brian Trowell for his advice and assistance, but above all for his patience during the final stages of writing. But what I owe to my wife's help and forbearance is known only to ourselves. July 1978. Christopher Kent. CHAPT R I. Introduction . To have asked Edward Elgar the question: "How do you compose?" would have brought from him a curt rebuff, or a tirade of satirical banter, rather than a reasoned answer. Yet he did speak freely on the subject to a chosen few who genuinely understood him, and their valuable accounts enhance the plethora of written and recorded information which makes Elgar one of the most comprehensively documented composers of recent times.