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CHAN 6652 Cover.qxd 22/5/07 4:31 pm Page 1 CHAN 6652 CHAN 6652 BOOK.qxd 22/5/07 4:33 pm Page 2 Sir Edward Elgar (1857–1934) Elgar: Overtures 1 Froissart, Op. 19 13:48 Concert Overture In his essay on Elgar’s In the South, Donald end of his life, Elgar retained an affection for Tovey, Reid Professor at Edinburgh University Froissart, his first orchestral work of real 2 Cockaigne (In London Town), Op. 40 14:18 and as canny a practical musician as he was a significance. ‘It is difficult to believe that I Concert Overture theorist, writes of conducting the overture wrote it in 1890!’ he exclaimed with typical with a student orchestra: ingenuousness to Fred Gaisberg of His 3 In the South (Alassio), Op. 50 20:32 I shall not easily forget my impression when, on Master’s Voice after recording the overture in Concert Overture first attacking [it] with considerable fear and February 1933, ‘it sounds so brilliant and expectation of its being as difficult as it is fresh.’ Incentive to write it had come in the George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) – brilliant, I found that it simply carried the form of a commission from the Worcester orchestra away with it, and seemed to play itself Festival – a faintly ironic stroke of luck, since Sir Edward Elgar at the first rehearsal. On inquiry, I found that one Elgar, born in Broadheath, had recently settled single member of the orchestra was not reading it in London. Things had at last started to look 4 Overture in D minor (1923) 5:13 at sight… I and my students had never had a up for this son of a local piano tuner. Schott from Chandos Anthem No. 2 more impressive demonstration of the enormous had published Salut d’amour in versions for TT 54:19 efficiency of Elgar’s scoring. orchestra, for violin and piano and for solo That this efficiency, self-taught and vividly piano (though, having sold the piece to the Scottish National Orchestra apparent in all four works on this disc, was publisher outright for five pounds, Elgar was quickly and unequivocally acquired from the not to reap the rewards of its popularity), and Sir Alexander Gibson beginning, is suggested by Elgar’s violinist he had married Caroline Alice Roberts, the friend W.H. Reed: daughter of a Major-General in the Bombay I do not think he ever altered or modified any Native Light Infantry. Inappropriate though single note of anything he had once set down in many considered the match on grounds of the score… Nothing in his own work ever class, religion and age (Caroline Alice was nine surprised him when he heard it coming from the years Elgar’s senior and she was, at that time, orchestra, or choir and orchestra, for the first a Protestant, which unsettled both her family time: he just knew how it would sound, and was and the Catholic Elgars), the marriage never disappointed. signalled the beginning of her lifelong and It is also suggested by the fact that to the devoted career as the woman behind a man of 2 3 CHAN 6652 BOOK.qxd 22/5/07 4:33 pm Page 4 genius. Willingly she surrendered her literary rest, however, is heady, fertile invention, as him by the University of Cambridge (‘I can’t Perhaps that ‘noble melody’ is the one heard, talent, slender as it was, to Elgar’s cause. technically challenging as any orchestral score afford to buy the robes’, bemoaned England’s pianissimo tranquillo, on unison horn and The idea for the Concert Overture was by Elgar, but music, indeed, to ‘carry the greatest living composer, on the verge of clarinet shortly before the recapitulation. Elgar suggested by a line from Keats which orchestra away with it’. refusing the honour; it was in such ways described it as a pause for thought in the peace epitomises the tales of Froissart, the Press comment following the premiere of throughout his life that the provincial of a London church, in which the bustle of the chronicler and historian, which Elgar placed at Froissart (under Elgar’s baton) was generally musician’s private sense of unworthiness rose street outside can still faintly be heard from the the top of the score: ‘When Chivalry/Lifted up favourable, and more than one critic suggested to the surface, conflicting with the assured flutes, reminding us cheekily of the solo clarinet her lance on high’. As the valiant opening that the overture was better described as the dignity of his public face); Hans Richter had theme heard earlier in the work. But even this suggests, the image was of a kind which impression of a romantic period than the been conducting his music and was flute theme has its other moods. It emerges on stirred Elgar’s imagination (cf. the flashing portrayal of any particular sequence of championing it in Germany (the vigour with strings, nobilmente, out of the first tutti of the splendour of the violin line beneath the words events. The same might be said of Cockaigne which Enigma and Gerontius were adopted overture and appears at the coda, broad and in ‘Bring me my arrows of desire’ in his and In the South. Neither tells any connected there helped to make up for the disastrous the ‘wrong’ key of E flat, before turning about orchestration of Parry’s Jerusalem), and story of action and characters; rather, each is premiere of the latter at Birmingham in to the tonic C major in the nick of time for a though, within the decade, he was to produce an expression of feeling (or soul painting, to October 1900), and the long reign of Queen resounding finish. In between, lovers stroll several works of sounder structure, the use the phrase of another distinguished Victoria had recently ended, depositing Britain through the park (a second subject on violins, grandeur of the writing throughout Froissart Professor at Edinburgh, Frederick Niecks) confidently on the threshold of the Edwardian marked pianissimo dolce) and a military band is entirely characteristic. The dismissal by inspired by the character and ambience of a era. Cockaigne reflects, then, an inner and an passes, its horns and trombones, ‘stout and some of the lyrical middle section as ‘salon’ in place, and Elgar discouraged anyone who outer optimism, a London that is vigorous but steaky’, accompanied by trilling bells and a style would have distressed and puzzled a suggested otherwise. ‘I do not think I should not hectic, serious but never downcast, and, triangle. A little later we hear a more distant composer who cared little for such put that about Strauss at the beginning – not above all, proud and warm-hearted. Elgar, who band as if through the mist. Perhaps it is the distinctions, and it is interesting to reflect that necessary’, he advised an early programme- conducted the premiere at a Royal Salvation Army, for there are softly thrumming, the poetically beautiful central episode of note writer on In the South, with its leaping, Philharmonic Society concert at the Queen’s just-audible tambourines. But the music they In the South, which excites no such rather Straussian opening. ‘Strauss puts music Hall on 20 June 1901, described the Concert play does not rejoice, and the musicians, reservations, was issued separately under the in a very low position when he suggests it Overture to Jaeger, his publisher, as ‘stout and London ghosts perhaps, fade sadly from our title In Moonlight for small orchestra. There is, must hang on some commonplace absurdity steaky’, while the meditative spirit which lies sight and hearing. in any case, more than a glimpse of the for its very life.’ deeper is suggested by an earlier letter: Cockaigne is not, however, simply a loose mature, private Elgar in this brief, poco meno Cockaigne and In the South appeared Looking at the memorials of the city’s great procession of themes. A couple of hearings mosso of Froissart, with its quiet, aspiring respectively in 1901 and 1903, on the other past and knowing well the history of its will reveal counterpoints, thematic cross- melody introduced by solo clarinet (already by side from Froissart of the double watershed in unending charity, I seemed to hear far away in the references and transformations, and a formal 1896 the characteristic shape re-appears, its Elgar’s career: the Enigma Variations (1899) dim roof [of the old Guildhall in the City of cohesion at least as sound as those of most effect deepened by context and harmony, in and The Dream of Gerontius (1900). A London] a theme, an echo of some noble German operatic overtures, and sounder than the ‘Meditation’ from The Light of Life). The Doctorate of Music had been conferred on melody… those of many. And so it is with In the South, 4 5 CHAN 6652 BOOK.qxd 22/5/07 4:33 pm Page 6 longer and, on the face of it, more episodic Wherein were cast… the men of Rome! he would be highly pleased with himself if he sessions two years later were only partially still. As Cockaigne followed Gerontius, so Thou art the garden of the world. discovered a Roman bridge or viaduct, at successful: no more than the first side was In the South followed The Apostles, which It was in Italy, with the richness of Italian Alassio or elsewhere, that excelled the remade. Investigating, we find that, enjoyed far smoother passage at its premiere popular music all around him, that Elgar suggestive power of this passage.