Elgar and Me : North West Branch Donald Hunt & Tom Hunt, Saturday, 7 October 2017

Newsletter ”Elgar has been for me an inspiration, a pleasure and a comfort in difficult times.” That was the August 2018 summing up of a distinguished life in music by Donald Hunt, choir master, organist, festival organiser, conductor and Leeds United supporter, who held an audience of members with his fascinating reminiscences and his choice of music. Donald is a favourite of the North West Branch. Inspiration was a word that occurred more than once in Donald’s presentation, chiefly This is now the fourth year in which I have produced a branch newsletter which provides with reference to , organist of and a personal friend of a retrospective look at our activities throughout the season which has now ended. I wish to Elgar. Once when Sumsion had been delayed Donald, one of the choristers, took the choir thank each of those members who have contributed reports about our branch meetings (they are practice. When Sumsion arrived he waited outside and listened. Next morning he went to see credited at the end of their articles) and also to thank Darren Niman who has provided many of Donald’s parents and told them that their son had to make music his career. It was clear from his the photographs taken at meetings - which evoke visual memories for those of us who attended frequent references what an influence Herbert Sumsion had throughout his long life on Donald, meetings and provides additional interest for those who were not able to attend for whatever both as a mentor and a friend. reason. The newsletter also serves to provide a permanent record of our season’s activities.

A printed copy of the newsletter will be sent out to all branch members and paper copies will also be available for non-members at each of our branch meetings in the coming season. In addition, a digital (pdf file) copy of the newsletter will be made available for downloading and viewing on the North West Branch webpage of the Elgar Society’s website at elgar.org

I would also like to thank our programme secretary, Geoff Scargill, for planning the season’s Donald Hunt programme of monthly meetings, contacting and engaging speakers, arranging the venues, etc. tells us about Without all his invaluable planning and input, none of the season’s meetings would have been possible. Thanks also to other members of the branch committee who have given their support. his relationship

with The newsletter also provides a written record of our activities for the archives - so important in this digital age when so much of our communication is done by email and other digital means. Elgar’s music On that score, I would also like to mention that all of our branch meetings this season have been recorded (in digital sound only) by modern recording techniques - directly onto computer disc. Because of copyright issues (particulary with commercially recorded music included) it is not possible to make copies of the recordings for distribution. However, a single copy will be kept for archive purposes and for our internal use only.

The progranme for our forthcoming North West Branch season (October 2018 to May 2019) Asked what first made Elgar his hero, Donald said that in 1946 he was ‘blown away by the will begin on Saturday, 6th October 2018. Full details will be circulated to all members by post orchestral colouring’ when he heard for the first time the Prelude to The Kingdom at a Three along with this newsletter. Copies will also be available for non-members at branch meetings Choirs Festival. Another special Elgar memory was another occasion when he went to sit in the and are downloadable from our North West Branch webpage (see page 16 for further details.) transept of Gloucester Cathedral to hear a performance of a work that was rarely played in those days, the Cello Concerto. There was only one other person in the transept, “a pretty girl”. He I send out regular communications by group email to all those who have supplied me (or the went to sit next to her (!). She became Mrs Hunt. parent Society) with an email address. If you are not receiving my group email at intervals, it Donald spoke passionately about his seventeen years as organist and choirmaster at Leeds means that I do not have a current email address from you. The solution is in your hands! Parish Church. It was at the Leeds Festival that he showed his flair for organisation, which stood David L Jones (editor) him in good stead in the eight Three Choirs Festivals where he acted as director and conductor. 1 2 Elgar and Me (continued) : Elgar: His Contemporaries and The Music of The Great War : Donald Hunt & Tom Hunt, Saturday, 7 October 2017 Amanda Crawley & Josephine Peach, Liverpool, 4th November 2017

Our November meeting was held at the Quaker Meeting House in Liverpool – an excellent His move to become Master of Choristers and Organist in Elgar’s was venue! Our performing guest artistes were Amanda Crawley (soprano) and Josephine Peach for him a dream come true and the culmination of his career. When he took up his post (piano) who are professional musicians based in York and they provided an excellent and varied there, to his surprise he discovered that very little of Elgar’s music was being performed programme of music which was interspersed with comments that were both informative and, in his native city. He remedied that by giving over 40 performances in the next few years. at times, quite amusing. The music which they presented was written, as their title suggests, He also told some great stories. When Elgar went to his club in London, members would by Elgar and his contemporaries and some of it was written during the period of the Great War hide behind their newspapers to avoid him because he had a tendency to go on about the but, in fact, the dates of the original compositions ranged from 1872 to 1932. Many of the items state of his digestion. When he conducted Gerontius in Cape Town, Archbishop Tutu which they performed were written by British composers and included works by Butterworth, couldn’t stop jumping up and down during the Demon’s Chorus. After a performance Elgar, Goossens, Hough, MacDowell, Moeran, Quilter, Scott, Stanford and Vaughan Williams. of Verdi’s Requiem in Leeds, conducted by an energetic young Italian, he heard one To provide contrast, they also included works by Casella, Debussy, Fauré, Schullhof, Vierne, lady in the choir say to another: “He could put his boots under my bed any night.” and Villa-Lobos. The items in both halves of the programme were arranged in groups which One unusual theme that Donald returned to was the resistance in his early career by were introduced by the artistes – some contained songs with piano accompaniment and others the Church of England to Latin. As a chorister, he was taught Elgar’s Ave verum in consisted of solo piano pieces. The works performed were very diverse in character and a ‘ghastly English translation’, Jesu, Word of God. As late as 1975 though, he was sentiment which made an interesting programme and held our interest throughout. warned by someone in Yorkshire that he should not be concentrating so much on Elgar’s music. Elgar, he was told, was vulgar and furthermore he was a Roman Catholic.

Happy Birthday - and four cakes! Amanda (sop) and Josephine (pno) Geoff Hill (page turner) The works by Elgar which were included were: Like to the Damask Rose (1907), The Shepherd’s Song (1892), Queen Mary’s Song (1892), Introduction (Vesper Voluntaries, 1890), Adieu (1932), Dream Children – No. 2 (1902), Arabian Serenade (1914), Submarines (1918), Sea Slumber- Song (Sea Pictures, 1899) and In Haven (Sea Pictures, 1899). Our new branch treasurer, Geoff Hill (also an accomplished musician) provided his services as an expert page-turner for the Donald Hunt accompanies his son, Tom Hunt (baritone), in one of Elgar’s songs pianist. Michael Derbyshire proposed an excellent vote of thanks ….. Now, if I may be allowed a small personal indulgence here: I was greatly surprised when, just before the interval break, In addition to playing extracts from his own orchestral, organ and choir performances and illustrating his points on the piano, Donald accompanied his son, Tom, in several songs, our chairman, John Knowles, began to talk most mysteriously about the events of the Great War beautifully performed. in 1917 and then continued with a comment about an ‘important event’ (as he put it!) which th . took place just 20 years later, on 4 November 1937 and exactly 80 years to the date before this Asked finally which were the most satisfying of Elgar’s works that he conducted, Donald branch meeting. It was at this point that I suddenly realised that he was referring to my ‘special’ chose a performance of King Olaf in Stoke-on-Trent and (perhaps, because of his emotion) birthday and I was even more surprised when, after a short piano roll, our pianist and soprano the First Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic at his final in 1996. soloist and the entire audience broke into a rendering of Happy Birthday to You! Cake was then That recording ended a memorable afternoon. Geoff Scargill added to the usual interval tea/coffee and biscuits (without charge) Yummy! David L Jones 3 4 Elgar as remembered in Radio Interviews by those who knew him : Elgar as remembered in Radio Interviews by those who knew him : Chris Wiltshire, Saturday, 2nd December 2017 Chris Wiltshire, Saturday, 2nd December 2017 (continued)

Chris, who is a member of the East Anglia branch of the Elgar Society, informed us from the Chris played very brief extracts of what other people thought of Elgar. Compton Mackenzie start that he was not a musician but a medical doctor. However, he has a passion for Elgar’s (founder of The Gramophone who also wrote a book about tobacco!) stated that “Elgar looked music and all things connected to the great man! like a colonel” and Edith Evans (actress) “he was a darling man”.

Chris started recording material relating to Elgar and people who knew him from the early Ivor Newton (accompanist) stated that “Elgar looked like a an English squire and noted that he 1960s onwards and his talk was interspersed with some of these recording. The first extract had a military presence. He and Menuhin (aged 15) became great friends very quickly”. played was a conversation between Mary Grafton and Carice Elgar about Plas Gwyn. Elgar was had two dogs named Marco and Mina, and Hubert Leicester’s daughter-in-law very close to the Grafton family and the three sisters cared for him after Alice’s death in 1920. stated that “Elgar thought his dogs were better than Hubert’s!” She also stated that “Elgar used “Alice was very small but indomitable! She was a great help and encourager to Elgar”. the word ‘nooky’ a lot!” and that he loved his garden. Norah Crowe stated in a recording made c.1979 – 80 that she met Elgar in 1892 when she was about 12 years of age. She reflected that Elgar was very shy, always rang the doorbell at the Nurse Kathleen Harrison, who at the age of 96 recorded an interview with Radio Wyvern, exact time he was expected. She spoke about seeing him at Worcester Races and he was always said that she “went to help out and nurse Elgar. Didn’t know he was a famous man! He had an studying the race card and wore “washed, leather gloves”. She also saw him at the Three Choirs operation then spent three months at South Bank Nursing Home before going to Marl Bank Festival with Ivor Atkins and Willy Reed. where I nursed him till he died. I talked to him a lot”.

Adrian Boult and Elgar came across each other in 1908 but they fell out with each other in 1924 after a performance of Gerontius conducted by Boult with the Birmingham Orchestra. However their friendship was rekindled in the late 1920s. Chris played us a recording of Boult talking about Elgar and his love of Chemistry.

Astra Desmond (1893 – 1973) was a contralto who took up teaching later in her career (becoming Professor of Singing at the ). She made a few commercial recordings including the first recording of Vaughan Williams’ (under the baton of Boult). She also sang under the baton of Elgar. She stated that Elgar always took a keen interest in what his artistes were wearing! She reflected that Elgar had a “jerky beat”! His conducting was “full of energy, with many tempo changes – and no smoothness!”. Stewart Wilson (1889 – 1966) was a Tenor who performed Gerontius many times and in 1927 recorded extracts from Gerontius with Astra Desmond as the Angel and conducted by Elgar himself. Wilson was recorded as saying that Elgar often said “That’s a good tune”. He went on to say that Elgar never conducted pieces the same way twice! “He was a very complex character – not easy to understand”.

Agnes Nichols (married to Hamilton Harty) stated that “Elgar was very self deprecating”. She Chris Wiltshire delivers his talk - illustrated with numerous sound-bites and images reminisced about a performance of The Kingdom in Birmingham in 1907. “The performance went wonderfully. At the rehearsal Elgar said nothing but tears ran down his cheeks”. Elgar effectively became an atheist during WW1. He wanted his ashes to be scattered at the Harriet Cohen (d. 1967) was a pianist who was very close to , Bax and Severn and Team confluence but (thankfully) he was buried with Alice at Little Malvern. Sadly, Moeren. She was a friend of Roosevelt and Ramsey McDonald and in a recording spoke about no recording has survived of Edward Elgar in conversation or interview. But one gem of a quote the plight of the Jews. Chris Wiltshire had a recording of her playing the piano in Elgar’s Piano was given by Chris Wiltshire to conclude his amazing talk to the Society: Quintet. In interview she stated that the slow movement of that work was played to Elgar when “If ever you hear this little tune being whistled (from the Cello Concerto) while walking on the he was near to death. hills, don’t be frightened, it will only be me!” Geoff Hill 5 6 Defusing The Red Light : Defusing The Red Light (continued) : Andrew Keener, Saturday, 20 January 2018 Andrew Keener, Saturday, 20 January 2018

With a fascinating selection of the CDs that he has produced, Andrew illustrated some of the challenges faced by the record producer. St Augustine’s, Kilburn has an excellent acoustic, but a corner site at the junction of two busy bus routes can create problems as can other extraneous sounds such as grunts, groans and sniffs from soloists. These require careful and tactful handling. Whereas live recordings used to be just that, nowadays they tend to be an amalgam of a series of concerts and ‘patch sessions’, requiring skilful handling of the conductor (knowing what to say and when) and, especially in the USA, negotiations with the intricate rules of the Musicians Union. Inside information about bringing all this to a successful final product was illustrated with extracts from Steven Hough’s recordings of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concertos and Daniel Barenboim’s accounts of the Elgar symphonies.

Andrew Keener

is talking to us

about his

interpretation John Knowles, Branch Chairman, and North West branch members are seen here at the AGM which preceeded the afternoon’s presentation of Whilst some artists might perhaps feel overawed or even threatened when the red light goes ‘Defusing the on in the recording studio, Andrew Keener, with over 30 years’ experience as an independent record producer, views it much more as an indicator to the musicians that risks can be taken. Red Light’ After all, there is always the possibility of another take!

It was a real privilege to be given a first-hand account of what goes on in the recording studio and so appreciate much more what the man whose name we have all seen on so many CD booklets actually has to do to make sure that the final product is as good as Andrew has produced two recordings of Gerontius, both in the North West - Vernon it possibly can be. A ‘musical midwife’ is one description. The producer has to be Handley in Liverpool and Mark Elder in Manchester. Recording the Nursery Suite with reassuring but also challenging; neither overawed by, nor sycophantic towards the famous the RCM Junior Orchestra had its moments with conductor (Mark Elder) and producer but rather, realistic, honest and at times very firm. He is not an engineer: he is there to plan alternately playing good cop/bad cop to get the very best from the young players. [The the sessions, to listen avidly with the score in front of him, looking out for things that the same combination has just recorded the Nursery Suite with the Hallé – the first time any conductor may have missed because he has so many things to concentrate on whilst at work. conductor has recorded the piece twice, and not only that but with the same producer!] The producer may not be an engineer but hearing the results of how ’s Andrew Keener’s first orchestral recording was Nigel Kennedy’s first recording of the Elgar organ could become part of the finale of the Enigma Variations emanating from a session in made with Vernon Handley in Watford Town Hall in 1984. An auspicious start Glasgow was interesting to say the least. All in all, a fascinating afternoon, delivered with as it was very well received when it was first released and has received many accolades and warmth, humour and panache. It was a privilege to welcome Andrew Keener to the branch. awards over the years. John Knowles 7 8 Annual North West Branch Luncheon : A German Enthusiast’s Love of Elgar : Alma Lodge Hotel, Sunday, 25 February 2018 Wolfgang-Armin Rittmeier, Saturday, 24 March 2018

The Society’s engagement with and encouragement of the reception of Elgar and his music in Our Annual Luncheon was held at the Alma Lodge Hotel, Stockport, on Sunday, 25th February Germany in recent years has owed much to the efforts of our former chairman Geoff Scargill 2018, when 39 members and guests attended what turned out to be a memorable occasion. and the contacts which he has been able to build up in Germany. These have borne fruit in Several other people who had previously booked were, unfortunately, unable to join us because a number of highly successful trips to hear Elgar performed in the concert halls of Berlin, of recent illness. We were in the well-appointed Congress Suite at the front of the hotel which Cologne, Bamberg, Munich, etc. and have forged links with enthusiasts for his music. Not was bathed in winter sunshine through its large windows and we had set up two large, colourful least among these has been Wolfgang and so it was a particular pleasure to welcome him to the and informative displays which outlined the long history of the branch as well as our recent Branch meeting at the RNCM in March. activities over the past year. There were ample choices for each of the three courses for lunch and everyone I spoke to after we had eaten was well pleased with the delicious food and excellent service – though a few thought it was, perhaps, a little slow. However, the convivial conversation more than compensated for that.

A view of some of the tables already set for our luncheon which was held in the comfortable Congress Suite at the Alma Lodge Hotel, Stockport

Cravendale

Fae Jones is seen talking to Marie Conway in the hotel dining room on arrival. No photographs were actually taken Wolfgang is seen here with his laptop - giving his PowerPoint presentation during or after the lunch on this occasion. (photos courtesy of David Jones) His talk which he claimed to be the first he’d given in English for twenty years was so clear and precise that he was able to convey his enthusiasm with an authentic English touch. He followed After we had eaten, Geoff Scargill gave an excellent short talk about certain aspects of three of a ‘Desert Islands Discs’ approach by interweaving eight pieces of music into his life story and the musical subjects (Bernstein, Barbirolli and Elgar) which he portrayed in his frequent and interrogating himself and German culture in order to try and understand the power of Elgar’s varied talks to raise funds for the Christie Cancer Hospital here in South Manchester. It was music and its place in the musical landscape. His own starting point was the lack of accessible a beautifully crafted talk in which he intertwined amusing anecdotes with elements of pathos information on Elgar and his music in German, the received view being the familiar one of the and this was reflected also in the three short musical extracts which he used to illustrate his ‘jingoistic composer of empire’ and ‘second rank drawing room music’. The fact that he was talk: Some other Time (Bernstein); Frank Gillard, in a BBC broadcast, describing the evocative able to perceive this as based on ignorance and prejudice he put down to his early love of English and emotional scene at a Barbirolli-Hallé wartime concert in Eindhoven in 1944 - after which chivalric culture inherited from his mother, in particular with such films as ‘Ivanhoe’. Hence his everyone joined in the singing of Auld Lang Syne (Barbirolli); and a rare recording of Kathleen first musical extract from ‘The Knights of the Round Table’ film score by Miklos Rosza. He was Ferrier singing Land of Hope and Glory with Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra and Choir in born at Hildesheim near Hanover and had been a chorister at St Michael’s Abbey church and November 1951 - when the Free Trade Hall was re-opened after wartime destruction in Dec. therefore had received a sound training in the repertoire from Handel to Mendelssohn. His first 1940 by incendiary bombs (Elgar, with Ferrier and Barbirolli as a bonus!) David L Jones visit to England had followed at the age of 16 when his choir had sung at Canterbury. 9 10 A German Enthusiast’s Love of Elgar (continued) : Elgar and Walton : Wolfgang-Armin Rittmeier, Saturday, 24 March 2018 Relf Clark, Saturday, 28 April 2018

At this point we heard the larghetto from the ‘Serenade for Strings’. He had gone on to study Dr. Clark’s fascinating talk on these two towering figures of British music of the late 19th and German and English at Braunschweig University, then moved to the south of England as a early 20th centuries revealed both the similarities and the contrasts between their characters and language teacher based at Christchurch. This proved a critical move as it brought his moment of their careers throughout their lives. Elgarian epiphany with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the Winter Gardens, though he selected the recording of the Symphony No 2 by the BBC Philharmonic and Edward Downes Both men rose from humble beginnings to achieve distinction and honours as the country’s here. However, he was to find it difficult to build up his CD collection in pre-internet days, while major composers. As we know, Elgar’s father was a jobbing musician, organist and shopkeeper; Elgar was ‘terra incognita’ to the small music department at the University of Braunschweig. This somewhat similarly, Walton’s father was a singer, music teacher and organist. Elgar grew up in led him to start writing his own programme notes and reviews leading to the establishment of a Worcester and remained there for over 30 years. Walton’s childhood was spent in Oldham; both German website on Elgar (www.edwardelgar.de) to enable greater access to and understanding far from the bright lights of London. Elgar, after a basic education, became steeped in music of Elgar’s music. His choice before the tea interval was the opening nobilmente theme from the through working with his father; Walton’s father, nearly 50 years later, successfully entered his Symphony No 1 in the recording by the Dresden Staatskapelle and Colin Davis, His website son for admission to Christ Church Oxford as a chorister. So, both were professional musicians led to further contacts being made, most fruitfully with an invitation from Meinhard Saremba from their teenage years, but in very different ways. Walton from the age of ten was educated in [currently editor of the Elgar Journal] to Mainz for a meeting with the German Sullivan Society. Oxford at the heart of the musical establishment; Elgar was entirely self-taught. This led to the featuring of Elgar at the Bamberg Festival of English Music in 2015 when he was awarded the Society’s Certificate of Merit for his role in establishing the ‘Elgar Freundeskreis Walton, however, was no intellectual; he failed his Oxford examinations and left without a Deutschland’ as an affiliate of the Elgar Society with its newsletter ‘Mr Phoebus’. degree at the age of 18. Without prospects, he became a houseguest of the Sitwells, - and stayed After an extract from ‘The Music Makers’ (BBCSO and Andrew Davis) he explained that his for 15 years. There he became an enthusiastic member of the sophisticated artistic demi monde main desire was to encourage live performances all over Germany, especially in the former of London. As a natural gambler and risk-taker, it was an environment that suited him and in GDR where the English language was less familiar, and to this end he was able to put groups which he flourished. By the time he was 33 many of his most successful works had been written and ensembles in touch with the Elgar in Performance arm of the Society. Most recently, as and performed, - including Façade, Portsmouth Point, Sinfonia Concertante, Viola Concerto, some of us could testify, there had been an outstanding performance of ‘The Kingdom’ in Belshazzar’s Feast, and first Symphony. Cologne last June. His sixth choice reflected another example, the Angel’s Farewell (Catherine Wyn Rogers) from the recording of ‘’ by the Staatskapelle Berlin and Elgar by contrast was chronically risk-averse. Until the age of 22 he lived with his parents, and Daniel Barenboim. then he moved in with his sisters until, at 31, he met and married Alice Roberts. By the age of 33 his only significant composition was the Froissart overture, not performed for another ten In his final section, Wolfgang came to consider just what it was about Elgar’s music that intrigued years. He was still a jobbing musician, teacher and conductor, and his setting was the county him and why. Inevitably such reactions are personal and individual, but he highlighted Elgar’s of Worcester. As a Catholic and the son of a tradesman he felt himself, and remained, despite multi-dimensional personality, his many moods and different masks, in contrast to the more all his later fame, an outsider. Elgar and Walton both married on impulse to women who made self-confident Richard Strauss (and possibly the more boring) and then the paradox of Elgar fundamental but differing contributions to their husbands’ careers. Alice Roberts, daughter of an the product of the Victorian age but the enthusiast for the latest thing, not least in the recording Indian Army Major-General, lived with her widowed mother near Malvern, where Elgar, eight of his own music. Here we heard the composer conducting his Pomp and Circumstance March years her junior, gave her piano lessons. Despite the class divide between them, their mutual No. 4. He went on to consider the age-old question of: What does Englishness sound like in admiration led to marriage in 1889, when Alice was forty. For the next thirty years she devoted music beyond the fact that we just know a piece was composed by an Englishman? He wasn’t herself in every possible way to supporting Elgar and promoting his music, transforming him wholly convinced by the folk song argument (little evident in Elgar’s music) but thought that from a provincial music teacher to a national musical celebrity. the structure and tone of music was more influenced by the spoken language. Therefore he closed with a part song (‘How calm the evening’) in the Finzi Singers recording Walton first saw his future wife Susana at a British Council reception in her native Argentina; Wolfgang’s enthusiasm for Elgar and his music was both deeply felt and engagingly he immediately confided to a friend his intention to marry her. After their marriage in 1948 she communicated to his audience who appreciated his knowledge and his sure touch with English supported Walton’s determined wish to leave London and settle on the Italian island of Ischia. humour. Everyone was impressed by the way in which he blended his personal story with a There she devoted herself to the creation of a secluded retreat where Walton could compose in critical assessment of the man and the music. Richard Hall peace while she developed the grounds into an amazing sub-tropical garden. 11 12 Elgar and Walton (continued) : Elgar and Brinkwells : Relf Clark, Saturday, 28 April 2018 Geoff Hill, Saturday, 12 May 2018

Both men found recognition and fame, Walton in his thirties, Elgar not until his forties, but they Geoff first visited Brinkwells as a music undergraduate at the University of Newcastle-upon- reacted quite differently. Both were knighted and granted the Order of Merit. Elgar’s outward Tyne, his alma mater being accorded its full title throughout this fascinating talk. This was no image was that of the archetypal Edwardian, - moustachioed, convivial, literary, fashionably mere pedantry on Geoff’s part, but a preference for acknowledging the importance of the Tyne dressed, friend of princes and kings; but privately always uneasy, prone to depression, and to the character of this corner of north-east England. So it is no surprise that Geoff sees in haunted by financial insecurity. Walton, who effectively left home at the age of ten, was formed Brinkwells the pull of place and geography on Elgar. The story is familiar: Elgar sought solace neither by Oldham nor Oxford but by the Sitwell clan, and reflected the brittle gaiety of the in this remote part of Sussex from the carnage of war and the increasing social, financial and inter-war years. However, following his marriage in his mid-forties to the formidable and exotic above all, creative pressures which had come to haunt him. Alice acquiesced, and as so often in Susana, the Waltons withdrew to their island retreat, where he was based for the rest of this life. her life, sublimated her own needs to those of Elgar.

Geoff Hill talking about his visit to Brinkwells as a music undergraduate (photo by David Jones) The remoteness of the place, Alice’s failing health and Elgar’s recognition that the world was undergoing cataclysmic change metamorphosed in an outpouring of music which is frequently characterised as autumnal, highly personal and “magical”. It is said that Elgar was influenced by a group of withered trees in Flexham Park near Brinkwells; local legend has it that Spanish Dr Relf Clark delivering his talk on Elgar and Walton (photo courtesy of David Jones) monks were struck by lightning and turned into trees as a punishment for practising black magic. Geoff focused in particular on the Quartet and Quintet, highlighting the structural Dr. Clark’s presentation was relaxed, conversational and engaging, - the clear product of elements which reveal Elgar as a master of form, but above all, the sheer poetry of the music. extensive research and detailed preparation. His easy command of dates was particularly Brinkwells provided Elgar with a retreat from the world and left us with music of extraordinary impressive in facilitating the comparison of two careers separated by nearly half a century. emotional power. Valedictory maybe, even magical, but as so often with Elgar, music of such The provision of an informative handout also contributed to a particularly engrossing afternoon. intensity and beauty that we almost feel we glimpse his soul. Trevor Davies Michael Derbyshire 13 14 A Summer Event at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House : Elgar Society - North West Branch Programme (2018-2019) Elgar’s Piano Quintet, Saturday, 7 July 2018 Our next season of NW branch meetings will begin on Saturday, 6th October, Our NWB programme of events for the 2017-2018 season ended with a ‘summer special’ at 2.30 p.m., at the Royal Northern College of Music, in Manchester. Full on 7th July, when over 50 people attended an afternoon event at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House details of the programme of events will be circulated to all branch members in Plymouth Grove, Manchester. The main attraction was a performance of Elgar’s Piano in printed form as a full colour A4 trifold leaflet. Copies will also be available Quintet which was given in the elegant Drawing Room by members of the Pleyel Ensemble. In addition, those attending were given the opportunity to look round other areas of this for non-members at all branch meetings and the full branch programme will historically important house and were given a fascinating glimpse into the life and times of also be available for download and viewing on the webpage of the North West Elizabeth Gaskell and her family (including their time here, in Plymouth Grove) by three Branch of the Elgar Society at elgar.org. volunteers from EGH and the Gaskell Society. We heard that Alice and Edward Elgar visited the Gaskells here on one occasion and there were other connections between the two families and their circle of friends. Sir Charles Hallé gave piano lessons here to one of Elizabeth Gaskell’s daughters. Officers of the North West Branch

Patron: Dr. Joyce Kennedy

Chairman: Revd John Knowles 15 Clare Avenue, Handforth, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 3EQ [email protected] Tel: 01625 526 531

Hon. Secretary & Vice Chairman: David L Jones Willowbrook House, Spath Lane East, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire SK8 7NL [email protected] (SAQ in lower case) Tel: 0161 439 7176

Treasurer: Geoff Hill 28 Queen Anne Court, Macclesfield Rd, Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 1BY [email protected] Tel: 01625 522 629

Members of the Pleyel Ensemble performing Elgar’s Piano Quintet in the Drawing Room As space in the Drawing Room was limited, two performances of Elgar’s Piano Quintet were given during the afternoon whilst the other half of the ‘audience’ were shown around the Please send copy items: articles, photos, etc., to:- house and they also had an opportunity to partake of light refreshments in the lovely tea room. Newsletter Editor: David L. Jones The Piano Quintet was superbly performed by the five members of the Pleyel Ensemble – who are skilled professional musicians of the highest standard, and we were all entranced by their Email: [email protected] (SAQ) Telephone: 0161 439 7176 playing. Thankfully, the five musicians also certainly appeared to be enjoying themselves. Willowbrook House Spath Lane East, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire SK8 7NL It was a fitting end to a very successful North West Branch season of events. David L Jones 15 16