No. 64 – April 2018 Address for Communications
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News In this issue ... Page Page Address for Communications 2 Elgar Works 22 Keep in touch 2 LSO Discovery Day; Elgar 24 Letter from the Chairman 2 Re–dedication of the organ From the Editor 5 at St Wulstan’s 26 The 2018 Birthday Weekend 6 Elgar and Brockhampton Court 28 Proposed Amendment An Elgar Leaf Lost and Found 32 to the Constitution 9 Elgar the Imperialist? 35 Elgar Day at the Three Choirs 11 Brief Items 36 A Growing Passion for Elgar: Holst Society 38 Karl–Heinz Steffens in Scotland 12 Branch Events 40 Membership Matters 17 Dates for your Diary 44 Delius Society 21 Crossword 53 Trustees’ Annual Report T1 No. 64 – April 2018 Address for Communications Contributions for the August 2018 edition of the Elgar Society News should be e–mailed to the Editor: Peter James: [email protected] Full contact details can be found on the back cover. The latest date for submissions for the August 2018 issue is 25 June 2018. Keep in Touch Remember: you can keep up to date with the latest Elgarian news online at Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: www.twitter.com London Branch Account: https://twitter.com/ElgarLondon YouTube: www.youtube.com or, search for ‘Elgar’ or ‘Elgar Society’ or ‘Elgar Birthplace’. Letter from the Chairman Dear Friends, How events can move on between editions of the News! In time for last December’s edition, I wrote ‘the SOMM disc called The Art of the Military Band will have been launched by the time you read this, and Dutton Epoch recorded in September with the BBC Concert Orchestra under David Lloyd–Jones some of the short orchestral works featured in Volume 23 of the Elgar Complete Edition, edited by David Lloyd–Jones himself.’ The SOMM disc has come out and I have enormously enjoyed it, studded as it is with arrangements of works by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Sir Thomas Beecham and Bertram Walton O’Donnell. 2 Elgar Society News Letter from the Chairman As if The Art of the Military Band was not enough, the indefatigable Siva Oke, who owns and runs SOMM Records, has issued a further Elgar disc: Ecce Sacerdos Magnus – Elgar’s music for chorus and orchestra, performed by the Brighton Festival Chorus and BBC Concert Orchestra under Barry Wordsworth. This is a splendid recording and I thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly the eponymous first track (unknown to me) and the recording of the Benedictus of Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, which shares the opening notes with Ecce Sacerdos Magnus. Overall there is an interesting juxtaposition of the secular Spanish Serenade and Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands with the big religious works that spanned 26 increasingly successful years of the composer’s life. As I write this in very early March, the snow has just caused us to cancel a meeting of Council on 3 March and I have just approved the proofs of the booklet for the Dutton disc. I look forward to learning the release date, and I have already heard great things from those who attended the recording sessions. Mentioning the Dutton repertoire, since writing to you last I had a delightful visit to Winchester last November to talk on the shorter orchestral works to Branch colleagues In The South. I greatly enjoyed renewing friendships at the Southern Branch, particularly as I find the topic a fascinating one. The prospect of talking on this subject to further friends in the Eastern and West Midlands Branches fills me with pleasant anticipation even though my visits are not until July. That same month sees me visiting one of Winchester’s even lovelier neighbours, Salisbury, on the occasion of the Southern Cathedrals Festival when I shall introduce and supplement what I know will be fine performances of Elgar’s Violin Sonata and Piano Quintet. Mentioning Branches and chamber music in the paragraph above reminds me how much I enjoyed my visit to Leicester in February to talk on the Brinkwells music to the East Midlands Branch, and I thank them for their hospitality. Mind you, despite the warm welcome, it’s always a nervy Branch to visit when the omniscient Barry Collett is in the audience, all too aware of any faults in the narrative! The result of the consultation on defining the term of the President was an overwhelmingly favourable mandate for change; 80 out of the 84 of us who responded to the consultation were in favour of the principle. This all started with a hypothetical discussion in Council No. 64 – April 2018 3 Letter from the Chairman which led to the consultation just completed. In the consultation five people did query the need for change and among them was Sir Anthony Evans, a former Lord Justice of Appeal. One crosses a lawyer at one’s peril! Sir Anthony did helpfully point out to me that it would be appropriate to secure the endorsement of the AGM to the extension of the term of office of an incumbent President, and I was happy to concede this because it is currently the AGM that endorses a recommendation from Council to elect a President. Sir Anthony pointed out that there isn’t in fact anything in the Constitution at the moment that stipulates that the President holds office for life or would prevent a President being elected for a limited term. Very true but until now a President’s term has only been ended by death and the Council have proceeded on the basis that, if this is to change, it is appropriate for it to be spelled out. Members will now get the opportunity to vote on this matter by means of the ballot paper enclosed with this mailing. Just as my own position as Chairman and that of the Society’s other officers is subject to annual renewal of our mandate, so a five–year term, extendable for a further five years, seems reasonable for a Presidency.1 Less obvious progress was made on the Education side. Last time I reported that ‘Philip Petchey’s suggestions were duly published in the August edition of the News; Executive will consider this and any responses in October and Council in November’. The unfortunate thing was I missed the last Council meeting, having a pre–arranged trip to Brussels that had to take precedence over a trip to York where, for the first time, a Council meeting was combined with a Branch meeting. Worse, I failed to ensure that Education was on the Council agenda so, alas, the reporting mechanism has not been in action. Let’s hope there will be some progress outside of Council meetings that is reported elsewhere in this edition. In signing off, I send my best wishes to you all and look forward to seeing you in the summer. 1 See also George Smart’s item on the proposed amendment to the Constitution on page 9. 4 Elgar Society News From the Editor December’s News devoted much space to the question of musical education in schools, so it only seems appropriate now to mention Julian Lloyd Webber’s impassioned article which appeared in January’s Classical Music magazine. Apart from being our Society’s President, Julian is of course the principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, which has an outreach programme aimed at bringing music to children in the West Midlands. ‘Increasingly,’ he wrote, ‘it falls to music colleges to plug the gaps which have been created by our government’s obsession with the English Baccalaureate … which has removed all arts subjects from the core school curriculum.’ In the Far East it is the norm for children to play an instrument, not ‘the quirky add–on for rich kids which it is fast becoming in the UK’. And he concluded: ‘Music should no longer be perceived as an add–on, a luxury, the icing on the cake. Music is the cake itself – and we have never needed its sustenance more than now.’ Meanwhile in France, where culture is apparently considered to be more than a quirky add–on, a joint initiative was announced between the ministries of education and culture to introduce choirs into every school by 2019, at a cost of 20 million euros. In secondary schools two hours of optional choral singing a week were proposed. ‘We need the best of both worlds,’ said education minister Jean– Michel Blanquer, ‘effort and pleasure. Every child must be given a basic foundation, and a good general culture: these are the best tools for life.’ Rarely have Laurence Sterne’s words at the start of A Sentimental Journey seemed more appropriate: ‘They order, said I, this matter better in France.’ One matter they don’t order quite so well in France is performances of Elgar. Daniel Harding, principal conductor of the Orchestre de Paris, started to put that right when he mounted a performance of The Dream of Gerontius in Paris in December – said to be its first performance in France since 1905! The soloists were Andrew Staples (tenor), Magdalena Koená (mezzo) and John Relyea (bass). One critic noted how incomprehensible it is that a Catholic composer’s oratorio to words by a future cardinal remains an absolute rarity in Catholic France. Another regretted the unadventurousness of concert programmers in depriving French audiences of British and Scandinavian music. He found echoes of Liszt’s symphonic poems No. 64 – April 2018 5 From the Editor in the Prelude, then the emergence of ‘Debussyan post–romanticism … peppered advantageously with the completely personal style of the native of Worcestershire’. The performance is freely available to watch on the Arte website until 21 June 2018.