Elgar and Berlioz Compared

[karlhenning]

Elgar and Berlioz are also notably (not to say, notoriously) allied in their conjoint non-writing of a clarinet concerto.

[lukeottevanger]

Well, J. S. Bach and Elgar are the two greatest composers imo.

I just don't get this, I don't know where it comes from. And, note, I'm not one who sneers at Elgar - I do think he is often a very fine composer indeed, though not consistently so, and his best works certainly deserve to be ranked very highly, without the qualifications that are often expressed here.

However, though I'm all for it when people find a single composer who strikes home with them particularly deeply, as indeed Janacek does for me, I find it, shall we say, more troubling when those people then glibly and without respect for generally-accepted opinion, state that their composer-of-choice is 'the greatest imo'. Yes, yes, there's a nice little qualifying 'imo' present, but nevertheless the more honest and humble thing is to accept that the adjective 'greatest' implies a general level of consent which that qualifier 'imo' cannot chime with.

To my mind, the only way that a statement such as this, which proposes something that most informed opnion would not agree with, can be acceptable is if a relatively convincing argument, on musical or aesthetic grounds, can be made that composer x could indeed be considered 'the greatest', even if only from one particualr veiwpoint. Otherwise it isn't really even an 'imo' opinion, it's no more than a general feeling you have.

[karlhenning]

Soberly and penetratingly expressed, Luke.

As marvelous, and inarguably crème-de-la-crème as the best of Elgar is — and his best is a gratifyingly substantial legacy — his work strikes me as too mixed, for me to readily rank him in 'the first tier' (and I am more liberal than many in my own admissions to the first tier, likely).

And lest ardent Elgarians take umbrage overmuch at that, I recall the story of a music professor about to discuss Mendelssohn, whom a student challenged with, "But Mendelssohn's a Grade B composer, isn't he?"

The professor paused a second, and then earnestly assured the student, "Yes, but I don't believe you understand how frightfully good that still is."

[Catison]

The professor paused a second, and then earnestly assured the student, "Yes, but I don't believe you understand how frightfully good that still is."

This always comes to mind when I see criticism of composers on this forum.  As if they could do better.

[lukeottevanger]

This always comes to mind when I see criticism of composers on this forum.  As if they could do better.

Yup. Tried it. Failed.  

Edit for reinforcement and clarification: Failed miserably!

[71 dB]

I just don't get this, I don't know where it comes from. And, note, I'm not one who sneers at Elgar - I do think he is often a very fine composer indeed, though not consistently so, and his best works certainly deserve to be ranked very highly, without the qualifications that are often expressed here.

However, though I'm all for it when people find a single composer who strikes home with them particularly deeply, as indeed Janacek does for me, I find it, shall we say, more troubling when those people then glibly and without respect for generally-accepted opinion, state that their composer-of-choice is 'the greatest imo'. Yes, yes, there's a nice little qualifying 'imo' present, but nevertheless the more honest and humble thing is to accept that the adjective 'greatest' implies a general level of consent which that qualifier 'imo' cannot chime with.

To my mind, the only way that a statement such as this, which proposes something that most informed opnion would not agree with, can be acceptable is if a relatively convincing argument, on musical or aesthetic grounds, can be made that composer x could indeed be considered 'the greatest', even if only from one particualr veiwpoint. Otherwise it isn't really even an 'imo' opinion, it's no more than a general feeling you have.

As long as it's okay to say Beethoven was the greatest composer I keep saying Elgar is the greatest imo. I don't expect everybody find Elgar the number one but I'd say he deserves to be in the Top 10 of much more people than he has been (btw, Beethoven is in my top 10). Why do I think Elgar is the greatest?

1. Sophisticated musical structures

I hear much more musical dimensions in Elgar's music than other's. Elgar must have been an increabible genius to understand the orthogonal nature of dimensions and the having the musical means to keep things orthogonal. Elgar's music is like holograms. You can listen to them from different angles and hear different things. Bach has many dimension too. Saint-Saëns show them too but Elgar is in his own league.

2. Orchestration

I love Elgar's use of instruments. His strings are juicy. The violins never "scream" unpleasantly. The woodwinds always add refreshing colours. Elgar has the craftmanship of Berlioz with Rodrigo-like colours. That's the way to go!

3. Sense of eternal and universal beauty

Elgar really tried hard to get beauty in his music and that shows! I find his music as if it has existed always and Elgar was the one who could "carve" it out from the air around us. Elgar said there is music in the air and he only need to pick it as much as he needed. Elgar was a genius of universal beauty and there will never be a time when people find his music ugly. His music sound English and late romantic because that's the world where he lived but his music is timeless.

4. Combination of joy, nobility and sadness/melancholy

I don't know how Elgar managed to combine these things so perfectly but he did. His works are like different persons having moments of joy and sadness in their lives and trying to maintain their nobility.

5. Versatility

People who are familiar with Elgar's less-known works know how versatile he was. There isn't much redundance in his works. One violin concerto. One Cello Concerto. One Violin sonata etc. When I found Elgar and started to explore his music I has stunned by how almost every work relealed a new side in his music. This composer made music for children's plays, war music to raise money for Dutch people and almost anything between.

[karlhenning]

Well, for a balance in keeping with the Theme of the Thread ::

1. Sophisticated musical structures

Sophistication in musical structures is a property of the method, not of the template.  In fact, sophistication sometimes consists in how one works with the simplest of musical means.

Berlioz's 'structural' range runs impressively from his creative adaptation of the antique Cantus Firmus technique (in any number of pieces), to the shrewd cionstruction of what is essentially a monothematic sonata-allegro design in the first movement of the Symphonie fantastique, to the brooding fugato passages which open such works as La damnation de Faust and L'enfance du Christ, to his playful habit of combining, sometimes different themes which have been exposed separately (the fifth movement of the Symphonie fantastique serving as merely the most obvious example), sometimes material of different tempi, as in Roméo et Juliette and Harold en Italie.

Who but Berlioz (in his day) would have begun a march (which is not a funeral march) piano? — a stroke of musico-architectural daring in the Rakóczy March which provoked a threat of censure in Hungary.

2. Orchestration

The flutes-&-harp trio in Part III of L'enfance du Christ;   the recitative in Part IV of La damnation de Faust with the accompaniment of four horns;  the King of Thule Ballad from the same work;  the scoring of the final numbers of Act I of Béatrice et Bénédict and Act IV of Les Troyens;  the Hostias from the Requiem . . . .

3. Sense of eternal and universal beauty

The flutes-&-harp trio in Part III of L'enfance du Christ;   the recitative in Part IV of La damnation de Faust with the accompaniment of four horns;  the King of Thule Ballad from the same work;  the scoring of the final numbers of Act I of Béatrice et Bénédict and Act IV of Les Troyens;  the Hostias from the Requiem . . . .

4. Combination of joy, nobility and sadness/melancholy

The flutes-&-harp trio in Part III of L'enfance du Christ;   the recitative in Part IV of La damnation de Faust with the accompaniment of four horns;  the King of Thule Ballad from the same work;  the scoring of the final numbers of Act I of Béatrice et Bénédict and Act IV of Les Troyens;  the Hostias from the Requiem . . . .

5. Versatility

Why, the word might have been invented for Berlioz.  Only to start with:  the five works which he numbered as his "symphonies" are each of an absolutely individual scoring and conception.  His versatility also expressed itself in the musical means he found to express himself compositionally, when he was essentially shut out from the Paris opera scene.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

The same happened to Bach. His template was rejected by the Viennese composers of classism and found again when romantic era started. This is natural in art. It takes time until the templates of geniuses are fully accepted and understood. It's time to re-evaluated Elgar. Julian Lloyd Webber knows that, I know that. All Elgarians know that in their hearts.

Well, please give credit where credit is due: Mozart (the Viennese classicist!) recognized Bach's greatness and absorbed much from his studies of Bach's music.

So not all was lost on the generation after Bach (nor his peers...Bach did have a steady job...).

More troubling to me is this idea that somehow redemption for an artist is inevitable as long as one waits a generation...or two...or three. There are too many instances where recognition is the mere publication of a work away to say this type of thing "is natural in art".

So while applying this romanticized notion of the "unrecognized greatest" to Elgar is fun, it's not the standard.

Besides, we are now a generation away and I still have problems placing Elgar alongside the Bach's, the Mozart's, etc...

Of course, that's no knock on anyone's admiration of Elgar (besides, try being a Martinu fan...now there's unrecognized!).

I don't think anyone who belongs to this small fraternity that is classical music is against any composer "making it big". And reevaluation is an everyday thing for most of us (I would think). It's just that sainthood demands a level of consensus before it's deemed legit. In Elgar's case, I hear more from his devoted followers than from his music! And and am not prepared to assign him a place amongst the stars...

...yet!!

[lukeottevanger]

Why do I think Elgar is the greatest?

1. Sophisticated musical structures
[etc.]
2. Orchestration
[etc.]
3. Sense of eternal and universal beauty
[etc.]
4. Combination of joy, nobility and sadness/melancholy
[etc.]
5. Versatility
[etc.]

This is more like what I mean - and my reducing your points themselves to 'etc.' is not meant dismissively. It's more to save space, as for the purposes of this post what you've filled in under your headings is not to the point: it is the headings themselves that I am interested in.

The reason is that, if one is making a case for a composer to be the greatest, one can only do so under certain criteria - the most obvious examples of the failure to do so which we see here are statements such as 'Bach wasn't that great - he had no sense of the theatre.' Which obviously misses the point somewhat.

So, therefore, headings = 'criteria which are important in person x's assessment of what it means to be great' (therefore, if, in my extreme case, person x truly believes that an aptitude for the theatre really is an absolute pre-requisite for 'greatness' then, indeed, Bach is not great - thankfully I've never met soeone like that, though on a board like this its only a matter of time!). What your post is therefore saying is that factors such as

Sophisticated musical structures
Orchestration
Sense of eternal and universal beauty
Combination of joy, nobility and sadness/melancholy
Versatility

are what it takes to be great. That is where I would start to dispute your contention that Elgar is the greatest - simply because my criteria are not the same as yours. I seriously don't think orchestration is really such a big issue, certainly not a greatness-defining one (if it was, there would be many evidently lesser composers higher up the greatness list than Elgar); nor do I think your third and fourth points are - they are really a similar thing anyway, one single point saying 'the things I find in Elgar's music' which are found in equal or greater measure by many other listeners in the music of countless certainly-great composers. Versatility, too, isn't everything, as we could discuss ad nauseum.

If I was to try to make an argument that my favourite composer, Janacek, be considered to be 'the greatest' - and I'm not, mind you, and I'm only doing this for illustration - I wouldn't do it by listing positive aspects of his music things in this way, though I'd love to do that on other ocassions. If trying to convince others of his greatness, I could do nothing better than head straight for his aesthetic, which I consider to be practically unique and which thus sets him apart from other composers automatically (and indeed, he has been called a composer who makes 'all others seem irrelevant'). In other words, I'd have recourse to something like the argument 'Janacek put the concern for Truth-over-Beauty at the core of his music as no other composer has done; this aesthetic appeals to me greatly, and for that reason I consider Janacek to be the greatest of composers.' If this aesthetic doesn't attract you, than maybe Janacek ain't for you (though his music is, funnily enough, always beautiful, and indeed to him ugliness and beauty are the same thing).

[71 dB]

Well, please give credit where credit is due: Mozart (the Viennese classicist!) recognized Bach's greatness and absorbed much from his studies of Bach's music.

Yes, true. Similarly Britten Sentimental Saraband is a homage to Elgar.

Besides, we are now a generation away and I still have problems placing Elgar alongside the Bach's, the Mozart's, etc...

Yes, Elgarians have a huge job making people open their eyes. And not only Elgar but many many other great but neglected composers (you mentioned Martinu).

I don't think anyone who belongs to this small fraternity that is classical music is against any composer "making it big". And reevaluation is an everyday thing for most of us (I would think). It's just that sainthood demands a level of consensus before it's deemed legit. In Elgar's case, I hear more from his devoted followers than from his music! And and am not prepared to assign him a place amongst the stars...

...yet!!

That's because you are not interested about Elgar's music, only trying to protect the status of Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. Wanna hear from "Une Voix dans le Désert"?







[/quote]

[MishaK]

1. Sophisticated musical structures
2. Orchestration
3. Sense of eternal and universal beauty
4. Combination of joy, nobility and sadness/melancholy
5. Versatility

You could make much better arguments for a number of other composers in all of these categories. The issue with Elgar, as people have been trying to explain here, is not that he isn't great, but that he isn't of consistently high caliber. The Enigma Variations, the Cello and Violin Concertos are enduring masterpieces. But The Wand of Youth Suite No.I or Starlight Express just aren't, however you look at it. Even his symphonies are uneven. Composers like Brahms or Bruckner were simply a lot more judicious in their output. You can rightfully say he's your favorite. But whatever qualifiers you add, you can't say he is the greatest of all time, because it invites the sort of questioning you are getting here. And then you're bound to be disappointed by the results because even Elgar's best simply isn't as self contained of a compositional universe as say Bach's Chaconne or Mozart's Jupiter.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

That's because you are not interested about Elgar's music, only trying to protect the status of Beethoven, Mozart and Bach.

Well, what you're proposing is a false dichotomy.

If it were my intention to merely "protect the status of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach" then I certainly wouldn't have mentioned Martinu.

So obviously composers less well known need not fear the burden of comparisons from me. The "big guns" exist but that's not to diminish the importance or enjoyability of "the little guys".

However, what you seem to be implying is that those of us who don't like Elgar are biased in some way in favor of the greats. That we're blind to the the Elgar's and such due to our misguided allegiance to the canonical composers. But that's where your argument falls flat. Elgar has simply yet to hit home with me and that's that.

That I enjoy Martinu should be proof enough that I'm willing to explore the musical hinterland and am far, far from a musical and artistic crony.

[lukeottevanger]

...what you seem to be implying is that those of us who don't like Elgar are biased in some way in favor of the greats...

or even those of us who do like him, but somehow, in the final analysis, still prefer Beethoven, Bach etc.

[71 dB]

The Enigma Variations, the Cello and Violin Concertos are enduring masterpieces. But The Wand of Youth Suite No.I or Starlight Express just aren't, however you look at it. Even his symphonies are uneven.

The Wand of Youth suites a based on music Elgar composed as a child and corrected+orchestrated much later. They are extremely lovely suites and add the versatility of the composer.

Elgar's symphonies are the best I have heard. That's not uneven to me.

Composers like Brahms or Bruckner were simply a lot more judicious in their output.

Judicious in what sense? Brahms and Bruckner wanted to be "academic" and "dry". To me that means less interesting output.

You can rightfully say he's your favorite. But whatever qualifiers you add, you can't say he is the greatest of all time, because it invites the sort of questioning you are getting here. And then you're bound to be disappointed by the results because even Elgar's best simply isn't as self contained of a compositional universe as say Bach's Chaconne or Mozart's Jupiter.

Elgar's best is the best music I have heard. It makes me almost lose my conciousness because it's so good, it causes me muscle spasms etc. Even Bach's music does not do that to me.

[lukeottevanger]

Brahms and Bruckner wanted to be "academic" and "dry".

Documentary evidence, please!

(btw, Elgar was so blown away by the Brahms Symphonies that he said he played them every night before bed....)

[71 dB]

Documentary evidence, please!

(btw, Elgar was so blown away by the Brahms Symphonies that he said he played them every night before bed....)

What evidence? I find Brahms' and Bruckner's output less interesting than Elgar's. That's that.

Brahms' symphonies are charming yet simple. They inspired me to compose my 2nd symphony 4 years ago.   

[Dancing Divertimentian]

or even those of us who do like him, but somehow, in the final analysis, still prefer Beethoven, Bach etc.

Yup.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

What evidence? I find Brahms' and Bruckner's output less interesting than Elgar's. That's that.

That's not an answer.

You make a bold claim that Brahms and Bruckner WANTED their music "academic" and "dry".

Where do you get your information?

Give sources. Not opinions.

[MishaK]

The Wand of Youth suites a based on music Elgar composed as a child and corrected+orchestrated much later. They are extremely lovely suites and add the versatility of the composer.

Note that I specifically mentioned No.I. No.II is far better. In any case, that's still no excuse for the cheese that is Starlight Express. His output is a hodgepodge of true genius and fluff.

Elgar's symphonies are the best I have heard. That's not uneven to me.

"Best" as to what variables?

Judicious in what sense? Brahms and Bruckner wanted to be "academic" and "dry". To me that means less interesting output.

That suggests that you have understood neither. Your judgments are purely esthetic expressions of taste. So far you have not shown an understanding of the compositional nature of the out put of the composers you discuss. BTW, the one time Brahms specifically wrote an "academic" work, it was anything but.

Elgar's best is the best music I have heard. It makes me almost lose my conciousness because it's so good, it causes me muscle spasms etc. Even Bach's music does not do that to me.

Look, you can keep your preferences. that's fine. If Elgar is your favorite, nobody will talk you out of it. Just don't pretend your musical tastes are based on any sort of universal truths about qualitative superiority of his work. Neither do we claim the opposite as regards our tastes. The more hyperbolic your discourse, the less believable you are.

Brahms' symphonies are charming yet simple.

Ouch! What a gross error in analytical thinking.

[lukeottevanger]

What evidence? I find Brahms' and Bruckner's output less interesting than Elgar's. That's that.

You stated, plain as day, that Brahms and Bruckner wanted to be academic and dry. That's what I want evidence of. If you find them to be so, that's your prerogative, but it does reveal a real lack of understanding, if you don't mind me saying so. Bruckner, who is a composer I don't talk about often and is no axe to grind for me, is as far from academic a symphonist as one could imagine; the beauty of Brahms is that he is the best equipped composer, in a technical sense, since Mozart and Bach, but also that he puts this wondrous technique at the sole service of the music. There is not a page in Brahms which is academic for the sake of it - it is always subservient to the expressive, musical sense, and indeed, the music could not acheive the power it does without this phenomenal ability.

Brahms' symphonies are charming yet simple.

There's nothing to say to that. It's amongst the most errant nonsense I've read on this forum...although, if they are so simple, I find it hard to see how they are also so desperately academic. No, Brahms's symphonies are ideal models of clarity - deeper, more thorough-going motivic integration than anything before (or much since - certainly not Elgar) adding its power to structures and surfaces of unrivalled poise and clear-sightedness. There is literally nothing else in the repertoire like them.