Elgar's Hillside

[Kuhlau]

Prompted (and a bit puzzled) by drogulus' interesting association of the Brahms Third Symphony and the Elgar Second, I've spent this evening listening again to both. What I think threw me about his remark was that he prefaced it by suggesting a natural comparison between the two composers. I've always heard them as quite distinct, so my fresh listening has been an interesting exercise.

While the Brahms Third Symphony seems perfectly balanced, beautifully proportioned (almost classically so) and brimming with memorable musical ideas, the Elgar Second teems with competitive writing for different sections in its first movement, smacks of imperialist pomp (again, in the first movement), and seems to drift - nay, meander - as though directionless for much of its 56 or so minutes. The larghetto second movement of the Elgar is quite something, but it pales fast when set beside the stunning third movement of the Brahms. At the last, I had to ask myself, 'Which symphony lingers longer in the memory?' Needless to say, the Elgar didn't win that race.

But hey, at least some people love the Elgar Second in its entirety. I'm sure a musicologist could point out lots of reasons why this work deserves our attention. However, I want it to reach me emotionally before I approach it intellectually. In which case, bring on the analysis of the Brahms ...

FK

[drogulus]

     Karl, I have a Naxos recording of The Dream of Gerontius that would induce narcolepsy in 60 sec. Then I got the Barbirolli with Lewis and Baker and Elgar suddenly became a great composer!! 

     Kuhlau, I guess Elgar will have to be put in the "imperialist pomp" subdivision of great music, complete with warning label. Sometimes even I shrink from the "elegy for the vanishing good old days" element, but I also recognize that part of the charge against Elgar here is how well he evokes these feelings. That's part of the indictment that doesn't get expressed often enough, I think. Elgar make people feel things they would rather not. Usually that's to a composer's credit, but in this case it works against him.

[Martin Lind]

Well strangely me and Fastaff aren't yet friends. But this may change. I have Naxos, but Barbirolli is still ahead.  As I have heard now Naxos should be bad.  I think Elgar is a difficult composer. The violin concerto is wonderful but a bit lengthy. But maybe this opinion will change. Wether Elgar is the greatest composer of all times or not istn't anything which I am really concerned about. He is one of the greatest which I love that's for sure.

The point is still that he is not an easy composer. He has his own style and methods. That's why he is interesting. And his symphonies are very interesting. It is the same thing like Bruckner. Bruckner is his own man and it lasts some time before you can really appreciate his symphonies. The same thing goes for Elgar.

I can't understand how one cannot love the 2nd symphony ( with Downes). The whole piece is very interesting, although the very beginning is less promising at first sight but there are moments of pure magic ( this wonderfull theme in the first set after the beginning and other things).

Today I listened to the Apostles which I of course new before. I admit sometimes he is a bit lengthy but there are wonderful moments. As a whole I like it but can't listen to it any time. And I would love to have the text.

I admit in Elgar there may be moments who are weaker. From this point of view there may be other composers, say Sibelius who appear "much more important". But the point is: Elgars music is often very noble and sometimes pure magic. The best Elgar is something beyond praise. This music is beautifull and noble and this noblesse you find rarely elsewhere and this is the point that Elgar is - at least from a certain point of view - a very great composer. But he may not be a perfect composer. I guess he is a composer with weaknesses and strengths. But the strengths are much more important than the weaknesses.

The point is: Elgar is sometimes very noble and then he is on the other hand much less so. You can disgust that or you can like it. I like it. That's simply Elgar. Brahms on the other hand could more distinguish "light wight stuff" or "serious music". So his best music has not only a nobility of content but also a nobility of style. Elgar on the other hand is more problematic but maybe also more colourfull. I like that. Though I cannot always listen to music of Edward Elgar.

[Kuhlau]

That Elgar evokes uncomfortable feelings (particularly for the British) of a dark past chapter is actually to his credit, I'd say. Even history's less desirable periods need their soundtrack, and Elgar has provided perhaps the best one of all for the British Empire.

Martin, I listened to the Downes recording this evening, but it still doesn't hit home (and this wasn't my first hearing, either). Could it be that I need Elder and the Halle Orchestra to illuminate the Second Symphony for me, as they've previously done with the First?

FK

[drogulus]

    Yes, I can imagine the day that even the British themselves will appreciate their semi-glorious past.

[karlhenning]

     Karl, I have a Naxos recording of The Dream of Gerontius that would induce narcolepsy in 60 sec. Then I got the Barbirolli with Lewis and Baker and Elgar suddenly became a great composer!! 

Oof, that sounds like another Naxos disc to actively avoid, Ernie;  that Barbirolli recording is superb.

Kuhlau:  There's rather a Brahms-ish but in the fourth movement of the Elgar First, don't you think?  Overall it's not a particularly Brahmsian work, but that one stretch . . . .

[Martin Lind]

That Elgar evokes uncomfortable feelings (particularly for the British) of a dark past chapter is actually to his credit, I'd say. Even history's less desirable periods need their soundtrack, and Elgar has provided perhaps the best one of all for the British Empire.

Frankly I don't know enough about Elgar to judge that. He may have been a patriot, but all composers of that time were somehow patriots. Tschaikovski Overture 1816, Sibelius Finlandia, Bruckners Helgoland is a bizarre thing, Debussy ran out of the hall when Mahler was played ( "sound like Schubert") and so on and so on. Maybe even Brahms did things like that, I don't know. Wagners antisemitism weighs much more than the patriotism of Elgar who lived maybe in a surrounding where he had no choice not to be a patriot. Who in the whole Europe was not a patriot at that time? As it is known today appearently "all" people ran into WW1 with complete enthusiasm - nobody understands that today.

Of course when Elgar at the back of this box should be heard for "national rejoice" ( as I do know now from my Emibox) this must provoke uncomfortable feelings between British people who don't see the British empire as "land of hope and glory". The point is that maybe there are British people for whom the British empire never has ended and they are still very proud on this empire though it sadly ended. But this is not the fault of Elgar. And you shouldn't overlook the fact that Elgar was a Catholic in England. This is something too easily overlooked today. A minority in the United Kingdom. And Catholicism is also an Empire of some kind and I am sure that this empire was very important for Elgar though he was certainly not in a situation to emphasize that fact.  For me as a Catholic Elgars Catholicism is very important to understand the man. But maybe I should once read a good biography about Elgar, I know too little. Wagners antisemitism was a personal thing not to be forgiven, Elgar on the other hand maybe simply a child of his time, something you should not judge. How would we have acted in such a surrounding? And maybe a Catholic in England must especially emphasize the fact that he is a good patriot.

The most important point: Elgars music is so much more than just a "soundtrack for the British empire", really. And that's what ultimately counts.

[Kuhlau]

The most important point: Elgars music is so much more than just a "soundtrack for the British empire", really. And that's what ultimately counts.

Rest assured, Martin, that I'm not suggesting everything from Elgar's pen constitutes such a soundtrack. Nonetheless, a good deal of his more popular works do have a seam of pomp running through them.

FK

[Kuhlau]

Kuhlau:  There's rather a Brahms-ish but in the fourth movement of the Elgar First, don't you think?  Overall it's not a particularly Brahmsian work, but that one stretch . . .

Granted, there's more than a passing similarity. Unintentional? Probably not. Elgar was an admirer of the Germanic school, as I understand things.

FK

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Frankly I don't know enough about Elgar to judge that. He may have been a patriot, but all composers of that time were somehow patriots. Tschaikovski Overture 1816, Sibelius Finlandia, Bruckners Helgoland is a bizarre thing, Debussy ran out of the hall when Mahler was played ( "sound like Schubert") and so on and so on. Maybe even Brahms did things like that, I don't know.

I know - he did. The 'Triumphlied' (Song of Triumph) in celebration of the German victory over the French in 1871. It seems to one his best choral pieces.

http://www.musicwithease.com/brahms-triumphlied.html

[Kuhlau]

Thanks for the site link, Jezetha. A handy resource.

FK

[Grazioso]

As something of an Anglophile, with a fascination for the Victorian and Edwardian eras, those supposedly negative things which Elgar's music evokes--or even celebrates--are actually draws for me God save the Queen! 

I just started digging deeper into Elgar's music recently after a very superficial acquaintance going back some years, and my more immediate impressions are not those of dated jingoism, but rather of a) how the works do indeed seem to meander (and I emphasize "seem" since I haven't yet studied them in depth) and b) how thrusting, red-blooded, and muscular his work can sound. The massive, surging sounds of his orchestra are quite striking, with all the low brass, rumbling percussion, and massed strings.

Whatever Elgar's relative worth might be, I'll say that I've been having fun exploring his oeuvre.

[Kuhlau]

The 'meandering' of Elgar puts me in mind of a similar penchant exhibited by Delius - the latter composer perhaps more prone to go a-wandering in his compositions. Lovers of Delius tell me I'm missing something significant. Maybe if I could get past the apparent waywardness of his music I'd appreciate it more. Vaulting the same hurdle in Elgar's music might also eliminate my partial resistence to some of his claimed charms.

FK

[Martin Lind]

From Wikipedia:

He himself grew to hate his 'Pomp and Circumstance' March No.1 with its popular tune (identified as 'Land of Hope and Glory' when the words were later added), which he felt had been made into a jingoistic song, not in keeping with the tragic loss of life in the war[citation needed]. This was captured in the film Elgar by Ken Russell.

Has anybody seen the film? Or does he know a good book about Elgar? I guess I will not find a German one in the library but there must be English ones.

[karlhenning]

From Wikipedia:

Well might it say "[citation needed]"; a set of marches (marches, for crumbs' sake!), bearing the title Pomp and Circumstance, and written in the first decade of the 20th century, is not a protest against the tragedy of war.

[71 dB]

To my understanding Elgar was very much anti-war. He was very sad about the war against Germany because he was a very good friend of Richard Strauss.

Ken Russell's Elgar is a mediocre TV movie of the composer. I think it gives a good picture of Elgar as a person, certainly much better than most people have of him. The DVD has very nice extra material.

I have Percy Young's Elgar O.M. book. It's old but informative.

[drogulus]

      I have to admit that I love The Music Makers, which is the greatest hits medley, especially with Janet Baker singing. He weaves together themes from the Violin Concerto, both symphonies, The Dream of Gerontius, and the Enigma Variations. It's really beautifully done.   

Has anybody seen the film? Or does he know a good book about Elgar? I guess I will not find a German one in the library but there must be English ones.

     I haven't seen the film. For books I'd look for the Michael Kennedy bio:

     

     I haven't read the Diana McVeagh book:

     

[karlhenning]

      I have to admit that I love The Music Makers, which is the greatest hits medley, especially with Janet Baker singing. He weaves together themes from the Violin Concerto, both symphonies, The Dream of Gerontius, and the Enigma Variations. It's really beautifully done.

I like it fine, too!

[knight66]

I am surprised. Even though I really do like Elgar a lot, I think that piece is a right rag-bag. It seems to have little shape, a sort of suite of greatest hits.

I note the Ken Russell film gets short shrift. Pretty much regarded as a masterpiece of its kind elsewhere.

Mike

[drogulus]

I am surprised. Even though I really do like Elgar a lot, I think that piece is a right rag-bag. It seems to have little shape, a sort of suite of greatest hits.

Mike

     I'm not making any claims for TMM. Call it kitsch if you want, and it's certainly lesser Elgar. I like it anyway, because I have bad taste.