Elgar's Hillside

[Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich]

My local library has Elgar Sym#1 with Colin Davis/Staatskapelle Dresden. Should I go and get it?

[Kuhlau]

My local library has Elgar Sym#1 with Colin Davis/Staatskapelle Dresden. Should I go and get it?

Yes. I have that recording and it's a very spirited live performance.

FK

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Yes. I have that recording and it's a very spirited live performance.

FK

Yes yes!! Terrific performance!

[Guido]

Have just started working through the 30CD EMI box - a daunting but enjoyable task. The first thing I have listened to is the beautiful string quartet, which I am surprised that I have never heard before. Why is this not played more often? It's not as if Elgar is particularly neglected in general here in lil' ol' England.

[Kullervo]

Found this interesting quote on Elgar, from a surprising source:

Also this year you talked of Elgar, and the newspapers said that he was ill.

If you see him will you present my constant pleasure in his music, whether human rendered or from my box? Nobody who makes sounds gets so inside my defences as he does, with his 2nd Symphony and Violin Concerto. Say that if the 3rd Symphony has gone forward from those, it will be a thrill to ever so many of us. He was inclined to grumble that the rewards of making music were not big, in the bank-book sense; but by now he should be seeing that bank-books will not interest him much longer. I feel more and more, as I grow older, the inclination to throw everything away and live on air. We all allow ourselves to need too much.

—T.E. Lawrence to Mrs Charlotte Shaw, August 23, 1933

[karlhenning]

I feel more and more, as I grow older, the inclination to throw everything away and live on air. We all allow ourselves to need too much.

How lovely!  Thank you for this.

[Kullervo]

Yes, that line struck a chord with me as well. 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Great quote from "Lawrence of Arabia" there, Corey. My belated thanks!

[Sergeant Rock]

Yes, that line struck a chord with me as well. 

You're far too young to feel that way, Corey! ...unless you have thoughts of taking holy orders 

But a sincere thanks from this old fart for sharing that quote. It reminds me too what we lost when Elgar died. From what we know of it, his Third would have been a glorious coda to a great career.

Sarge

[Kullervo]

You're far too young to feel that way, Corey! ...unless you have thoughts of taking holy orders 

But a sincere thanks from this old fart for sharing that quote. It reminds me too what we lost when Elgar died. From what we know of it, his Third would have been a glorious coda to a great career.

Sarge

Well, as I'm planning a big move later this year, and looking around at my things to decide what I should sell or give away, that epigram seemed particularly suited to my mindset at this moment. Our possessions really do weigh us down.

[Sergeant Rock]

Well, as I'm planning a big move later this year, and looking around at my things to decide what I should sell or give away, that epigram seemed particularly suited to my mindset at this moment. Our possessions really do weigh us down.

Understood. In my army career I moved eleven times. Things had to be discarded. Still, it was never easy.

Sarge

[Kuhlau]

Our possessions really do weigh us down.

Wasn't it Confucius who said, 'The bird with golden wings cannot fly'?

FK

[Martin Lind]

Listened alot to Lux Christ during the last time. An early work before the "big leap" of the Enigma variations. I listened to it 4 or 5 times. I can't make up my mind exactly. There are splendid things in this score certainly. The beginning is absolutely marvelous, the whole "meditation" and this great idea at the end of it. "Dream of Gerontius" is certainly more perfect - but as a whole Lux Christi is certainly not bad, even if some things may be a bit lengthy. But it is certainly a work I like - I was not at all so enthusiastic for Cataractus which I didn't like at all although it is also an early work.

Such a pity that I still don't have the texts.

[71 dB]

Listened alot to Lux Christ during the last time. An early work before the "big leap" of the Enigma variations. I listened to it 4 or 5 times. I can't make up my mind exactly. There are splendid things in this score certainly. The beginning is absolutely marvelous, the whole "meditation" and this great idea at the end of it. "Dream of Gerontius" is certainly more perfect - but as a whole Lux Christi is certainly not bad, even if some things may be a bit lengthy. But it is certainly a work I like - I was not at all so enthusiastic for Cataractus which I didn't like at all although it is also an early work.

Such a pity that I still don't have the texts.

Sorry to hear you don't like Caractacus Martin.

[Martin Lind]

Sorry to hear you don't like Caractacus Martin.

This may change. You should be glad that I liked Lux Christi, which is an early less well known work. This may change my attitude to Caractacus. I have listened to Caractacus only one time. To Lux Christi I listened now several times. Lux Christi was more intriguing first of all. The ending of the meditation in Lux Christi is magical, but the whole piece is. I am still not completely convinced by Lux Christi, but even this may change. So I will one time again listen to Caractacus.

The point is you cannot apreciate these scores so easy. There are less "big tunes" but more "magical moments". This is my impression. Do you think this could be a problem in these scores? But I still miss the texts, it is really stupid that I can't get the texts.

[71 dB]

This may change. You should be glad that I liked Lux Christi, which is an early less well known work. This may change my attitude to Caractacus. I have listened to Caractacus only one time. To Lux Christi I listened now several times. Lux Christi was more intriguing first of all. The ending of the meditation in Lux Christi is magical, but the whole piece is. I am still not completely convinced by Lux Christi, but even this may change. So I will one time again listen to Caractacus.

The point is you cannot apreciate these scores so easy. There are less "big tunes" but more "magical moments". This is my impression. Do you think this could be a problem in these scores? But I still miss the texts, it is really stupid that I can't get the texts.

Of course I'm happy you like The Light of Life, Op. 29. 

Many seems to complain that Elgar's oratorios are boring and that nothing happens to them. Personally I find them very rich but the the details are subtle. One has to "get lost" inside the textures of the music and notice all the small things, not only notes but timbral effects too. The music is spiritual and needs the "co-operation" of the listener. The result is rewarding. Good luck with Caractacus!

[drogulus]

     This is the first I've heard mention of Lux Christi. Now I'm intrigued.

     Caractacus has some problems for me which mostly can be reduced to the expression corny, and the word jingo also occurs. I'm usually fairly tolerant of the bluster of bygone days (do we really have to relitigate the Boer War?). Still, this piece does produce a cringe now and then. Perhaps even more damaging is all the "all hail"-ing that goes on. Why can't Elgar set music to a worthy text? This is a composer who is on the doorstep of equality with Mahler and Strauss but his texts are positively childish by comparison.* I say this as an unabashed Elgar lover. Outside of the notes themselves he seems to have been a pretty oblivious fellow.


     _{* Or, if you like, by comparison with Vaughan Williams. And don't even think of comparing Elgar with Finzi!}

[71 dB]

Why can't Elgar set music to a worthy text?

In my opinion Elgar is about setting texts to worthy music rather than the other way around. I don't care about the text. I care about the music. I don't even know what is worthy text and what is not. Literature is not my thing, "vibrational fields" are.

[knight66]

There is an enormous disparity here between say Britten and Elgar. The younger composer had marvelous taste in what he set and clearly he was often inspired by the words to write his music. With Elgar it is hit and miss, with a lot of poor texts. He seemed to make a decision to write and then texts were constructed, without all the care that such as Strauss would lavish on getting the words he really wanted. Elgar tended to pretty well take what he got. His other way of writing vocal music was to use an existing text; Sea Pictures, not good poetry, but written partly for sentimental reasons. The music means the work is popular, but he was no word setter on a par with the likes of Britten.

I think that because he had a relatively undistinguished taste in poetry, he hobbled pieces such as The Kingdom and Caractacus. The libretti are rather like the lesser Mendelssohn oratorios such as St Paul which follow in the line of Handel libretti; and the shape of these libretti to an extent shape the music. Had he a partnership with an English Hofmannsthal, those Elgar pieces might have shone more brightly. Some hate the libretto for Gerontius; but that free form text without the echoes of Handel Orotario, without lots of repitition, brought out the symphonic inspiration that provided a much more interesting and rich work. I think the ABA aria and the chorus/aria/chorus shapes were a constraint on his imagination.

Indeed, in this sense of an ear for poetry he was penny plain, accepting the obvious and to an extent the popular.There are the occasional gems, but also a lot of tosh to endure for the sake of the music. But the great pieces really are great.

Mike

[Kuhlau]

Very well put, Mike.

Certainly, Elgar was no Britten (or Finzi) when it came to word setting. He was more of a big tunes man, and he wrote some stirring music, indeed. A work like Sea Pictures seems to succeed almost in spite of itself - largely because the music is better than the words.

Where I think Elgar was stronger was in his settings of part-songs. The two Op. 71 songs are particularly deftly handled. I'd have liked to have heard more of this kind of smaller-scale word setting from Elgar.

FK