Elgar's Hillside

Started by Mark, September 20, 2007, 02:03:01 AM

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drogulus

#500
Quote from: 71 dB on March 21, 2010, 09:30:50 AM
Jingoism in Elgar's music is a misunderstanding.

      Wellllllll.....not entirely. It's there in the texts. The unfortunate thing in my view is that we now have an association of the sound of Elgar with the sentiments of some of his ceremonial and nationalistic works. Whether you see this as unfair or inevitable or whatever it plainly ruins his music for some listeners. Or, to correct the balance just a bit, ruins some listeners for his music, those who are so politics-ridden that it never occurs to them to just enjoy the damn music and leave politics out for a little while. If I can prize The Dream of Gerontius above almost any Elgar save the 2nd Symphony it ought to be possible for anyone to do the same. Yet this is not the case. Politics is a harsh mistress, I guess.

     On the bright side , the twinning of Elgar's subjects with the sound of his music is a measure of his genius. A less gifted composer could not have invented the sound of an entire worldview as seen in retrospect, whether this sound has ruinous implications or not for Elgar's legacy with some listeners.

     This article from discusses the imperialism issue and how it hurts the poor heads of the modern British music lover:

    The true story of Edward Elgar, the man who gave us hope and glory.

     Ya gotta love this:

     Elgar was an imperialist with a conviction in the unique destiny of the British Empire. But, rather like Wagner's antiSemitism, this element of Elgar's make-up has long been swept under the carpet by both critics and acolytes. This is misguided, since an appreciation of Elgar's imperialism allows for a far richer understanding of his work.

      We're supposed to analogize Elgarian (uh, sorry..) national feeling to Wagnerian antisemitism. On whose say-so? Without any supporting argument, not even in passing? Then the reviewer does a neat "and yet" pirouette! First the mugging, then the even-handed appraisal. Pretty slick, eh?

     It's probably time to let the issue rest. Elgar will be back, because attitudes die out along with those who plague us with them. Then we can rearm and conquer the world, banners flying and a jingoistic song in our hearts.
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Scarpia

Quote from: knight on March 21, 2010, 11:14:37 AM
I have the 1st Sym. with Davis and the LSO. The first movement with its big tune is simply too slow. Overall the timing of the movement is not out of the way, but that famous marching melody is in stasis. Apart from that there is a lot to enjoy, especially the fiery final movement, the playing of the orchestra is especially good.

Modern engineering and an excellent performance: Elder with Barbirolli's old orchestra. It is paired with the overture, 'In th South'.

Mike

Thanks for you comments.  I am currently leaning towards this set:



It sounds awesome in the excerpts, and I found a marketplace seller on amazon.co.uk selling a used copy for 8 pounds, plus 3 pounds shipping.  Since the Land Of Hope and Glory's currency has slipped a bit lately, this amounts to 16 bucks for so for 5 discs.   :D :(

knight66

Sounds like a great deal. I don't know those recordings, but Andrew Davis is usually more than a safe pair of hands.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

DavidRoss

#503
Quote from: Scarpia on March 21, 2010, 09:20:17 AMI am a fan of woodwind quintets, but am drawn to the obtuse ones, like the Nielsen.  In samples at least, the Elgar wood wind quintets sound insufferably chipper.
Nielsen's WW5tet is great and in a class with Milhaud, Ibert, Fine, Carter, and others.  Elgar's have no pretensions to greatness, but are chipper, indeed, intended for home & civic music making of the sort that once thrived (and still does, in some places) before commercial recordings made music a into a commodity for passive audiences rather than active participants.  They are delightful examples of their type.

Addendum re. the Enigma Variations:  Bernstein's with the BBC are special.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

71 dB

Quote from: DavidRoss on March 21, 2010, 01:14:34 PM
Nielsen's WW5tet is great and in a class with Milhaud, Ibert, Fine, Carter, and others.
I haven't heard those of Milhaud, Ibert, Fine, Carter but Nielsen's is great! Unfortunately I don't have any recording of it. I have only heard it few times on radio and once on TV.
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Elgarian

Quote from: 71 dB on March 14, 2010, 03:58:41 AM
Yes, it's true that the 2nd is a finer work. When you agree with that then you know you understand Elgar's music!

Ouch. And I thought that after 40+ years of listening to his music that I was starting to understand him. Drat!

I have no way of knowing which is the finer; I only know that I love the first with a deep passion, but can only cope with the second under certain conditions of mood; and even then I tend to lose my way. It's a much tougher ride for me. But the slow movement surely is deeply moving, and I can't relate to these comments about 'bombast' that keep coming up. I don't hear much bombast in Elgar (except in a very few obvious places) and certainly I've never heard any in the second symphony. On the contrary, my overwhelming impression is often of the struggles of a noble but wounded animal. I don't think bombast is the right word. It's more nuanced than that: words like noble, majestic, chivalric come closer, I think. There's no swagger or bluster anywhere that I can hear, in the major works. The nobility rides on the back of a vulnerability that is never very far beneath the surface. (The violin concerto presents an agonising dialogue between that nobility, and that vulnerability.)

Fancy coming back and finding all this Elgar chat that I'd missed. (I've been away in dark places not of my choosing, alas.)

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: 71 dB on March 21, 2010, 09:41:21 AM
Elgar's String Quartet and Piano Quintet are very overlooked. I don't know why.

They're both very good pieces I think, products of the reflective late period that also produced the Cello Concerto. The Piano 5tet sounds to me like his most Brahmsian work (which is a good thing).

Quote from: drogulus on March 21, 2010, 11:18:55 AM
      Wellllllll.....not entirely. It's there in the texts. The unfortunate thing in my view is that we now have an association of the sound of Elgar with the sentiments of some of his ceremonial and nationalistic works. Whether you see this as unfair or inevitable or whatever it plainly ruins his music for some listeners.

I find this unfair. I've never met anyone who rejects Beethoven in his totality because of his Cantata on the Elevation of Leopold II to the Imperial Dignity, or Brahms because of his Triumphlied (a bombastic celebration of German unification), or Tchaikovsky because of the 1812 Overture or Marche slave. Yet somehow the nationalistic bombast that was part & parcel of European life in the 19th century sticks to Elgar more strongly than to those other composers.

Re: the Symphonies

I have to admit that I like Solti very much here - he applies the hand of discipline, and the music comes off sounding almost as coherent as a Brahms symphony. I had the A. Davis but found them too slow and lacking in vitality. I also had the Barbirolli (normally a conductor I love in British music) and found that he wallowed in the music a bit too much.
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

Elgarian

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on January 19, 2010, 05:09:04 AM
Hahn's recording of the Opus 61, while certainly a pleasant enough listen, is a bit too girly and light of tread.
This is a really interesting comment that I missed on my last visit! Is it girly, or is it just feminine? The reason I ask is because I believe there's an essential 'feminine' essence at play in the violin concerto, most notably in the Windflower themes. It's for this reason that I find, say, the two Kennedy recordings unsatisfactory. Kennedy's approach is too spectacular for me, and never do I hear that delicate hint of the feminine in the right moments. Elgar never spelt out exactly whose soul was enshrined therein, but we know Alice Stuart-Wortley had a lot to do with it, and we know that Elgar was constantly torn by yearnings towards certain aspects of the feminine that he could never somehow grasp. And here in the vc he is really tackling it head-on.

From what you say, Karl, it sounds as though Ms Hahn's approach, for all that it carries some aspects of the feminine with it, doesn't seriously come to grips with the really quite profound issues that are being worked out, but it makes me curious to hear what such a girly approach might sound like..... Maybe I need to buy one and find out.

71 dB

Quote from: Elgarian on March 22, 2010, 09:09:55 AM
Ouch. And I thought that after 40+ years of listening to his music that I was starting to understand him. Drat!

Well, your 40+ years is much more than my 12 or so.  ;) Maybe I am wrong about everything? Maybe that explains why so few agrees with me about most things?

Quote from: Elgarian on March 22, 2010, 09:09:55 AMI have no way of knowing which is the finer;  I only know that I love the first with a deep passion, but can only cope with the second under certain conditions of mood; and even then I tend to lose my way. It's a much tougher ride for me. But the slow movement surely is deeply moving,

Both of them are so great in my opinion that it doesn't make much difference which one is finer. The first has better first movement but the finale of the second is Elgar at his best. The slow movements are very equal imo. The second is more difficult for the listener but that is not to take against the music. Challenging art is good for us. 

Quote from: Elgarian on March 22, 2010, 09:09:55 AMand I can't relate to these comments about 'bombast' that keep coming up. I don't hear much bombast in Elgar (except in a very few obvious places) and certainly I've never heard any in the second symphony. On the contrary, my overwhelming impression is often of the struggles of a noble but wounded animal. I don't think bombast is the right word. It's more nuanced than that: words like noble, majestic, chivalric come closer, I think. There's no swagger or bluster anywhere that I can hear, in the major works. The nobility rides on the back of a vulnerability that is never very far beneath the surface. (The violin concerto presents an agonising dialogue between that nobility, and that vulnerability.)

Here I agree with you very much. I love the way Elgar's music sounds, bombastic or not. In Elgar's music I find every feeling and side in balance enriching each other. The is no darkness without light and vice versa. No one understood this as well as Elgar. It's wonderful how Elgar sounds strong, vulnerable, sad joyful, old and young at the same time! Elgar's music is a human life from cradle to grave made into music, not 15 minutes of someones life.

Quote from: Elgarian on March 22, 2010, 09:09:55 AMFancy coming back and finding all this Elgar chat that I'd missed. (I've been away in dark places not of my choosing, alas.)

Welcome back!
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71 dB

#509
Quote from: Velimir on March 22, 2010, 09:19:43 AM
I find this unfair. I've never met anyone who rejects Beethoven in his totality because of his Cantata on the Elevation of Leopold II to the Imperial Dignity, or Brahms because of his Triumphlied (a bombastic celebration of German unification), or Tchaikovsky because of the 1812 Overture or Marche slave. Yet somehow the nationalistic bombast that was part & parcel of European life in the 19th century sticks to Elgar more strongly than to those other composers.

You demonstrated well what I have always felt. The most "established" composers (Beethoven, Brahms etc.) are forgiven more easily than other composers. I want all composers to be treated equally. There are odd preconceptions in the world of classical music. Beethoven had to earn my respect just as much as Dittersdorf or Rosenmüller had to.
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Crossfeeders reduce spatial distortion and make the sound more natural
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karlhenning

Quote from: 71 dB on March 22, 2010, 09:58:03 AM
I can see them clearly because I haven't been "brainwashed" in a music school.

Thank goodness we have your unimpeded brilliance in this forum, Poju.

karlhenning

#511
Quote from: Elgarian on March 22, 2010, 09:22:14 AM
This is a really interesting comment that I missed on my last visit! Is it girly, or is it just feminine? The reason I ask is because I believe there's an essential 'feminine' essence at play in the violin concerto, most notably in the Windflower themes. It's for this reason that I find, say, the two Kennedy recordings unsatisfactory. Kennedy's approach is too spectacular for me, and never do I hear that delicate hint of the feminine in the right moments. Elgar never spelt out exactly whose soul was enshrined therein, but we know Alice Stuart-Wortley had a lot to do with it, and we know that Elgar was constantly torn by yearnings towards certain aspects of the feminine that he could never somehow grasp. And here in the vc he is really tackling it head-on.

From what you say, Karl, it sounds as though Ms Hahn's approach, for all that it carries some aspects of the feminine with it, doesn't seriously come to grips with the really quite profound issues that are being worked out, but it makes me curious to hear what such a girly approach might sound like..... Maybe I need to buy one and find out.

Welcome back, Alan!  IIRC, it was Znajder's live performance which was fresher in my ear at the time I revisited la Hahn.  It's a while since I gave the Nige a spin . . . .

Scarpia

Quote from: 71 dB on March 22, 2010, 09:58:03 AMI can see them clearly because I haven't been "brainwashed" in a music school.

I must say the association of Elgar with this sort of self-aggrandizing drivel is enough to put me off the composers works.    Yes, I can see your brain has never been washed.  It is like that recycling bin that David Ross said he needs to scrub out.  ::)

DavidRoss

Quote from: 71 dB on March 22, 2010, 09:40:23 AMMaybe I am wrong about everything?
Bingo!

All this "talk" about Elgar suddenly has me hungering to hear what for me is unquestionably his greatest work, the cello concerto--which I also regard as the greatest work of its kind.  Together with the Barbirolli love fest that's been going on hereabouts, that means just one thing:

"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

Renfield

Quote from: 71 dB on March 22, 2010, 11:56:52 AM
It's also alarming to see how strongly people deny brainwashing.

Quote from: 71 dB on March 22, 2010, 11:56:52 AM
Don't believe authority without critical thinking.

See, that's the problem.

You are pulling a Karl Popper, and being as dogmatic about your position (quote 1) as the very dogmaticism you criticise with it (quote 2). I agree, authority is an easy way out; but if I offer that statement to you on my authority, it doesn't make much sense!


Or: if you have already decided some people are brainwashed, thus denying them the chance to defend themselves, then you are doing the same thing people do to you when they deny you the chance to defend the music you admire, by default.

DavidRoss

Quote from: 71 dB on March 22, 2010, 11:59:11 AMYou really think that? Beethoven's string quartets suck because I think they rule? Really?
Yes, I do.  Not only are you wrong about everything, but you are so determined not to learn anything that I've long been convinced the problem is not just faulty cognition but something organic and far beyond your control.  Neither my compassion for your condition nor my admiration for all that you've accomplished in spite of it, however, compels me to patronize you by pretending your stubborn attachment to uninformed opinions is anything other than what it clearly is.

And as I'm sure you've been told countless times before, Beethoven's string quartets are among the greatest achievements of Western civilization and your opinion affects that fact no more than it affects the tides or the phases of the moon.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

71 dB

Quote from: DavidRoss on March 22, 2010, 12:23:30 PM
but you are so determined not to learn anything
What the heck are you talking about? We all learn new things every day! Nobody is determined not to learn anything.

Quote from: DavidRoss on March 22, 2010, 12:23:30 PMAnd as I'm sure you've been told countless times before, Beethoven's string quartets are among the greatest achievements of Western civilization and your opinion affects that fact no more than it affects the tides or the phases of the moon.
Yes, but about 6 billion people don't know this. We do. We are a tiny minority but we are still right, no matter how much this population of 6 billion thinks otherwise. The point is a small minority is very easy to overlook, even ignore but the minority can still be 100 % right while all the others are wrong.
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knight66

Now Alan, that bombast remark was initially mine and it was the battering about the ears that Solti dinned me with. I now have the Tate recording of the 2nd, as suggested by Sarge and all is well in the household and the Symphony has regained its rightful place here, sans bombast.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

71 dB

Quote from: Renfield on March 22, 2010, 12:09:28 PM
See, that's the problem.

You are pulling a Karl Popper, and being as dogmatic about your position (quote 1) as the very dogmaticism you criticise with it (quote 2). I agree, authority is an easy way out; but if I offer that statement to you on my authority, it doesn't make much sense!

Or: if you have already decided some people are brainwashed, thus denying them the chance to defend themselves, then you are doing the same thing people do to you when they deny you the chance to defend the music you admire, by default.

You are not supposed to take me as authority! You are supposed to critically evaluate what I say. Disagree or agree but be critical!
Spatial distortion is a serious problem deteriorating headphone listening.
Crossfeeders reduce spatial distortion and make the sound more natural
and less tiresome in headphone listening.

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Elgarian

Quote from: 71 dB on March 22, 2010, 09:40:23 AM
Maybe I am wrong about everything?
Possible, but unlikely. After all, I agree with quite a lot of what you say about Elgar's music, so if you're wrong about all of that then (oh horrors) so am I. I just wouldn't myself rate an understanding of Elgar on the degree of esteem felt for the second symphony.