Elgar's Hillside

[Elgarian]

when I searched on amazon just now I found an earlier recording by Lane with the Velilnger Qt. It also includes an apparently late chamber piece called In Moonlight which I've never heard of and which isn't on IMSLP. What's it like? And the disc in general? (it's on amazon for about 2 pounds, so I tihink I will click anyway!)

In Moonlight is poignantly melodic and gorgeous, albeit in the not-terribly-profound Edwardian sort of way that Elgar could be very good at (think Salut d'Amour, but sadder and more serious). Very gentle, very touching at the heartstrings, lasts less than 4 minutes. The melody (strikingly melancholy and beautiful) is taken from In The South - it's one of  several rearrangements of the tune that were requested by Elgar's publisher, in this case with the viola 'singing' the tune. He also set it to some words by Shelley, I gather.

The disc in general? Well, it's superb. But then (in case you might attach too much weight to that opinion, because I may not be sufficently discriminating) I think all my discs of Elgar's chamber music are superb, and I've never heard one that I've thought was a dud. I've never directly compared one with another, but simply use the various recordings as a way of keeping fresh the listening experience. (I do listen to Elgar's three great chamber works a great deal, and for some reason which I can't define, the exercise of doing direct comparisons between recordings is something I've not wanted to do.) For what it's worth, I'm listening to the Vellinger version of the Quintet now as I write this, and am having to stop repeatedly in mid-sentence because the music is so marvellous. The Vellinger guys get a wiry, edgy tone which goes well with the vaguely sinister aspects of parts of the quintet.  I've kept no record of how many times I've listened to this quintet over the years: 50? More than that I should think. 100? I just don't know. But still there are moments when it brings tears. The slow movement (the Vellinger folk are playing it now) is almost unbearably poignant, full of loss, full of aching for things that might-have-been, or that are just out of reach.

You can't go wrong with your purchase of this older disc, Luke, truly. And certainly not at the price you paid.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I have come to love and admire In the South very much. What , to you, is/are the best performance(s), Alan?


--Johan

[Elgarian]

Funny, my experience of Elgar is hardly connected to landscapes at all, certainly not English ones, though after all you've written maybe I'm experiencing it all wrong! It all seems too plush and upholstered to me, the strange mosaic effect of his orchestration and lurching musical ideas, a palimpsest of shifting memories, impressions, neurosies and conflicting sentiments. The moments of repose, the grandeur and nostalgia are certainly very English in feeling, and sometimes evocative of landscapes, but to me seem to be some kind of vision of an ideal landscape, sprawling, and magnificent and mysterious, rather than the low key, small scale beauty and solidity that I associate with the south of England where I'm from. And I always find him too odd a character to take on that mantle of "Britain's national composer", he's too quirky, one of the strangest of all the romantics. I know this all runs counter to what he said about his music, and the biography, but thought I'd share it. Anyway, enjoying your posts and am thinking about him more and more.

Really interesting post, and it requires more than the short answer that's all I have time for right now. But when you contrast the 'ideal landscape, sprawling, and magnificent and mysterious", and compare it with "the low key, small scale beauty and solidity that I associate with the south of England", my immediate response is not to point to one or the other, but to say, "Yes. All of those are in Elgar."

Off the top of my head, I'd say the small scale beauty of England can be found in things like the Serenade for Strings; there are evocations of inimate English woodland in parts of Caractacus, and (far more profoundly) in the Piano Quintet; the wilder aspects of English moorland could be linked with Introduction and Allegro for Strings; and the great over-arching noble ideal vision flashes out again and again in the 1st Symphony. In that way he has something like the range of Turner, who also produced grand sweeping visions in those big oil paintings that presented English landscape in Claudean style on the one hand, yet painted delicate and intimate aspects of country life and landscapes in many of his watercolours. I don't want to get caught up in a general comparison of Elgar with Turner - there are vast and important differences in outlook. But in this specific issue of range in association with landscape, the comparison is worth thinking about.

The difficulty, of course, is that in this business of association between musical and extra-musical ideas, there are no guarantees that the links will be made in the same way by different folks (just as an abstract painting can produce feelings of landscape for one person, say, and still-life for another). Even so, Elgar clearly expected his orchestra to understand him when he asked them to play it like 'something they'd heard down by the river'. And then there's that famous quote about 'the trees are singing my music; or am I singing theirs?' His love of aeolian harps had something to do with that, too, perhaps. I think your comment about the quirkiness is bang on, by the way; in many ways Elgar the Neurotic Outsider was the least plausible character to be thought of as Great National Composer. But in all the other important ways - the man who loved being outdoors in the countryside; who cycled fifty miles a day through it, regularly, composing as he rode; who found it helpful to work in a study with a wide view of English landscape; who responded to the twin appeal of Tintagel through its wild landscape and chivalric associations - these fit him for the role in its deepest sense  like no other, I'd argue.

[Elgarian]

I have come to love and admire In the South very much. What , to you, is/are the best performance(s), Alan?

Gosh, now you've got me (it's not a work I listen to all that much). I've never considered the question!

I'll do some listening and get back to you (probably with some uselessly bland comment, mind you).

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

To help (!) you, I know 4 performances: Weldon, Barbirolli, Barenboim and Sinopoli. Not much to choose between Barbirolli and Sinopoli, though I prefer Glorious John...

[71 dB]

I have come to love and admire In the South very much. What , to you, is/are the best performance(s)?


--Johan

Scottish National Orchestra / Gibson on Chandos

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Scottish National Orchestra / Gibson on Chandos

Noted. 

[Elgarian]

Well I've made a little progress - insofar as I've made myself consciously aware of which versions I have!

Elgar/LSO 1930
Boult/LPO 1972
Slatkin/LPO 1989
Andrew Davis/BBCSO 1992
Slatkin/BBCSO 2002 (Prom)

My memory tells me that Andrew Davis does a fine job - but In The South hasn't been, as I said, a particular favourite of mine; and these versions are in my library because they happened to accompany other pieces, rather than being deliberately sought out for their own sake. I'll try to listen to them all and report back. Listening to Elgar's 1930 version now, in fact - oh, gorgeous stuff in the slow section, and tremendously rousing finale! But I'm too soppy to be objective when it comes to his own recordings: I can never quite stop thinking "My God, this is ELGAR conducting!", and somehow that always displaces any objective critical assessment of what's going on. And if I'm honest, I'm very happy for that to be the case, and would feel a real sense of loss if the situation ever changed. Suffice it to say that if this 1930 recording of ITS were all I had, I'd be well content, despite the limitations of recording quality.

More to come.

[Elgarian]

My memory tells me that Andrew Davis does a fine job

Hmm. So much for my memory. Coming straight after Elgar himself, Sir Andrew sounds a bit pedestrian to these ears. This may be partly due to the substantial change of pace (Elgar is 20m15s and Davis 21m50s) - that might explain the feeling of a loss of urgency, and the warm and lush orchestral sound quality may also have something to do with it. But even the lovely slow section with the beautiful tune sounds more like music to snooze by with Davis at the helm, compared to Elgar's evocation of poignant longing which is far from somnolent.

Next up comes Boult, and instantly this grabs my attention. Much fiercer in attack than Davis, and it comes as no surprise to see that he turns in an even faster performance than Elgar, at 19m 48s. This is really fine stuff here, by Boult - the music never loses its momentum, is urgent when urgency is required, and the slow section is truly haunting. The transition from there to the opening of the finale is magnificent, no doubt about it, and he positively sparkles his way through the last few minutes as the music surges this way and that. This is going to be hard to beat - and I'm not altogether surprised, because generally speaking (if one can think in terms of some sort of average in this context without being silly) Boult is probably overall my favourite interpreter of Elgar.

So far then, we have something like this:
Boult (1972) *****
Elgar (1930) ****
Davis (1992) **

[karlhenning]

Seems to me I must have at least two versions of In the South . . . the Andrew Davis you list there, Alan, and maybe Jeffrey Tate? . . .

[Elgarian]

Seems to me I must have at least two versions of In the South . . . the Andrew Davis you list there, Alan, and maybe Jeffrey Tate? . . .

Well I hope the Tate is a bit more lively than the Davis. How does his timing compare, Karl?

This is quite a voyage of discovery for me - I'm listening to Slatkin (1989) right now; I expected to find it worthy but unexceptional and so far that seems about right.

[Guido]

Doesn't that describe everything Slatkin has ever done?

[mc ukrneal]

Hmm. So much for my memory. Coming straight after Elgar himself, Sir Andrew sounds a bit pedestrian to these ears. This may be partly due to the substantial change of pace (Elgar is 20m15s and Davis 21m50s) - that might explain the feeling of a loss of urgency, and the warm and lush orchestral sound quality may also have something to do with it. But even the lovely slow section with the beautiful tune sounds more like music to snooze by with Davis at the helm, compared to Elgar's evocation of poignant longing which is far from somnolent.

Next up comes Boult, and instantly this grabs my attention. Much fiercer in attack than Davis, and it comes as no surprise to see that he turns in an even faster performance than Elgar, at 19m 48s. This is really fine stuff here, by Boult - the music never loses its momentum, is urgent when urgency is required, and the slow section is truly haunting. The transition from there to the opening of the finale is magnificent, no doubt about it, and he positively sparkles his way through the last few minutes as the music surges this way and that. This is going to be hard to beat - and I'm not altogether surprised, because generally speaking (if one can think in terms of some sort of average in this context without being silly) Boult is probably overall my favourite interpreter of Elgar.

So far then, we have something like this:
Boult (1972) *****
Elgar (1930) ****
Davis (1992) **

I have a set with that Boult performance and find it holds my attention well. He does sparkle - an apt description! So I would confirm your impression.

[Elgarian]

Doesn't that describe everything Slatkin has ever done?

Can't say - I haven't heard everything that Slatkin has ever done. I just have his box of Elgar recordings. Meanwhile, continuing my star ratings:

Slatkin (1989) ***
One could live with this and be content, provided one had never heard Boult (1972).

Just the live (Proms, 2002) Slatkin to go. Another time.

[Vesteralen]

But then (in case you might attach too much weight to that opinion, because I may not be sufficently discriminating) I think all my discs of Elgar's chamber music are superb, and I've never heard one that I've thought was a dud. I've never directly compared one with another, but simply use the various recordings as a way of keeping fresh the listening experience. (I do listen to Elgar's three great chamber works a great deal, and for some reason which I can't define, the exercise of doing direct comparisons between recordings is something I've not wanted to do.) For what it's worth, I'm listening to the Vellinger version of the Quintet now as I write this, and am having to stop repeatedly in mid-sentence because the music is so marvellous. The Vellinger guys get a wiry, edgy tone which goes well with the vaguely sinister aspects of parts of the quintet.  I've kept no record of how many times I've listened to this quintet over the years: 50? More than that I should think. 100? I just don't know. But still there are moments when it brings tears. The slow movement (the Vellinger folk are playing it now) is almost unbearably poignant, full of loss, full of aching for things that might-have-been, or that are just out of reach.

Hate to skip back past all the In The South posts, but I have to say, Elgarian, it's a pleasure to read such thoughtful posts from someone who obviously both knows and loves his subject.  I would always tell people how much I loved Elgar and encourage them to listen to his music, but I'm a mere baby experience-wise when it comes to you.  Keep it coming.

[eyeresist]

This conversation set me searching afresh . . . and I've come up with a used Bean!

Jack and the Bean's-Talk


In the South: I have Solti, Slatkin, A Davis, and Barbirolli, who is definitely the leader, having the most conviction and enthusiasm, if not the best sound of the lot.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Many thanks for all the In the South information coming out (and in)!


It's clear I must listen to Gibson, Elgar and Boult and see how they compare with Barbirolli and Sinopoli.

[Vesteralen]

Being a bit obsessive/compulsive, I decided to try a completist's approach to the music of Elgar and Nielsen.

Nielsen proved to be easier, due to the existence of the 'Young Nielsen' disc that collects a lot of his pre-opus number material.

But, Elgar's earliest works are mostly scattered over many discs, with the exception of the 'Complete Music for Wind Quintet', which was a nice find.

For the rest of the early material, I decided to go the track-download route.  Although my first disc is only thirty-eight minutes long, it still ended up running about $12, so I decided to keep it at that for now.

The tracks on this disc are:

1.  The Language of Flowers (song)
2.  Chantant (piano)
3.  The Self-Banished (song)
4.  Reminiscences (violin & piano)
5.  Romance, Op 1 (violin & piano)
6.  Fugue in d minor (violin & piano)
7.  Douce Pensee, "Rosemary" (cello?)
8.  Idyll, Op 4 #1 (violin & piano)
9.  Pastourelle, Op 4 #2 (violin & piano)
10.Virelai, Op. 4 #3 (violin & piano)
11.Sevillana, Op. 7 (orchestra)
12.Griffenesque (piano)

I'm anxious to listen to this later on.  Seems like it might be a nice mix.

[karlhenning]

I shouldn't be much interested in Elgar's juvenilia, but of course, YMMV : )

[DavidRoss]

Thanks to the wonder of the InTeRweB, earlier today I heard the Bean/Groves recording of the sonata & concerto that Alan likes so much.  No complaints, and I thought the sonata the better of the two!