Elgar's Hillside

[madaboutmahler]

I'm alive to that necessity . . . the legend "Elaborated by Anthony Payne" is well considered.

Yes... but don't get me wrong, this is a great work which I enjoy very much all the time!
Enjoy it yourself as well!

Daniel

[Elgarian]

Well, I shall try to redeem myself a bit with aid of this 'un:

[asin]B00004RC80[/asin]

Now yer talkin'.

I'm not so sure about it sounding 'unElgarian'. We don't really know what Elgar would have sounded like, writing a symphony so late, and a lot of water had gone under the bridge. What's clear from Payne's book is that he spent years trying to get under Elgar's skin to establish what he thought his intentions were. So although - of course - there are sections that he had to invent, I think he was doing his damnedest NOT to be Payne, but to be Elgar as closely as he could manage. But this is obviously a hugely debateable area - and the business has been a hotbed of controversy.

Interesting question though: if we take the opening section, where Payne had the least to do because Elgar had basically completed it, does it sound like Elgar? That sombre, warning introduction, like a surging great grey sea - which is definitely Elgar and not Payne ... does it sound Elgarian? It does to me now, but when I heard it the first time, I wasn't at all sure. Of course when the second motif enters - the Vera Hockman tune - we know we're in Elgar territory again. But the stuff that precedes it? I think that's a subtly changed voice. Yet it really is Elgar.

I hope you enjoy it Karl. At the very least I think it'll catch your interest.

[Luke]

Now yer talkin'.

I'm not so sure about it sounding 'unElgarian'. We don't really know what Elgar would have sounded like, writing a symphony so late, and a lot of water had gone under the bridge. What's clear from Payne's book is that he spent years trying to get under Elgar's skin to establish what he thought his intentions were. So although - of course - there are sections that he had to invent, I think he was doing his damnedest NOT to be Payne, but to be Elgar as closely as he could manage. But this is obviously a hugely debateable area - and the business has been a hotbed of controversy.

Interesting question though: if we take the opening section, where Payne had the least to do because Elgar had basically completed it, does it sound like Elgar? That sombre, warning introduction, like a surging great grey sea - which is definitely Elgar and not Payne ... does it sound Elgarian? It does to me now, but when I heard it the first time, I wasn't at all sure. Of course when the second motif enters - the Vera Hockman tune - we know we're in Elgar territory again. But the stuff that precedes it? I think that's a subtly changed voice. Yet it really is Elgar.

I hope you enjoy it Karl. At the very least I think it'll catch your interest.

That's what I'd have said, too, though less fluently. I'd have added for emphasis, though, that the opening, which as Alan said is complete and pure Elgar, is founded on a series of blatant, raw and somehat shocking parallel fifths which sound very much unlike any other Elgar I know of. This was late music, though - so many other composers have entered a late phase with similar newly-acquired blatancy and rawness, the bravery and straight-talking that comes from experience. I can't see why Elgar would be different. In that light, the opening to Elgar 3 has always sounded Elgarian to my ears.   

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I think that raw opening of the Third is prefigured in In the South, where Elgar 'depicts' the Roman army with very harsh and grinding harmonies.

[Luke]

I think there's a difference, though - those shocking chords in In the South are dense and dissonant, but they don't have that kind of distanced, late-style classicism, the bravery-of-simplicity, the strange harsh lucidity, that you have in those parallel fifths. Definitely you can see that the latter can be related back to the former, but I think there is something specifically 'late' about those fifths. (actually Brian does this sort of thing more and more frequently as he grows older too, I think...I hope I am remembering the right symphonies here!)

[Elgarian]

I'm just wondering if I really know what 'sounding like Elgar' means, in practice. It can mean sounding like Parry, or like Brahms, or like Wagner, at times - but I suppose those kinds of debts or influences are to be found in any composer. But how about things like the spooky piano quintet? We read it now comfortably enough as 'late Elgar of the Brinkwells period', and there are some very recognisable Elgarian passages - but if he'd left mere sketches of that quintet, and if someone like Payne had 'elaborated it' to a conclusion, would we be asking the same kind of questions about parts of it? Would we be attributing certain bits to Payne because they didn't quite sound like Elgar, only to discover, perhaps, that Elgar had in fact composed them?

And how about the seriously weird accompanied cadenza in the violin concerto - I mean those zuthering humming strings in the background at the start of it? Or the near-crippling desolation that the solo violin explores during parts of its 10 minute duration. No one could have predicted in advance that the composer of Pomp & Circumstance could or would have done such things, would they? I think what I'm saying (without trying to prove anything one way or the other), is that I think sometimes Elgar really doesn't sound all that much like Elgar.

One of the things that seemed to please Anthony Payne was that most people couldn't guess correctly where the joins were in the 3rd symphony: they couldn't accurately say (without, I presume, prior detailed knowledge of the sketches) which was Payne and which was Elgar.

[Elgarian]

I'd have added for emphasis, though, that the opening, which as Alan said is complete and pure Elgar, is founded on a series of blatant, raw and somehat shocking parallel fifths which sound very much unlike any other Elgar I know of. This was late music, though - so many other composers have entered a late phase with similar newly-acquired blatancy and rawness, the bravery and straight-talking that comes from experience. I can't see why Elgar would be different. In that light, the opening to Elgar 3 has always sounded Elgarian to my ears.   

I think one of the things Payne does so well (and I haven't refreshed my memory from his book, but I think he was responsible for it) is towards the end of the first movement, where he switches back and forth between the first and second subjects, allowing the lovely Vera Hockman theme to return as a kind of balm, while the surging sea still surges but more distantly and not so alarmingly. Surely, I can't help thinking, that's how Elgar would have done it. The eternal feminine to the rescue!

[71 dB]

The higher genius an artist is the higher level her/his art works. The audience may interpret art on lower level than is needed for full undertanding. I think Elgar's art is on higher level than many think it to be thanks to preoccupations (bombastic, patriotic music). That's why "we" find so much "un-Elgarian" music in Elgar's music.

One of the most exciting things in exploring Elgar for me was to hear "new" sides of his art with almost every new work. Somehow I figured out how it all plays in harmony on the higher levels.

[eyeresist]

I got the same message today about the Elgar Electric recordings.  Unfortunately, since it's shipping from the UK, the earliest it can get here looks like about 9/30.

Weirdly, shipments from Amazon UK get to Sydney about a month ahead of simultaneous orders from the US.

[karlhenning]

The Rondo: Presto from the Second Symphony is . . . I don't want to say my favorite movement from the symphonies, but it's certainly the one which I dug the most rapidly.  The first movement is still striking me (a little) as summut too long; but if the composer himself takes it at a snappier pace, to even a slightly tightened-up effect, I could easily see myself revising that impression.

[karlhenning]

(I thought I'd revisit the Second Symphony before trying out the Third.)

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The Rondo: Presto from the Second Symphony is . . . I don't want to say my favorite movement from the symphonies, but it's certainly the one which I dug the most rapidly.  The first movement is still striking me (a little) as summut too long; but if the composer himself takes it at a snappier pace, to even a slightly tightened-up effect, I could easily see myself revising that impression.

Refresh my memory, Karl: which performance? Boult, EMI? His Rondo:Presto is perfect, I think. The build-up in the trio is masterfully managed. I personally love the middle movements most...

[karlhenning]

At the moment, Johan, I'm listening to A. Davis/BBC Symphony. IIRC, you didn't much care for this 'un? . . .

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

At the moment, Johan, I'm listening to A. Davis/BBC Symphony. IIRC, you didn't much care for this 'un? . . .

Erm... no. I find Andrew Davis a very sympathetic human being, but a mediocre conductor, alas! Others may disagree, but his RVW, Elgar, Delius are a disappointment to me. [I find Hickox - may he rest in peace - often too bland, too.]

[Elgarian]

(I thought I'd revisit the Second Symphony before trying out the Third.)

Anyone with a sense of mathematical rightness can approve the rationality of that decision.

[karlhenning]

What a sublime close to the Second Symphony! I feel like I had never actually heard it before.  Strange to say (and while I have long been ready to pound the table for, say, the Violin or Cello Concerto, and the Violin Sonata) I feel that I'm being visited with an Elgar epiphany.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I feel that I'm being visited with an Elgar epiphany.

Windflower Hits Boston

[71 dB]

I listened to Barbirolli's take on Elgar's 1st symphony again. I am not 100% happy with the performance. There are weird problems with dynamics and instruments tend to mask each other. Certain structures are "lost". Also, there's minor timing problems.

I find Elgar's symphonies on Naxos to be much more precise. Maybe newer performancies try to correct the mistakes made in these "legendary" recordings. 

I am still waiting for Boult. I hope they are better than Barbirolli... ...at least Boult's The Apostles and The Kingdom are superb.

Naxos was the first I had and nothing seems to beat them.

[karlhenning]

Windflower Hits Boston

Speaking whereof: The incoming "Elgar's own" box will include my fifth recording of the Opus 61!

[Elgarian]

I feel that I'm being visited with an Elgar epiphany.

Blimey.

Sounds like you need a cup of tea. And a bun.