How I Discovered...ELGAR
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 เม.ย. 2023
- Unlike my British friends, I was not indoctrinated in the greatness of Elgar from birth. I had to come to the music the old-fashioned way--by listening to it! How did you discover Elgar? Share your story with us.
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I didn't find Elgar terribly interesting at first, but my patience was eventually rewarded. There was a time as a young man when I went through some rather drastic life changes. Around that time I started feeling drawn to nostalgic music like Korngold and Elgar. Elgar's music has this lost magic of the Belle Époque that fascinates me.
Another Finn into Elgar? Nice!
Not living in Britain myself (I am South African) my Elgar journey also started with the Pomp and Circumstance marches. Then eventually I bought Boult's recordings of the 2 symphonies because it was at a bargain price. It just utterly bored me, but having PAID money for it I felt obliged to just keep om listening. So every few months I would give it another try, until one day, after listening to both, I though, "These symphonies are much better than I can remember from my previous listen." Eventually I told my brother, "After keeping on listening to Elgar's symphonies over the past 2 years, it has grown on me to such an extend that I now think they really great symphonies." He just smiled and replied, "Fortunately for me, I will never listened long enough to Elgar that THAT will happen to me too." But eventually I got him into Elgar as well, and today, many years later, we both greatly enjoy Elgar's music, of which, for us, the 2 symphonies are the 'crown jewels'.
I did like a lot Elgar's symphonies when I heard them the first time back in 1997, but they kept getting better and better for me during the first 6-7 listenings after which point I felt I "got" them fully. I think many people believe Elgar to be simpler to understand fully than it really is. Elgar's music has an easy surface ("Union Jack" wrapping if you will) to it that some people perhaps finds boring/pompous, but what's inside is so damn fascinating at least to me! It is nice to hear both of you have come to enjoy Elgar's music!
Dave, I am thoroughly enjoying all of your videos on Elgar. As a life-long Elgar enthusiast, I concur with many of your sentiments. I beg to differ, however, regarding two things: 1) yes, Elgar was a Catholic and neurotic, but not a “neurotic Catholic.” I believe his faith was often a source of an inspiration to him and not something which resulted in any kind of neurosis. 2) yes, the Cardinal Newman poem is full of Victorian purple prose and long out-dated church doctrine, but it inspired Elgar to tap into the greatest mystical depths of his soul and to produce a work of incredible originality, imagination and beauty. The poem is the driving force behind every bar. In short, without it there would be no Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius. For that reason alone I am grateful for the poem’s existence.
For me, the first piece that made me interested in Elgar was his orchestration of Bach's Fantasia & Fugue in C minor - it's so full of emotion and fireworks I fell in love with it the first time I heard it.
Me too.
To speak very freely, I suffer from depressions occasionally, like Elgar himself did. When listening to Elgar's music I always feel understood and find comfort in it. It wasn't the imperial Elgar I first encountered, but the more subtle works like the symphonies, the concertos and the oratorios. I do like The Dream of Gerontius regarding the music itself. Elgar was right when he wrote on the score: "the best of me",which is surely not true of Cardinal Newman's text. Dave, you're right, the lyrics are appalling. But the music... In my opinion maybe indeed the best music Elgar ever wrote.
I agree that the music is gorgeous.
Oh yeah, Elgar. I recall sitting in my high school orchestra, playing endless repetitions of the graduation march from "Pomp and Circumstance March #1", while the seniors filed up to get their diplomas. This was in the 60's, when my boomer-crammed high school had large graduating classes, so it took a while. In spite of that, it did result in me wanting to learn more about Elgar, which was the upside.
I had exactly the same experience. But it didn't spark much interest in Elgar until I heard Enigma quite awhile later. I thought anybody who could write that was a genius. Then I became a Cockaigne addict.
Long before high school, my parents had a record of all five of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches conducted by Sir Arthur Bliss and the LPO. It was on RCA Red Seal, with the soundtrack to "Things to Come" by Bliss on the flip side!
@@bbailey7818 "Then I became a Cockaigne addict." 🤣😆
The 1st and 2nd Symphonies are my two favourite symphonies of all time.
Same here. And despite a lifetime of listening to symphonies and concertos of all kinds, I didn't get to know Elgar's until I was in my late 40s.
@@wm8392 If you've ever read Neville Cardus's chapter on Elgar in his book Ten Composers it'll confirm what you've felt in your ears and heart when listening to those glorious symphonies. So happy to hear someone else out there holds them in such high esteem.
My favourite symphonies as well! 👍
The "graduation march" was also used on "Queen for a Day", many years ago.
t s very strange for me to hear you talking about the Gramophone and English critics as some sort of pro-Elgar mafia, my experience growing up in the England of the 60s and 70s was the exact opposite. I did not read the Gramophone, but rather encountered literature that was decidedly lukewarm towards Elgar - it seemed determined to lock him away as an irrelevant by-product of the age in which he lived, without any recourse to his actual music beyond a few ‘imperialist’ marches. I cannot say I like all of Elgar’s music (but that’s true of most composers) and his choice of librettos in some choral music is regrettable, but at his best and in good performances, there is something that ‘speaks’ to me in a way few other composers do. Sure, I know he isn’t a Bach or a Brahms, and I don’t want Nimrod at my funeral, but I’ve got more Elgar in my CD collection than any other composer, including a lot of non-English performances. I love listening on TH-cam to orchestras and choirs from all over the world performing Elgar, because they are interested in the music - and only the music. By the way, in my retirement, I do a lot of talks about Elgar and it's always great to finish with March of the Mogul Emperors - it never fails!
Too little credit is given to Elgar’s three major, late chamber works - the Piano Quintet, String Quartet, and Violin Sonata - which showcase a more intimate, often very haunting side of the composer which is miles away from any “pompous imperialism” (which I think is an unfair description often heaped upon Elgar’s larger-scale works). The Piano Quintet, in particular, is a staggering masterpiece of great individuality. That spooky opening and sensual, Spanish-inflected secondary theme are not easily forgotten once heard!
I must thank you for introducing me to the March of the Moghul Emperors - I didn't know Elgar could do camp.
I was a major listener to symphonies, particularly Mahler and Bruckner, for a long time and never heard any Elgar other than the Enigma Variations and the March. The first hint that I would grow to love Elgar was a master class that I dropped into with Ofra Harnoy where she demonstrated the beginning of the Cello Concerto. I was amazed at how anger and nostalgia could be expressed in such a condensed and direct way, without the complexities that Mahler used. Then I heard the first symphony on the radio and was hooked, particularly by the dramatic ending. Years later it was Boult's 1944 wartime recording of the second symphony that got me, particularly the second movement, and the way Elgar transforms themes with changes in color instead of structure. Introduction and Allegro impressed me with its structure, and In the South with its Straussian swagger. Soon I was convinced that Elgar was my favorite composer--the "English Mahler", as I remember someone else defining him as. It's true--Elgar is as emotional as Mahler but is more controlled, more concise, with an equal genius for orchestration. This is particularly amazing considering he had no formal training. Thanks Dave for your interesting take on why it took you so long to like Elgar. For me, it was somewhat the opposite--I just never knew anyone who advocated for his music and needed to find out on my own.
As a Finn I am naturally force-fed Sibelius. Hardly anyone in Finland cares or knows about Elgar. When I was about 12 or so (early 80's), I heard the melody of Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in a video game (with video game sounds!) and I liked it. I song the melody to my father in hopes he would know what it is, but of course he didn't, because he is into jazz. Over a decade later I started to get interested of classical music. I started listening to a classic radio station. In December 1996 I heard Elgar's Enigma Variations and my mind was totally blown! I knew instantly I had found my favourite composer! My first Elgar recording was the Naxos CD of the Violin Concerto and Cockaigne Overture my dad gave me for Christmas 1996. My love with Elgar's music was confirmed. My brain seems to be perfectly wired for Elgar's music. Only J. S. Bach can rival Elgar to me. My curse is I was born a Finn as an Elgarian who doesn't care about Sibelius' music much. Elgar's way of creating musical multi-dimensionality by operating so coherently with different musical dimensions (melody, harmony, rhythm, tempi, timbre,...) is what makes Elgar so great for me. J. S. Bach's insane mastery of counterpoint creates similar multi-dimensionality to my ears.
I think his genius is also in short forms, and short phrases in many of his larger works. The Wand of Youth suites, Dream Children, etc, have been lifelong musical companions, meaningful in my actual and auditory life! If Sullivan was a master of humor in English music, then Elgar to me is a master of evocative impressions, piquant melody, with always a bit of nostalgic melancholy in such works. I think these suites (and to some extent The Starlight Express) stand right along with suites by Ravel and Debussy for the charm and musical enjoyment and magic.
Agreed absolutely. The essence of Elgar is in these smaller works. His unique voice is heard more clearly in Dream Children (for example) than in any of the big splashy jingoistic pieces he wrote which would curry favour with the Establishment.
@@timothybridgewater5795 Very much agree...
Love Elgar esp. the First symphony and the violin concerto.
Like a lot of Brits, I first heard Elgar as a part of the Last Night of the Proms, where those wild, crazy Prommers bob up and down to the introduction (who says the English don't know how to have good time?) So you could easily imagine this was the sort of stuff that was played as the UK invaded other countries and built an Empire on the backs of theft and greed. But I have to say, marching music aside, it put me off Elgar for a long time.
Then I heard the Enigma Variations. I have an insane love of this piece and have far too many versions of it - I'm fond of Boult's digital version and Toscanini's definitely non-digital version with the BBCSO. But I was always very resistant to the Symphonies, despite the (as you say) endless hoo-hah in the British music press about how wonderful they are. Then one day I had Solti's performance of the Second Symphony on while doing something else (Solti in the background? Impossible, I hear you cry!) and Suddenly it clicked - the second movement - Jesus, what a piece! Since then I've really come to appreciate Elgar as a great composer - Cockaigne overture, Introduction and Allegro - I have yet to come to terms with the First Symphony and, like you, and despite the compulsory worship of du Pre in the UK, I'm deaf to the Cello Concerto.
But the good news is that I can now listen to the Pomp & Circumstance marches without wanting to subdue other races. Hurrah!
I must have been born after the Elgar "club" was disbanded, because when I discovered Elgar in a used LP shop in the west of England, I did on entirely on spec. I had read no criticism, had no guidance on what was worth listening to. All I knew was that the P&C guy had a vast body of work I had never heard, so I took the plunge with Enigma (great marketing for a title!) and the 1st Symphony, which--pace David--I vastly prefer to the 2nd, whose opening sounds to me like an homage to Schumann's 3rd. Also don't forget the E-Minor quartet, written around the time of the Cello Concerto but far more moving at an intellectual and even emotional level.
Crown of India is a guilty pleasure of mine as well. The March is crazy fun and the Introduction, halfway through at rehearsal 2 presents what we would all later come to know as the Hobbits theme from Howard Shore's LOTR scores. Phil Myers the former principal horn of New York Philharmonic had a good story that during his first set of concerts on trial after having won the job, they were performing this piece with Zubin Mehta conducting, of all people. After letting Phil know that following his solo in the first movement that he was going to be the guy for the job, Zubin (who is Indian of course) finished their rehearsal of the piece stating, "They were in our land 100 years, they didn't learn a thing."
When I was at school, my then violin teacher, a Sammons pupil, was recovering from heart surgery and he was listening to a recording of the violin concerto with Nigel Kennedy. Somehow I got a copy and and attempted to learn it. Someone on here had the same teacher as me and also seems we both used the copy of the VC in the Edinburgh music library! I had Previn’s Elgar 1 but didn’t do much for me. We played the cello concerto at school and like Dave, I was not a huge fan. Then I started to discover Barbirolli’s recordings and grew to love the symphonies and Enigma etc. And the famous Silversti “In the South” ❤.
Certainly agree about the Silvestri/Bournemouth SO version of "In The South" - a ground-breaking
LP originally - coupled with the Thomas Tallis Fantasia and "The Wasps" overture by Vaughan Williams.
Well, after hearing you rhapsodizing over the March of the Mogul Emperors for three years, a recording is finally on its way to me, in the Groves collection of Elgar suites I found at a good price. Then I listened to your best/worst second symphony video with its sound samples and bit that bullet, and lucked out with a copy of the Slatkin. You really are running a multi-media musical reference book here, or maybe a whole library. Thank you!
Enjoy! The Groves is fabulous.
I was never big into Elgar. Haven’t heard the symphonies yet.
My first exposure was the Jacquline Dupree Cello concerto recording in my very early days of exploring classical music. Cannot say I have ever been a big follower of his music.
I enjoy the Violin concerto more than the cello one. Probably my favourite Elgar so far, having yet to have heard the symphonies.
Sorry, you can’t say you’re not an Elgar fan if you haven’t heard the two symphonies!!! The Second, in particular, is one of the greatest symphonies of all time IMO.
I'm a 23-year-old British classical music lover. Elgar is in the air we live and breathe. Well, sort of. I have vague memories of hearing Nimrod being played on the stereo at school when we were marched in for assembly - well, at least I think Nimrod was one of the pieces I heard. Every Remembrance Sunday memorial would usually see it played, and Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches are a staple of British musical life - most infamously at the Proms. I didn't know who Elgar was until relatively recently, and therefore did not identify him as the composer of all of these pieces. Nimrod, with its saccharine sentimentality and meandering, repetitive melody coupled with its endless crescendos and diminuendos and its pompous importunity did not excite my young mind. I just compartmentalised it in my mind with the generic category known of music that is supposed to manipulate you into the shedding of tears. Now of course I adore Nimrod and believe it to be a marvellous piece of music (and now realise that Elgar's original conception of the piece is far from what we now associate with it, although the fact that it has been so easily misinterpreted suggests a possible weakness in his craft as much as a weakness in its listeners).
Only in the last few months have I taught myself to appreciate Elgar more. In conversation with a Facebook friend some months ago, I said that Elgar had left me unmoved. I had tried both his symphonies and they bored me. This is around the time I was discovering the genius of Mahler and Elgar paled in comparison. There really is no contest between that Austro-Bohemian giant of late-Romantic symphonic music and Elgar's typically British Romanticism - passion tinged with an affected neo-classical reserve, encapsulated in a minuscule symphonic oeuvre of two frankly mediocre symphonies, which, despite repeated listening, have not found their way into my heart. (I find that his first is particularly overpraised, much to my frustration.) My friend recommended me the Cello Concerto, and I was blown away by the emotion which poured forth from this piece, in which I think Elgar showed more of his true self than ever before. It is a work in which he held back less from unloading the huge frothing torrents of torment which swelled in his breast. It is my favourite work of his thus far, the one in which he comes closest to that of his Continental contemporaries. The illness and death of his wife and the destruction of WWI really struck a chord with him. I think it was foolhardy of him to begin a Third Symphony when his heart wasn't really in it, and have no desire to hear the 'completed' version - I doubt there is anything there that promised to be better than what he'd done in his First and Second. Symphonies just weren't Elgar's thing. Every composer has his strengths and Elgar had his. Let's just be honest about that. He lived a long life and there's a reason his oeuvre is limited. I do find it ironic that so many people complain that Elgar's Cello Concerto is dull but many of those same people adore his symphonies, but each to his own I suppose. There is no accounting for taste. I will say that Slatkin's version of Elgar's First and Second Symphonies, recommended by Dave, are the best versions I have heard thus far. Any issues I have with the piece are entirely due to the composer (or my congenital inability to appreciate the genius that is Elgar) and not the specific recordings by this or that conductor or orchestra. I will say that listening to both symphonies repeatedly has caused them to grow on me and I appreciate them much more than I did, the Second especially so. Not my favourite symphonies ever recorded, and not even close to the greatest of the 19th century, but good enough for a composer who was not ultimately a master symphonist.
I tried listening to The Dream of Gerontius. I gave up after the first twenty-five minutes, unmoved by both the music and the vile libretto. I will try again. In The South left me cold. His Salut d'amour sounds alarmingly familiar but I would never be able to tell you where I've heard it before. It's sweet but dull. Sea Pictures has proven quite an earworm, however. I never bothered until last month or thereabouts to listen to the B-side of that famous Barbirolli recording with Jacqueline du Pre doing the Cello Concerto, until I gave it a listen on Spotify. The poetry is deservedly forgotten, but the shoddy literature is redeemed by Elgar's brilliant music. (Reminds me of that mediocre Whitman poem that Vaughan Williams gave a new lease of life in his First Symphony.) Janet Baker is simply spectacular, especially in the last song, The Swimmer. I have listened to a few other versions by other sopranos, and they simply don't top her interpretation. March of the Mughal Emperors is a fun piece, but I'm not convinced that it's the best thing he ever wrote. If I have to choose one work by Elgar to take with me to a desert island, it has to be either the Cello Concerto or Sea Pictures. (The latter would be particularly topical for an existence hemmed in on all sides by the roiling waters of the earth.)
All in all Elgar is very hit and miss with me. Vaughan Williams is another composer I've had to work hard to appreciate, and didn't like very much until recently. I only really cared for his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis but everything else - the roving, meandering pentatonic melodies and ever-changing tonality a la Bruckner, seemingly leading to nothing particularly exciting or memorable, and my misinterpretation of his work as sentimental nationalism and nostalgia (perhaps because of some culture war right-wingers trying to claim him as of late) led me to rank him lower than I should. Dave, thank you so much for recommending Adrian Boult's recordings. Boult's rendition of A Sea Symphony proved enjoyable enough that I felt eager to explore the rest of his oeuvre and I have fallen in love with Previn's version of his Fifth. But I digress - we're supposed to be talking about Elgar, not Vaughan Williams. I'd like to thank Dave for reminding us all of the fact that taste is acquired, that we don't have to like everything the first time we hear it, that so much depends on the conductor and the orchestra and the manner in which they interpret the piece, that artist cults are actually damaging to our enjoyment of the music and our ability to appreciate it as music, not for any other reason, and that we have so much music out there to explore at our leisure - there really is no rush! We just have to keep an open mind and work at it. My experiences with Elgar and Vaughan Williams have been real learning moments for myself and I hope will be helpful to others.
One last thing I'd like to say about Elgar. Maybe this is just my ignorance, and I'm still making my way through his (admittedly relatively small) oeuvre, but he seems to have had a limited musical vocabulary. Maybe this is just the effect of listening to multiple works by one composer, but even compared with Mahler, who made all sorts of cross-references between his works (perhaps more than any other composer), Elgar seems to have a very repetitive melodic and orchestral palette. His Nimrod, the first movement of his First Symphony and the second movement of his Second Symphony, all sound identical to my ears, down to the trademark Elgarian timpani rolls that he adds in. It's almost as if, every time he composed a sad, emotional piece, his defence mechanisms kicked in and he felt compelled to thrust some leitmotif representing stoicism in the form of martial drum rolls into the piece. It can get rather repetitive at times, as if he was afraid of giving full vent to what he wanted to express. That's just my opinion, which I would like to think I have given some legitimate musicological backing to, but I am open to correction.
I came very late to Elgar [as a '50s-born Englander - me, not Elgar]. My music teacher at school persisted in playing the Introduction & Allegro, which was too advanced for me. I was in my 20s before I came back to him, and fell in love.
'In the South' is a remarkable work.
I am afraid that in the UK we love an underdog and people who get sick [see Kathleen Ferrier], so it was impossible there to criticise Jacqueline du Pre in any way - and boy there were things to criticise. I still have an irrational underlying lack of love for the Cello Concerto as a result, and am therefore continually re-surprised at the quality that it has.
Great story, Dave. I actually came to Elgar by discovering and hearing Gerontius for the first time…. I know……. However I still was incredibly fascinated, and moved by the music; just that prelude is so gorgeous! While the text is not the greatest (by far) it’s still a piece that I love. After that, I came to the Apostles….which I really love! And it just went on from there. Certainly nothing of interest but….that’s my simple story. The orchestra score to Gerontius has a German translation option for the text in the choral/solo parts. Perhaps that’s a better way to go in this case….
I first came across Solti's recording of the symphonies an the music made absolutely no impression to me in this interpretation. Found it really confusing...
Then I fell in love with "Gerontius" and gave the symphonies another try. But it was Barbirolli's recording of the 1 symphony which opened the door to understand and love that wonderful work ❤
Heard a recording on the radio of Elgar's Three Bavarian Dances, Opus 27. Guess this got me going on Elgar other than hearing the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 at grammar and high school graduation. Like that Crown of India Suite also, especially the Warrior's Dance. What can I say about the March of the Mogul Emperors, but "WOW" !!!! Have the Alexander Gibson recording on Chandos. Give it a listen, hope it is still available. THANKS DAVE !!!!!
When I was in high school I found a cheap used copy of the Barenboim 2nd Symphony down at Aron's Records in West Hollywood. It was a DJ copy sent to radio stations. I liked it!
1. But Dave, that's the unusual quality of Elgar's music: It evokes (A) the grandeur of the British Empire and (B) the melancholy ache in the English heart, resulting in (C) gentlemen jealously forming a club around it as if he was their own private protectorate. Perhaps that is due to the island temperament. Cigars with Elgar.
2. As for the Enigma Variations, based upon the melody of the beloved and beautiful Nimrod, my guess is that the actual enigma is the song Rule Britannia's second line starting with the words "never never never" and whose complete line is "Britons never never never will be slaves."
3. I was another one of those Pomp & Circumstance musicians contracted to play Land of Hope and Glory for graduations, seemingly in perpetuity. Never again.
4. Edward Elgar did have a wonderful wife, Lady Alice, whose constant devotion to him proved to be the catalyst for his eventual and continued success. Eight years his senior, after she died in 1920 he produced no significant compositions until his own death in 1934. He did live to see a revival of his music in England in the 1930s.
For me, by far, the very best Enigma is the LSO under Monteux. Out of this world!
I don’t recollect where or when I first heard the story of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother going to a concert in the early 1950s and saying to the conductor (Boult? Barbirolli? Sargent? Definitely not Beecham!) ‘I do so like Elgar but it doesn’t do to say so, does it?’
I imagine she was correct - then.
I'm greatly enjoying this "how I discovered" series. My own musical journey was conditioned by a wartime and immediately post-war childhood in a very austere England. An important part of the family environment was a black box containing 78s of the basic classics, e.g. Beethoven's 5th, Brahms Academic Festival, Mozart's Eine kleine nachtmusik, Handel's Water Music, etc. Elgar's Enigma Variations was a presence too but I think it was an immediately post-war addition in a BBC/Boult rendering. All these composers enjoyed in my childhood have been a permanent presence for me and it was natural for me to seek to expand my knowledge of them without a "discovery" phase. Of course in the UK at that time, the Pomp and Circumstance marches enjoyed a special patriotic status with "Land of Hope and Glory" being a sort of second national anthem. This had the perverse effect, as I grew into an intellectual snobbery phase, of inducing a degree of contempt from which it took some time to recover. Today my collection contains a wide selection of Elgar's music with the symphonies and concertos in several different interpretations, including "foreigners" like Previn, Slatkin, Sinopoli, Solti, Haitink...I love the cello concerto, especially in the Du Pré/Barbirolli version! Elgar is rumoured to have enjoyed slap and tickle (perhaps a bit more) with the ladies. Nowadays, his old age and career end would be plagued by "MeToo" accusations. I'm glad that, so far, that movement has not yet developed a posthumous reach.
Not being English i never grew up with Elgar in my DNA.I avoided his music for along time prefering Vaughn Williams untill at a concert in the mid 80s heard Sospiri which blew me away.Then heard the first Symphony on holiday in Scotland, the Boult recording.I have never come to grips with the choral works except The Black Night.These days i have come to love works such as the second Symphony and The Crown of India and his salon works.
Hello Dave,
Elgar has been gradually growing on me over the last decade or so. Initially I found his music to be what I called “overly earnest”-maybe too self-consciously attempting strong emotions rather than their emerging from a place of sincerity. But now I am seeing that he is a composer for whom the performance approach matters a great deal. It can actually sound colorfully romantic and really sincere when the conductor and performers don’t allow the music to become self-indulgent wallowing. The problem is not so much playing it too slowly, because it often needs the space. Most of the time the problem is that it is played too bombastically without attention to orchestral balance and getting the noble mood right. The music is expressive on its own without adding layers of bombast. For example, Barenboim ‘s symphony recordings with Staatskapelle Berlin or Hickox’s Apostles and other Elgar recordings show a composer of real depth, nobility, and sincere Romantic intensity. I’m gradually getting to appreciate him more and more. And I also have been frustrated with certain kinds of English musical criticism for the very reasons you mentioned. With Vaughan Williams I kept reading about folksong, the Malvern downs, politics, the wars, reception overseas, etc. I kept thinking, here you have one of the greatest composers of all time, certainly the one of the greatest symphonists of the 20th century, and THESE are the things you are talking about!? What about the MUSIC? Ok, the folksong was relevant but hardly the only influence on him. Anyway, as you say, a lot of non-musical stuff has gotten in the way with Elgar also. I’m glad that this problem is lessening now.
The famous Pomp March was my first introduction to Elgar too...while I did graduate to that tune, my first encounter with it (as a preteen) was through professional wrestling; it was Macho Man's theme song first!!!
I came to Elgar via Vaughan Williams, really. Every time I'd read anything about VW, the author would inevitably mention Elgar (and vice versa) - at least that's how it seemed. They were constantly mentioned in the same breath by anyone talking about British music, so I became curious to hear Elgar. I knew the Pomp and Circumstance March #1 and didn't think much of it, to be honest, but the first recording of Elgar's music I ever picked up for my own collection was the Boult recording of the First Symphony - and I quite loved it. I was impressed by the almost cinematic sweep of it and the sense of grandeur. I found the Second Symphony a tougher nut to crack, but eventually grew to love it. And yeah, I love the Cello Concerto - but it wasn't the Jacqueline DuPre recording I heard, but a young Yo-Yo Ma's on CBS with Andre Previn. I know what you're talking about and share your amused disdain for Gramophone Magazine's notorious favoritism. Provincialism disguised as smug superiority. I used to take it with a pinch of salt. You just have to - they wax just as rhapsodic about Delius too. Delius is fine, but, let's face it, he's no Elgar - and to my mind, he was more French than English aesthetically. It's an amusing bit of silliness because, overall, they were a pretty good magazine otherwise - but they always had this nationalistic blind spot. I remember, though, that they did rather like the Leonard Slatkin recordings of "their" roast beef and gravy repertoire well enough - but the orchestras involved were usually English. But their constant over-hyping of English composer, conductors and orchestras made me snicker, but never really to the point of annoyance. I just knew to take their artistic judgement in these matters a little less seriously.
Jerrold Moore’s short and interesting book Elgar Child of Dreams is music-centered and worthwhile. Overall, for Moore the Second Symphony is crucial.
For me it was the Monteux recording of the Enigma Variations with the Boston Symphony (the Brahms Haydn Variations on the other side) on an RCA LP.
Heard Zinman with the Cleveland in a live performance. Wonderful, featuring incredible brass.
I came to like the pomp and circumstance march as we practiced for high school graduation hearing the trio section played over and over again on the organ. I consulted my 1978 Illustrated Encyclopedia of Classical Music( I can't stress enough how important that book was to my initial education in music). The author was a Grammaphone writer Lionel Salter and gave Elgar 3 pages( for reference Ravel got barely 2). I have to say he was he was honest- accusing Elgar of "brashness" in the Cockainge Overture and admitting he wrote the occasional "potboiler". It was a Barbirolli LP of the first symphony that really sparked my appreciation.
I think there is a correlation in Elgar's music: the shorter the piece and the better it is. best example of all the mogul emperor march or pomp n c marches but certainly Enigma as the best of all (a set of miniatures).
as someone who grew up a few miles from Elgar's birthplace its interesting to get a perspective from the states, thanks for your thoughts Dave, glad you got there to appreciate Elgar eventually :)
It's difficult to overestimate how much Gramophone and the Penguin Guide dominated critical thinking here in the UK and thanks Dave, for breaking the spell. They were relentlessly patronising towards anything that was non-English and non German. Only now am I able to listen to, say, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia (and indeed Gibson and the SNO) without that Gramophone voice in my head.
I also dislike the insularity of the "club" and the notion that you must be British to properly interpret Elgar. Monteux did one of the greatest Enigmas and my introduction to it and "serious" Elgar was the 1952 Toscanini (by far his best; that recording also has the best "ship's engine" in Variation 13, that Ive heard anyway, among the dozen or so I own).
The violin concerto and the two symphonies took me awhile with lots of listening and study with the scores. Unlike Dave, I took to the cello cto right away and it had nothing to do with du Pre, a "great recording" that I find overwrought and exaggerated. I much prefer Tortelier on a number of versions, Starker and Slatkin, and the original, Beatrice Harrison with the composer.
For me, I think one of Elgar's most underappreciated works is the Starlight Express music. The play he wrote it for is impossible, no Peter Pan for sure, but the music is a spontaneous, warm-hearted and whimsical delight.
With Dave's permission Id say try and get the Vernon Handley recording coupled with Delius' complete Hassan music because there's magic there too.
Monteux knew enough to record that splendid work with the London Symphony Orxchestra.,.
Again a wonderful and informative video! Thank you, Dave! I came to Elgar by accident: In 1988 I visited a concert by Yehudi Menuhin and the Royal Philharmonic in Flensburg. They were supposed to play Vaughan Williams‘s Symphony Nr 5, but the program was altered: they played Elgar 1 - and they blew the roof off! We all left with shaking bones! I thought, my god, that was something! Classical music can be really thrilling, it‘s not necessarily Tafelmusik! So, when I‘m in the mood, Elgar does it for me. By the way, Gramophone gave thumps up for Barenboim‘s Elgar. Nowadays they are less British. On the other hand: I am equally or even more put off by the continental critics who are arrogant as well: The reviews of the concert were lukewarm, all of them went: Bruckner is better, Brahms is better. They didn’t listen to the music, they wrote down boring stereotypes. Believe me, they are much bigger ignorants than their British collegues. - A great pleasure to watch your videos. Greetings from Berlin, Harry
I also took my time to ‘get’ Elgar: looking back at my record purchases back in my teen years (I’m 65 now), I see that I had accumulated over 125 records before adding my first Elgar (four movements from The Wand of Youth Suites on a Boult sampler). Indeed, Holst, Arnold, Britten and particularly Walton had me hooked first. Being a ‘form’ guy even back then, the first piece I really remember impressing me was the Introduction and Allegro, which was the fill-up on my first LP of Enigma (Boult again) - I think it’s still my favourite Elgar.
I learned a little more about the rest of March #1 from Wendy Carlos’s amazing variations + fantasy titled “Pompous Circumstances” when it was released on the LP “By Request” in the late 70s. That and half-hearing the Enigma Variations on the radio every so often was about all I knew until I sang some of his choral music. Now I am still ignorant of more than half of his works, but every time I encounter a new one I am primed to be fascinated.
When I was in high school, a very, very fine junior high school band was on a tour and came and did a performance one evening at our high school. I want to emphasize that it was a junior high school band. Our band Director said that every student in that band took private lessons, and they were the only group to ever get a perfect score at contest in their particular state. I think it was Illinois but I’m not real sure. Well, they did play amazingly well. Probably on a college level. Absolutely incredible. And the piece that blew me away why’s the Nimrod variation from enigma. That’s the one part of the enigma variations that they did. I was just captivated by how beautiful and spiritual it was. So, having just started collecting records, I went out and bought Colin Davises recording on Phillips. I don’t even remember what else was on the recording. But I nearly wore the record out, going back to here just the Nimrod variation over and over. Gradually I got interested in the rest of the work, and from there probably got, the same recording of the second symphony that you mentioned. I also remember getting that same Barenboim recording of the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, and the crown of India, suite. I can still remember how colorful the record jacket was.
For me, it was P&C#1 as well, but not in the usual graduation way. I heard it from one of my first classical LPs that I fell in love with in my childhood, a collection of marches conducted by Ormandy. When it got to the big tune I recognized it immediately, but didn't know from where. Most likely it was from the background of a cartoon. It was nice, because I heard it as a majestic and memorable melody, rather than background music for tedious diploma hand-outs sessions.
Like many others who grew up in the 50's, the Pomp & Circumstance march will for ever be associated with "Queen for a Day", a TV game show where 4 elderly women would relate their personal hard-luck stories to schlockmeister/host Jack Bailey; the audience would then decide which one was most pathetic, by the use of an onscreen "applause-meter"; the winner would be crowned (complete w/cheesy scepter and stole) to the triumphant strains of Elgar. She was then showered with gifts...home appliances, etc, while the three losers sat despondently in the background. So, as you can imagine, Elgar's music already had one big strike against it.
I played percussion in the Enigma a couple of times, and came to know the 1st Symphony through Barbirolli's great recording; Louis Lane then led the Cleveland Orchestra in a performance (April, '73), for which I attended all rehearsals and performances. Loved it, and Robert Marcellus' clarinet solo at the end of the slow movement will (I'm sure) never be replicated.
I then caught the closing 5 minutes of "The Kingdom" (Boult's great version) on the radio and said "THIS IS FOR ME!"
I can understand the difficulty that listeners have with the 3 big religious works, but they are often sublimely beautiful and moving, especially "The Apostles". I've sampled many of Elgar's other works (conducted "Enigma" "Wand of Youth" 1st suite and "Polonia"....now THERE'S a wonderful piece), but basically am content to stay with the 2 Symphonies and the 3 big choral works. LR
Congrats on 24K Subscribers too!
I evidently share your ambivalence toward Elgar. He was a great composer; but his music speaks to me only intermittently. Part of this ambivalence, I think, is cultural. There remains a certain stuffiness to Edwardian culture, and, I find, to Elgar's music that remains off-putting even where I recognize his mastry as a composer. My first exposure to his music was the same as yours--multiple graduation ceremonies and the inevitable endless repetitions of that "Land of Hope and Glory" tune. I think I was in college when I first summoned sufficient interest to acquaint myself with the Enigma Variations (Barbirolli's Pye recording, as reissued on Vanguard). I liked the piece well enough to explore "The Dream of Gerontius" (Sargent recording on Angel), which failed to move me. Fast forward to the 1990's. By then I had acquainted myself with the two symphonies, two concertos and shorter orchestral works. I liked the Second Symphony better than everything else, but Elgar's discursive style still bored me. Then I discovered the Solti recordings of the two symphonies and some shorter works, and that conductor blew the cobwebs away with his brisk, bold approach. Elgar as the English Richard Strauss. I went on subsequently to retrace my steps and found that I enjoyed works like the Violin Concerto and Gerontius. I found his chamber music particularly congenial; more intimate, less grandiose. Lately, however, the old doubts have resurfaced. Just last week I put on a recording of the Violin Concerto (Menuhin/Boult), and fell asleep before that interminable first movement was over. So there you have it. In my case a brief dalliance preceded and followed, sorry to say, by an unbridgeable cultural divide.
Genuineliy interesting story, thanks! For me, it was almost always close friends who opened me up to music that hadn't been favored by. my father, who let me have his older records when he replaced them by newer ones. For me, it actually was the 'cello concerto, particularly Barenboim-Dupre's TV performance with that rousing run by the cello before the tutti enters in mvt 1. Then came the Enigma variations (late Bernstein, with that hypnotically slow Nimrod) and the organ sonata, then In The South, the symphonies (for me, the Second beats the First by a mile), the violin concerto (Heifetz setting the standard) and the chamber works, one of which I even came to perform. I tend to think that Elgar is more subtle than he is given credit for. It was interesting to me to learn that, at first, he wasn't considered English at all, but rather an aberration.
About the tragic Dupre story, I am with you entirely. Even to the point that I don't like it very much when I find the Berg concerto advertised along with its dedication, as if that was a part of its title, which it isn't. I believe that the music, while being closely tied to particular incidents, tells a universal story of suffering as experienced by many, which should not be confined to that one, if genuinely tragic, bit of Viennese gossip. Same goes with Dupre and the 'cello concerto. If anything, her playing was of an overwhelmingly vital and joyfully expressive nature.
I spent too many years pretending in polite circle that I liked Elgar. No more. Thankyou, David Hurwitz.
Apart from performing the "Graduation March" in school, I think I first listened to the Cockaigne Overture on a recommendation. And then I curious about his Wand of Youth suites because I read somewhere that the tuba parts were apparently meant for euphonium. Turns out the British were really slow to adopt the tuba and pick and standard model, so the answer is maybe.
March of Mogul Emperors has a terrific tam-tam part !!!
Yes, it had to be Pomp and Circumstance #1! I really got to know it well in high school because I played trombone in the band and we had to do it every year for HS graduation (I tried to convince my band director to choose Walton’s Crown Imperial, to no avail) and I’m sure I heard the Elgar long before high school. After that my next memory was hearing the Introduction and Allegro on our local public radio station and so I bought the famous Barbirolli LP. Also around the same time I got an LP with overtures performed by the Halle Orchestra under George Weldon that had the Cockaigne Overture on it. It had other things, too, but it was the Elgar that really stuck. I never really appreciated the symphonies, though grew to like the First. Of the concertos, I chose the Cello one because I found the Violin Concerto too long and rambling-especially the last movement. Of course, I really liked the Enigma Variations and still do. However, if I could take only one CD by Elgar to my desert
island it would be Mackerras’s recording of the Wand of Youth Suites. That’s my kind of Elgar and so unpretentious.
What's the "two pennies on the tympani" thing??
Elgar suggests the throbbing of the boat engine with timpani played (as in the score) with snare drum sticks, but originally he asked that the sound be made by placing two "old school" pennies on the drumheads to achieve the same rattling effect.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Bax did the "penny/tympani" thing in the 2nd Symphony (I think). He merely writes: "With pennies", assuming that the player knows exactly what to do. LR
What a terrific summation of how f@#$ed the English establishment (the club) is...wonderful.
I have a request: HOW I DISCOVERED POULENC.
I remember trying to listen to Barbirolli in the symphonies and just being soooo bored. The performances were completely wooden. It put me off Elgar for years. The recordings which opened my ears to Elgar’s music were those by Slatkin; suddenly this music came alive in the most glorious way. I still don’t like Gerontius or the Cello Concerto but I can now approach Elgar’s music with a fresh perspective. And he was great. Thank you sir for a very enlightening chat.
Well, I have the Barbirollis and stopped after that. I bought a couple of recordings of that endless VC, and have also stopped listening to that--decades ago. When you raise the name "Elgar" people start in with "I like the Enigma Var." and here we've started with the Marches. Do they know more? Too much of his music meanders and bores me. The cello concerto is one of the pieces that's reasonably concise. The two symphonies, the VC, "In the South"? These make me run the other way. There are a couple of good, but short, string pieces. The Brits? They seem to think he's some kind of god. They can have him!
I can understand not responding to the symphonies (they ARE something of an acquired taste), but to describe Barbirolli's Philharmonia recording of The 1st Symphony as "wooden" is curious; it's certainly not, especially the sublimely beautiful 3rd movement, which Barbirolli shapes to perfection. LR
Trouble is with Elgar, I don't like him that much. I think his cello concerto is special, but his other music is too dull. Vaughan Williams and Holst are way more interesting..