MUSIC The Elgar Celebrations
UNQUALIFIED praise is due to the British Broadcasting Corporation for including in its series of symphony concerts three programmes devoted entirely to the music of Elgar. These concerts, together with others which included perfor- mances of the chamber music, sonic of the part-songs and Falstaff, were in the nature of an Elgar Festival and had been arranged to mark and honour the year of Sir Edward's seventy- fifth birthday—a happy and most opportune gesture. For it is more reasonable and far more satisfying to do homage to a living composer than to one who was born or died a hundred or a multiple of a hundred years ago. And in this instance, the happiness of the occasion was enhanced by Elgar's presence and his conducting of some of the works.
The public is prone to forget or make light of its debt to Elgar as a self-interpreter. No other living composer has given so much of his time to the imparting of a true under- standing of his scores to orchestras, choral bodies and solo singers. Few contemporaries trouble to make • their music properly understood after publication stage. Sir Edward has rarely refused a reasonable request to direct a performance of his music. During the past few months he has been as active in the cause of his works as he was twenty-five years ago. In addition to the B.B.C. Festival Concerts, he has recently con- ducted at Hanley, Belfast, and the Three Choirs Festival as well as for a number of gramophone recordings. It is un- necessary to emphasize the importance of his co-operation with recording companies. Nor is it likely that his annual associ- ation with the choirs of the Western cities will be overlooked. His visits to other centres arc hardly less important in their
influence upon the performance of his music. At Belfast, where" he had journeyed for the first time, and where he was welcomed and honoured as if he had been an ambassador, his conducting of the .Faiignia Variations and Gerontius left deep impressions upon the discriminating audience of the Philharmonic Society. At Hanley " a few weeks ago, the composer oonducted a performance of King Olaf which was marked by an exceptionally high choral attainment. And if is worthy of note that his renewed acquaintance with this early cantata and the revival of its associations: with Hanley (where it was first produced in 1896) gave him as much pleasure as.if it had been one of the major works of his maturity. How different is the attitude of Strauss who, in spite of being seven years younger, leaves the impression of being disillusioned whenever he conducts his own music nowadays !
. .
To those who have known and loved Elgar's works for the greater part of their lives, the Festival may not have brought any new experience. But, thanks to the consistently fine playing of the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra and to the inter- pretations of Sir Landon Ronald; Dr. Adrian Boult and the composer himself, the music was made to reflect again the full glory of the Edwardian sun. No one of ordinary musical sensibility who has a clear memory of the early years of this century, could possibly miss the general mood and atmosphere evoked by the two symphonies. Quite apart from its dedica- tion to the memory of King Edward the Seventh, the successive episodes of splendour, ecstasy, foreboding, sorrow; spiritual struggle and resignation in the secondof these works, show it to be essentially a farewell to greatness. And in the same way the -First Symphony can be said: to be a proclaiming
of greatness. .
As for the Violin Concerto, without in the least denying the wonderful qualities of Yehudi Menuhin's performance in this, we must acknowledge Albert Sammons as the most understanding interpreter of the elusive, beautifully imagined music. Although it was completed and produced between the symphonies, the Violin Concerto does not lie upon the line of development" that joins those two works. It is as if the composer had withdrawn awhile from the heat and glare of the world of events and found solace in his own ideal world. This is not to say that idealism is not a condition of the symphonies, nor that the composer's reactions to con- temporary life did not influence the general mood of the concerto. But, whereas the former make us continually aware of life primarily in terms of conflict and action, the latter carries us to the safe retreat of the contemplative life. In the nature of things this could hardly be otherwise in a work in which the violin is the protagonist and of which Elgar is the composer. Not that the violin is lacking in strength, but rather in stature. To require of it an enactment of struggle and en- durance is to mis-cast it, as who should choose a small actor with a nervous, high-pitched voice to play Othello.
One of the perfOrmances that helped to make this Festival memorable was that of The Kingdom. For once in this oratorio chorus and players were of one mind in their house, with the result that Dr. Boult was able to convey soniething of its true nature. The conductors are still few who manage to impress upon performers the essentially symphonic quality of both The Apostles and The Kingdom. It is necessary that voices and instruments should be heard in continual interplay and, for this purpose; singers and players must know the whole score, not merely their own thin thread of notes. Elgar's creative instinct is essentially symphonic. Even during the oratorio period his imagination was reaching out beyond the verbal text to a more transcendental region. This reaching out is continually apparent in The Apostles and The Kingdom, and in order to interpret these truly, singers must renounce the Handelian choral style, players must realize that they are supplying something more -important than a mere accom- paniment and above all, the conductor must feel the work as a unity in which each episode will fall into place if it is given a natural emphasis. It was precisely because these things were borne in mind, that the Festival performance of The Kingdom was so convincing. And since this and the other concerts were heard throughout the country and beyond, we shall dare to hope that Elgar, in all the manifestations of his greatness, will be, not merely acclaimed, but more deeply and more Ba -MAns-E. '
Previous page
