Music
Leave Elgar in the air
Robin Holloway
There is always curiosity value in the birthplaces and residences of the great, even when they fail to create an atmo- sphere that suggests the achievement we revere. When this does happen, and when the setting, also, evokes the style and con- tent of a genius whose expression is local before it is international, the result is a national monument, however modest the site or scale. When to all this is added an unforeseeable extra, the place's intrinsic charm, it should be lovingly cherished; pre- served not in formaldehyde as a dead curiosity but in amber as a previous record of a lost past. Elgar's birthplace at Broadheath, in remote countryside a few miles outside Worcester, must be warm in the memories of anyone who has visited it, for just this quality of gem-like perfection. The tiny cot- tage exudes an enormous presence. It is stuffed with memorabilia: juvenile, like the family's facetious mock newspapers, or records of his father's music shop in Worcester and receipts for his own first earnings as violin-teacher — and the violin itself; then from the middle years of fame and glory however internally anguished, the doctoral gowns, civic freedoms, decora- tions, and the gadgets, inventions, experi- ments in 'stinks' with which in odd moments he beguiled his restless creativity; and so to the sad evidences of lonely melancholy after his wife's death, unassuaged by friendly spaniels, race-meet- ings and Three Choir Festivals, even the generous recording-studios of HMV. Some of this material is trivial, all is evocative; some — like the violin, or the collection of favourite pipes and walking-sticks — brings a lump to the throat. The untrivial trea- sures, musical sketches, corrected proofs, manuscripts of masterpieces (including what is possibly the greatest of all, the 2nd symphony) are numinous in a different way.
The cottage inside, though very small, doesn't feel cramped. Only from the gar- den does the almost miniature scale strike home. The garden slopes gently down towards the road, then makes a surprise turn to accommodate its bending. This gives a sort of secret fold, intensely sugges- tive of childhood and daydreams. The road itself, quiet enough now, must have been little more than a track in pre-tarmac epochs. Associations rush to mind, from the most immediate — Dream Children; The Wagon Passes — to the middle dis- tance — pastoral interludes in Falstaff and both symphonies, the mood of undisturbed idyll that lies within the noisy bits of the violin concerto and sheds them wholly in the concerto for cello; and in the far dis- tance, the unmistakable outline of the Malvern Hills.
In sober truth these associations are by association only. The family moved from Broadheath to Worcester when the com- poser was only three. But there is truth and truth. A comparison lies not so many miles away — the museum made out of the mod- est terrace house in Cheltenham where Hoist was born in 1874. Here the spirit of official arrangement hangs heavy and says `do not touch'. Whereas everything at Broadheath breathes tender affection, wholly reverent but almost wholly without piety or tat. Elgar is present in spirit.
Thus the proposal to build an Elgar Research Centre has appalled everyone who knows it. That the scale is tiny, the `You can tell she's a lesbian, because she wears men's earrings!' feeling intimate, the location out of the way, is obvious at once; to get to know it is to realize that the place's peculiar charm depends upon these factors. Not just the proposed new building, also the inevitable accompaniments — service roads, car-park, notices, rubbish-bins etc. — will be ruinous. The intrinsic humbleness will be spoilt; and furthermore, the new purpose will not be realized effectively. It is as clear to the rank outsider as to the composer's pained farralY that a Centre in Worcester itself would ful- fil the function better. Or, more appropri- ate still, one of the succession of grand villas occupied later by Elgar in leafy Great Malvern, a town where you seem to hear `Land of Hope and Glory' from behind every pillar-box, just as you hear his more inward strains among the reeds along the banks of the Severn. Any of these houses could be adapted with less damage and more convenience, while still retaining the personal association with the man's life and work which is rightly sought. The model for the proposals at Broad- heath is I suppose the mixture of conver- sions and purpose-buildings around the Red House, Britten's home for his final 19 years on the edge of Aldeburgh. Here the house itself remains private and residential, while the library, research-centre, and other facilities, fill a cluster of satellites. But Aldeburgh is roomy. The house itself is large, and set in grounds, rather than tiny and perched behind a front garden. It can take what has been and is still being done; and the result, tasteful if a little chilly, is outstandingly efficient and successful. As a model for what could be done for Elgar studies and maybe, eventually, for a wider spread of English music, the Britten/Pears Library could not be bettered. Except that its slight chill might also be instructive for the Elgar-planners. The sense of rational- ization at Aldeburgh is paramount; Brit- ten's personality is scarcely evoked, even while the productions of his imagination are its raison d'être. Whereas at Broad- heath, admittedly a very different kind of place, Elgar is in the air; and this unquan- tifiable essence is so precious that it must not be lost — though even as you read this, the lorries have already moved in.
Elgar is important enough to deserve both sorts of shrine. One is urban, practi- cal, functional; the other rural, tucked away and left alone, the cottage and garden still so redolent of family life which — to use the motto he adopted for the dedication of his violin concerto — inters the beloved appurtenances of his mind and body, if not quite his soul. It is, in its quiet way, a national scandal that such a place should be desecrated by philistine academics and local government, however well intentioned.
The Cambridge Elgar Festival runs until 26 November and will include the premier of Elgar's opera, The Spanish Lady. For further information ring 0223 357851.
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