by Adams, Byron
Despite the similarity of their titles, Pauer’s book has little in common with Eduard Hanslick’s 1854 volume, Vom Musikalisch-Schönen (On the Beautiful in Music). Sharing only a broad debt to German philosophy, Pauer is closer to the critical writings of Schumann than the austere Hegelianism of Hanslick.95 Indeed, Hanslick poured scorn on the very writers, such as Schumann, who served Pauer as exemplars; the Viennese music critic castigated such authors—and doubtless would have included Pauer in this company—as deluded Romantics who wrapped discussions of music “in a cloud of high-flown sentimentality.”96 Judging by an excursus found in the fifth Peyton lecture, titled “Critics,” Elgar had read at least some Hanslick with care and, as Trowell has observed, shared with the Viennese music critic an unease, common to certain other composers of the period, about music’s “‘poetical-pictorial’ associations.”97 But Elgar shrewdly deconstructs Hanslick’s seemingly uncompromising aesthetic stance by pointing out an inconsistency. Elgar quotes the critic’s assertion, embedded in a review of Brahms’s Third Symphony—“Spoken language is not so much a poorer language as no language at all, with regard to music, for it cannot render the latter”—but then remarks, “Hanslick allows himself to call the opening theme of the last movement ‘a sultry figure’ foreboding a storm.”98
Unlike Hanslick, however, Pauer was perfectly at ease making sweeping generalizations about such high-toned but vague concepts as “tone-painting,” “ideal beauty,” “truth,” and the “infinite.” Pauer’s frequent evocations of the “ideal” put him squarely in the tradition of German Romantics; he quotes from both Schelling and Schiller and cites Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Kant, Ferdinand Hand, and Hegel in his preface. Such vocabulary would have set Hanslick’s teeth on edge and seems quaint today. But some of Pauer’s statements—such as “uneducated intellects will never reach the pure heights of perfection”—may have deeply resonated in a boy with aspirations, trapped in modest circumstances with few obvious prospects, who was doggedly reading Pauer in pursuit of the “mystery” of music.99
Pauer does not stop at exhortation: in detailed affective descriptions of each of the major and minor keys he posits a theory of keys. By so doing, Pauer is part of a long tradition that includes Kirnberger and other eighteenth-century German theorists who speculated on the relationship of keys and temperament within the context of Affektenlehre.100 Berlioz compiled a description of keys in his Treatise on Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration, a text well-known to Elgar, but Berlioz is exclusively concerned with the intersection of keys with instrumental technique. Rimsky-Korsakov’s unsystematic association of key areas with color would seem at first to be close to Pauer’s characterizations, but there is a crucial difference between the two: Pauer uses an affective vocabulary while the Russian composer veers into the realm of synesthesia. Rimsky-Korsakov’s disciple V. V. Yastrebtsev recorded in his diary that “the various keys suggest various colors, or rather shades of color, to Rimsky-Korsakov… for example, E major seems tinged with a dark blue, sapphire-like color.”101 The point is not whether Kirnberger’s theory, or Rimsky-Korsakov’s system, or Pauer’s associations for key centers are objectively “correct,” or that they may contradict other such systems, but that Pauer’s theories may have meant something to Elgar and may have influenced, consciously or unconsciously, his choice of keys in certain of his scores. If Pauer’s designations for keys did influence Elgar—and there is reason to suggest they did—then surely this is a powerful instance of semantic memory, as the English composer would have constantly returned to a set of abstract ideas throughout his life, reinterpreting them while still retaining something of their original import.
Through Pauer’s descriptions, the various keys evoke certain moods and mental states such as innocence (C major), sadness (C minor), and dreamy melancholy (G minor).102 Pauer’s hypotheses are presented with a peculiarly Teutonic mixture of thoroughness and sentiment as he asserts: “In music, the innermost feelings of the composer are displayed; and in so far as the characteristic is founded on the individual or personal feeling, an original composition must in itself be characteristic… . The characteristic shows itself by means of the tones and intervals, and finds expression through the minor and major keys, through the time and movement, through the accent, the rest, the figures, and passages and last, but not least, through the melody.” Pauer declares that “the proper choice of key is of the utmost importance for the success of a musical work; and we find that our great composers acted in this matter with consummate prudence and with careful circumspection.” Pauer is careful to offer a caveat to his characterizations of the different tonalities by noting: “It cannot be denied that one composer detects in a certain key qualities which have remained entirely hidden from another… . We lay down a rule which admits many exceptions… . All we can safely do is to name the characteristic qualities of the keys as we deduce their characteristic expression from universally admired and accepted masterpieces: and thus we need not fear to misstate or to misapprehend the bearing of the subject.” Further, he takes the precaution of recommending variety through modulation: “When the composer has chosen his key, he will be careful to handle it in such a manner that it does not attain too great a prominence, which would result in monotony, and cause fatigue and lack of interest in the listener; but he will manage to suffuse his work with the special characteristics of the key, which is thus made to glimmer or shine through the piece without asserting itself with undue strength.”103
Pauer’s assertions, including his descriptions of each key, might seem a charming but inconsequential byway of Romantic aesthetics were it not for the autodidact from Worcester with the fantastically retentive memory. For those who have even a glancing acquaintance with Elgar’s music, Pauer’s descriptions are suggestive. According to Pauer, “D major expresses majesty, grandeur, and pomp, and adapts itself well to triumphant processions, festival marches and pieces in which stateliness is the prevailing feature.”104 After the first Pomp and Circumstance March—famously in D major—ceases to ring in the reader’s ears, the question naturally arises: How often do Pauer’s discussions of keys tally with Elgar’s music? Such a study would be informative if one bore in mind that not even a slavish dedication to Pauer and his ideas would result in a complete match between Elgar’s key selection and Pauer’s characterizations, since Pauer left room for inventiveness and creativity—and that the ambitious young Elgar would have felt he possessed both. The point is not whether Elgar consciously planned out his works to conform to Pauer’s descriptions—an improbable hypothesis at best, as there are instances where Elgar’s music contradicts the Austrian’s characterizations—but rather how his tenacious memory may have colored certain musical decisions as a result of his early reading.
So, though it is certainly too fanciful to suggest that Elgar designed the complex key relationships of The Dream of Gerontius so that the supernal opening of the second part would conform to Pauer’s description of F major as a key full of “peace and joy … but also express [ing] effectively a light, passing regret … [and], moreover, available for the expression of religious sentiment,” it is, however, worth remarking that this is the only extended passage in F major in the entire score.105 Was Elgar’s reading of Pauer a seminal factor in the composer’s choice of key? Nothing in the elaborate key structure of Gerontius, which, Elgar’s sketches show, was planned early in the score’s genesis, required that this particular crucial moment be cast in F major. In other words, tonal logic alone cannot explain why Elgar selects keys for certain expressive contexts.
A striking instance of a key that seems to act as a particularly potent signifier for Elgar is that of E-flat major, which Pauer describes as a “key which boasts the greatest variety of expression.” Pauer continues, remarking, “At once serious and solemn, it is the exponent of courage and determination, and gives to a piece a brilliant, firm and dignified character. It may be designated as eminently a masculine key.” Pauer often draws his examples
from Beethoven, whom he praises as “the composer whose works may be taken pre-eminently as a type of ideal beauty.”106 That Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony in E-flat Major looms large behind Pauer’s characterization of this key cannot be doubted, although as a pianist, Pauer may have also had in mind the Emperor Concerto, cast in the same key as the symphony.
To follow Elgar’s use of E-flat throughout his mature music would be a revealing exercise, but discussion here will be restricted to five major works composed over thirteen years: the Enigma Variations; the concert overture In the South (Alassio) (1903–4); the Second Symphony (1911); The Music Makers (1912); and, finally, his “symphonic study,” Falstaff (1913). Of these scores, In the South and the Second Symphony share E-flat major as the dominant tonality; the “Nimrod” variation from the Enigma Variations is cast solely in that key; the fifth stanza of The Music Makers begins in E-flat; and a single theme from Falstaff cast in E-flat will be discussed. All of these scores have masculine associations; four of these works specifically evoke two of Elgar’s closest male friends.
The “Nimrod” variation, the climactic ninth of thirteen, is the emotional and structural climax of the Enigma Variations, and portrays Elgar’s loyal friend August Jaeger.107 One of the curiosities of Pauer’s book that could be related to the use of E-flat major for this heartfelt music is that the Austrian author does not merely characterize key centers, but time signatures as well. Pauer thus declares triple time to be expressive of “longing, of supplication, of sincere hope, and of love… . It possesses a singular tenderness and a remarkable fund of romantic expression.”108 Inquiry into a composer’s creative process can only be speculative, but it is striking that Pauer’s descriptions of key and time signature constitute a virtual recipe for the “Nimrod” variation, surely one of the most moving evocations of the intense tenderness that can lie at the heart of male friendship.
Example 2. Opening Measures, “Nimrod” variation, Variation IX of the Enigma Variations, op. 36, starting at rehearsal number 33.
Example 3. Recall of the “Nimrod” variation from the fifth stanza of The Music Makers, op. 69, starting at rehearsal number 51.
Elgar explicitly connected both his concert overture In the South and the Second Symphony to his friend and faithful patron Frank Schuster, the homosexual son of a wealthy banker. Siegfried Sassoon, in an otherwise venomously penned portrait of Schuster, noted that his erstwhile friend’s “hero-worship of Elgar was (justifiably) the most important achievement of his career, because he really did help Elgar toward success and recognition.”109 Schuster tirelessly promoted Elgar’s music in aristocratic and artistic circles, and, as Sophie Fuller discusses elsewhere in this volume, Schuster’s elegant home in London and his country house, The Hut, in Bray-on-Thames, were important sites for Elgar, who occasionally used the estate as a refuge when composing. Elgar trusted Schuster so explicitly that he designated his patron as one of his daughter’s guardians when the composer and his wife left for America in 1905.110 Even death did not fully curtail Schuster’s generosity, for he left Elgar the considerable sum of £7,000, writing in the bequest that the composer had “saved my country from the reproach of having produced no composer worthy to rank with the German masters.”111 Elgar was deeply saddened by his patron’s death, writing to Schuster’s sister, Adela, “By my own sorrow—which is more than I can bear to think of at this moment (a telegram [announcing Schuster’s death] has just come) I may realize some measure of what this overwhelming loss must be to you.”112
Elgar dedicated In the South to Schuster. The composer wrote that his friend would find the overture filled with “light-hearted gaiety mixed up in an orchestral dish [in] which [,] with my ordinary orchestral flavouring, cunningly blent, I have put in a warm cordial spice of love for you.” In the South, inspired, as the title attests, by a journey to Italy, was completed barely in time for the premiere, which took place on the third evening of a festival devoted to Elgar’s music.113 In a remarkable show of devotion, Schuster offered practical proof of his admiration by underwriting this ambitious undertaking, in effect assuming responsibility for any financial loss that might have occurred.
Elgar wrote to Percy Pitt that the opening of In the South portrayed “the joy of living” and had an “exhilarating out-of-doors feeling.” The overture’s initial theme was originally jotted down as a musical depiction of the “moods of Dan” in 1899—Dan was a boisterous dog belonging to Elgar’s friend George Robertson Sinclair—and was cast originally in E major.114 Robert Anderson aptly observes that the example of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben may have induced Elgar to transpose this theme to E-flat major, but, as we shall see, there may well have been another reason for this change. The broader questions of why Elgar projected human emotions onto a dog and how this anthropomorphic projection called forth such varied and expressive ideas are unanswerable, though the surprisingly varied “moods of Dan” themes are suited perfectly to the scores in which they appear.115
Shortly after Schuster’s death in 1928, Elgar wrote to Adela Schuster, who had requested of the composer an epitaph for her brother: “I want something radiant, bright & uplifting for dear Frankie’s memorial stone & I cannot find it: forgive me I have failed. I have said in music, as well as I was permitted, what I felt long ago,—in F[rank]’s own Overture ‘In the South’ & again in the final section of the Second Symphony—both in the key that he loved most I believe (E flat)—warm & joyous, with a grave and radiating serenity: this was my feeling when the Overture was dedicated to him 24 years ago & is only intensified now.”116 Did Elgar transpose the opening theme of In the South from its original E major to E-flat major in part because he knew that Schuster “loved” the lower key? As Elgar designed the overture as a special gift to Schuster, a friend who relished all manner of male company, one can only speculate whether or not, lurking in back of his mind, there might have been a persistent wraith of memory of Pauer’s description of E-flat major as “masculine.” By far the most interesting aspect of Elgar’s letter to Adela Schuster, however, is that as late as 1928 his characterization of E-flat major is reminiscent in style of Pauer’s affective vocabulary—“the exponent of courage and determination, and gives to a piece a brilliant, firm and dignified character.”
Elgar’s Second Symphony has been associated with any number of the composer’s friends and acquaintances. Often mentioned is Edward VII, to whose memory the work is dedicated.117 Lady Elgar invoked Alfred Rodewald, whose death in 1903 deeply agitated her husband, as an inspiration for the harrowing slow movement.118 Elgar himself declared that a theme in the last movement was a portrait of Hans Richter: “Hans himself!”119 Alice Stuart-Wortley has been construed as a muse for the symphony through readings—of variable insight depending on the interpreter—of the composer’s letters to her.120 Frank Schuster is rarely mentioned, however, despite Elgar’s clear statement that the symphony’s poetic coda, cast in E-flat major, was inspired by him. One wonders if Elgar ever mentioned his intention to Schuster, who was very much alive in 1911 when this symphony in his favorite key was premiered. Once again, Elgar provided a motto for the symphony that has given rise to much speculation, the first line from one of Shelley’s poems: “Rarely, rarely comest thou, / Spirit of Delight!”121 Describing this score, throughout which E-flat major glimmers and shines, Elgar wrote to his publisher in terms that conjoin his 1928 letter to Adela Schuster with Pauer’s characterization of E-flat major, for, he confided, “The spirit of the whole work is intended to be high & pure joy: there are retrospective passages of sadness but the whole of the sorrow is smoothed out & ennobled in the last movement, which ends in a calm & I hope & intend, elevated mood.”122
Example 4. Excerpt from the coda of the Finale, Symphony no. 2 in E-flat major, op. 63, five measures after rehearsal number 170.
The Music Makers, a setting of an ode by the poet Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1844–81) for mezzo-soprano, chorus, and orchestra, was finished a year after the first performance of the Second
Symphony. The poem expresses an earnest, striving ideology reminiscent of Longfellow’s more exhortatory poetry, as well as a high vision of the artist’s calling that recalls the American author’s Hyperion. Here, however, as Aidan J. Thomson has observed, Elgar deconstructed O’Shaughnessy’s poem by using quotations from his own scores, creating an agonistic relationship between the text’s optimism and the music’s repeated tendency toward pessimistic dissolution. Semantic memory thus assumed a crucial role in the creation of The Music Makers: Elgar treated themes from previously composed works as abstract entities thrust into a wholly new context, yet still retaining something of their original import. The Music Makers is surely the most self-referential of Elgar’s autobiographical scores; of this work, he wrote to Ernest Newman, “I am glad that you like the idea of the quotations: after all art must be the man, & all true art is, to a great extent egotism & I have written several things which are still alive.”123
Example 5. Quotation from the coda of the Finale, Symphony no. 2, in The Music Makers, starting at rehearsal number 53.
The Music Makers may furnish further evidence of Schuster’s connection to the Second Symphony. In the most protracted allusion in the score, Elgar uses the “Nimrod” variation to illustrate lines in O’Shaughnessy’s fifth stanza, which reads in part: “But on one man’s heart it hath broken, / A light that doth not depart; / And his look, or a word he hath spoken, / Wrought flame in another man’s heart.”124 Of this passage Elgar testified, “Here I quoted the ‘Nimrod’ Variation as a tribute to the memory of my friend, A. J. Jaeger: by this I did not mean to convey that his was the only soul on which light had broken or that his was the only word, or look, that wrought flame in another man’s heart.”125 For this tribute to Jaeger, Elgar not only quotes the “Nimrod” variation, but begins this stanza in the variation’s key of E-flat major as well, making this the only quotation in The Music Makers that appears in its original key.126 (After the initial statement of the “Nimrod” theme, this section vacillates between E-flat major and A-flat major—Pauer describes this key as “full of feeling and replete with a dreamy expression”—before finally settling into the latter.)127 Since the key scheme in The Music Makers is as intricate as any other of Elgar’s major works, the composer may well have designed the tonal plan to accommodate this excursion in E-flat major. As Moore notes, the recall of the “Nimrod” variation “dwarfed all the short surrounding Music Makers figures—especially when ‘Nimrod’ found a wonderful coupling with the final descending figure from the Second Symphony in the same key.”128
