Edward Elgar and His World
Page 55
31. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, 169.
32. Ibid., 168, 165.
33. Ibid., 167.
34. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Scribner, 1958).
35. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, 165.
36. Ibid., 167.
37. Ibid., 169.
38. Ibid., 181. See also the account of Arnold in Martin J. Weiner, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850–1860 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 35–37.
39. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, 184.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., 173.
42. Ibid., 140.
43. On the Oxford Movement, see Peter B. Nockles, The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760–1857 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
44. See Bernarr Rainbow, The Choral Revival in the Anglican Church, 1839–1872 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970).
45. Arthur Sullivan, “About Music,” in Sir Arthur Sullivan: Life Story, Letters and Reminiscences, ed. Arthur Lawrence (New York: Herbert S. Stone, 1899), 271.
46. Sullivan, “About Music,” 271–72.
47. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 163.
48. In this sense Elgar exploited the residues of an eighteenth-Century notion of the naive artist, whose gift and artistry were somehow superior by being spontaneous and bereft of culture and cultivation. By the mid-nineteenth century this sympathy had largely vanished, rendering that judgment either condescending or derogatory. See Hughes, The English Musical Renaissance and the Press, 162–89.
49. Bernard Shaw, “Sir Edward Elgar,” in Shaw’s Music, vol. 3 (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1981), 727. The essay was originally published in 1920.
50. As Anderson points out, Elgar consciously crafted the first 1896 oratorio, The Light of Life, to appeal to the established tastes of the audience. At the same time, in the spirit of Arnold, he used fashion to edify. A fugue was required and Elgar produced one that was “not a ‘barn-door’ fugue, but one with an independent accompaniment. There’s a bit of a canon, too, and in short, I hope there’s enough counterpoint to give the real English religious respectability!” Quoted in Anderson, Elgar, 207–8. See also the extensive discussion of the oratorio culture, narrative structures, and Elgar’s approach, from The Light of Life onward, in Charles Edward McGuire, Elgar’s Oratorios: The Creation of an Epic Narrative (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), particularly the first three chapters.
51. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 33.
52. Ibid., 49, 51.
53. Consider Elgar’s lavish praise for the leaders and citizens of Düsseldorf in contrast to their English counterparts. “Our public men” he wrote, “are unmusical” whereas in Düsseldorf, an orchestra is viewed as an “asset,” and the “annual loss” is not minded since music “is a feature of the town life.” Ibid., 257.
54. Ibid., 211, 225.
55. Ibid., 223.
56. Ibid., 133–43.
57. On Elgar’s relationship to the BBC and recording, see Ronald Taylor, “Music in the Air: Elgar and the BBC,” in Edward Elgar: Music and Literature, ed. Raymond Monk (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1993), 327–55. See also Timothy Day, “Elgar and Recording,” 184–94; and Jenny Doctor, “Broadcasting’s Ally: Elgar and the BBC,” 195–203, both in The Cambridge Companion to Elgar, ed. Daniel Grimley and Julian Rushton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
58. See Moore, Elgar: Child of Dreams, 10–11; Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life, 43, 45, 57, 60–62, 64, 70–72; Kennedy, Life of Elgar, 13–17; Anderson, Elgar, 4–13; and Shaw, “Sir Edward Elgar,” 725–28.
59. Elgar, Letters of a Lifetime, 81. Elgar’s Germanophilism was pronounced, as was his debt to Richter. Both sentiments suffered during World War I. On the Elgar-Richter relationship, see Christopher Fifield, True Artist and True Friend: A Biography of Hans Richter (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
60. Elgar, Letters of a Lifetime, 39.
61. Elgar, Elgar and His Publishers: Letters of a Creative Life, 2:828–29.
62. Quoted in Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life, 795.
63. Ibid., 65.
64. Ibid.
65. See Michael Beckerman’s “Dvo . rák’s ‘New World’ Largo and ‘The Song of Hiawatha,’” 19th-Century Music 16, no. 1 (Summer 1992): 35–48; and his New Worlds of Dvo . rák: Searching in America for the Composer’s Inner Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003).
66. Christoph Irmscher, Longfellow Redux (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006).
67. Ibid., 3.
68. Ibid., 50.
69. Interestingly, Longfellow had a portrait of Liszt and parts of Dante’s coffin in his study in Cambridge.
70. On Longfellow’s connection to Catholicism, see Horace Scudder, ed., The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1922; repr., Cutchogue, N.Y.: Buccaneer Books, 1993), 361–62.
71. See Burrows, “Victorian England: An Age of Expansion”; and Musgrave, Musical Life of the Crystal Palace.
72. Much of Alice’s poetry was written before she became Lady Elgar. See Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life, 124–27, 141, 181–82, 185, 190, 205, 222, 277–81, 522.
73. Mary Louise Kete, quoted in Irmscher, Longfellow Redux, 26.
74. It bears repeating, as an encomium, that this account is indebted to Irmscher’s brilliant book.
75. See the similar argument made by Michael Pope in “King Olaf and the English Choral Tradition,” in Elgar Studies, ed. Raymond Monk (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990), 58–60.
76. Quoted in Brian Trowell, “Elgar’s Use of Literature,” in Edward Elgar: Music and Literature, 197.
77. See Glenn Watkins, Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 42–45. Although Elgar wrote a considerable body of patriotic work before World War I, one thinks of “Carillon” (1914), Polonia (1915), The Spirit of England (1916), and the Kipling settings, The Fringes of the Fleet (1917).
78. Trowell, “Elgar’s Use of Literature,” 182–326.
79. For a discussion of Ruskin with respect to issues of the redefinition of masculinity and the aesthetic in Elgar’s generation, see Dellamora, Masculine Desire, chap. 6.
80. See Frank M. Turner, John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002); and John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, ed. David J. DeLaura (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968).
81. See John Henry Newman’s Grammar of Assent,” pt. 2, chap. 9, “The Illative Sense,” 270–99; and his The Idea of University (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), esp. 161–81. See also Ian Ker, John Henry Newman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 122.
82. See, for example, Hilliard, “UnEnglish and Unmanly: Anglo-Catholicism and Homosexuality.”
83. The doctrinal implications of the poem were the subject of lively debate, including the necessity of concessions regarding changes to permit performances in Anglican contexts. See Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life, 316–37; Esther R. B. Pese, “A Suggested Background for Newman’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’,” Modern Philology 47, no. 2 (November 1949): 108–16; and Mrs. Richard Powell, “The First Performance of ‘Gerontius,’” The Musical Times 100, no. 1392 (February 1959): 78–80. On Gerontius, see also Percy M. Young, Elgar, Newman, and the Dream of Gerontius: In the Tradition of English Catholicism (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995).
84. Trowell, “Elgar’s Use of Literature,” 229–32.
85. Gerontius had perhaps it greatest Continental success in Düsseldorf, where in 1890, out of a population of 144,000 thousand people, 105,000 were Catholics. On Viennese critical reaction to Gerontius, see Sandra McColl, “Gerontius in the City of Dreams: Newman, Elgar, and the Viennese Critics,” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 32, no. 1 (June 2001): 47–64.
86. The quotation comes from the first
of these lectures, “Of Kings’ Treasuries.”
87. John Ruskin, The Complete Works of John Ruskin, vol. 18 (London: George Allen, 1905), 34.
88. E. M. Forster, Howards End (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 38. I want to thank my Bard College colleague, Deirdre d’Albertis, a specialist in Victorian literature, for bringing this passage to my attention in response to an oral presentation of this essay given at a Bard Faculty Seminar in February 2007.
89. See Forster’s Howards End and his music essays, “The C Minor of That Life” and “Not Listening to Music,” in Two Cheers for Democracy (London: Edward Arnold, 1951).
90. Forster, “Not Listening to Music,” 138.
91. Ruskin, Complete Works, 51.
92. Ibid., 60.
93. Ibid., 152.
94. Ibid., 153.
95. Ibid., 186.
96. Ibid., 153.
97. Ibid., 178–79.
98. Ibid., 61.
99. McGuire, Elgar’s Oratorios, 136.
100. Sheridan Gilley, Newman and His Age, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003), 430–31.
101. Elgar, Letters to Publishers, 1:228.
102. Ibid.
103. Newman was also avid in his interest in music. He played the violin and was particularly devoted to the quartets of Beethoven. See Ian Ker, John Henry Newman, 573–74, 610.
104. Anderson, Elgar, 65.
105. See A. J. Jaeger’s The Apostles: Analytical and Descriptive Notes (London: Novello, n.d.); and his The Kingdom: Analytical and Descriptive Notes (Borough Green: Novello, n.d.).
106. On the issue of realism as a concept in nineteenth-Century music, see Carl Dahlhaus, Realism in Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. Mary Whittall (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Even beyond Wagner, rhetorical correspondences in musical practice could form the basis of an analogy to realism if, as in Liszt’s tone poems, the structure followed either a literary or pictorial framework.
107. Anderson, Elgar, 80.
108. Ibid., 99, 115.
109. Quoted in Elizabeth Prettejohn, The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 191.
110. Ibid., 243.
111. Percy M. Young, Alice Elgar: Enigma of a Victorian Lady (London: Dobson, 1978), 65.
112. Anderson, Elgar, 17–18.
113. See Byron Adams’s “Elgar’s Later Oratorios. Roman Catholicism, Decadence, and the Wagnerian Dialectic of Shame and Grace,” in Grimley and Rushton, Cambridge Companion to Elgar, 92–93.
114. Quoted in Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life, 401. Kramskoi (1837–87) was a leading St. Petersburg painter and art critic. Christ in the Wilderness was bought in 1872 by Pawel Tretyakov and now resides in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The painting is reproduced in The Tretyakov Gallery: A Panorama of Russian and Soviet Art (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1983), plate no. 57; see also 335. Anderson refers to this painting (Elgar, 59) and gives its proper date but mistakenly identifies it as The Temptation of Christ.
115. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 33.
116. Ibid., 201.
INDEX
Index
Index to Elgar’s Works
Apostles, The
early reviews, in British periodicals
“In the Tower of Magdala”
Ave Verum Corpus
Banner of St. George, The
Beau Brummell
Black Knight, The
Caractacus
Carillon
Cello Concerto in E Minor (1919)
Adagio of
Chanson de matin
Chanson de nuit
Characteristic Dances
Cockaigne Overture
Concert Allegro for piano
Coronation March
Coronation Ode
Crown of India, The (masque and suite)
“Dance of the Nautch Girls”
“Entrance of John Company” (see “Menuetto”)
“Hail, Immemorial Ind!”
“March of the Mogul Emperors”
“Menuetto”
as popular entertainment
“Rule of England”
Drapeau belge, Le
Dream of Gerontius, The
composing of
“Demon’s Chorus”
premiere of
The Spirit of England and
Ecce Sacerdos
Elegy for Strings
Empire March
Enigma Variations, see Variations on an Original Theme, op. 36 (the Enigma Variations)
Falstaff
First Symphony
Adagio from
Fringes of the Fleet
Froissart
Harmony Music no. 5
Imperial March
Indian Dawn
In the South
dedication of overture
Introduction and Allegro
Welsh tune in
Kingdom, The
King Olaf
Last Judgement, The
Lux Christi (premiered as The Light of Life)
“Meditation”
Minuet for Piano (1897, later orchestrated for op. 21)
Music Makers, The
Nursery Suite
“Dreaming”
“Pleading”
Pomp and Circumstance Marches
March No. 1
“Land of Hope and Glory” tune
March No. 2
March No. 5
“River, The,” op. 60, no. 2
“Rondel”
Salut d’amour
Sanguine Fan, The, op. 81
Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf, see King Olaf
Sea Pictures
Second Symphony
Larghetto of
Serenade for Strings
Severn Suite, op. 87
“Smoking Cantata”
“Spanish Serenade”
“Speak Music”
Spirit of England, The, op. 80
“For the Fallen”
“The Fourth of August”
title of
“To Women”
“Stabat Mater Dolorosa”
Starlight Express, The
Symphony no. 1, see First Symphony Symphony no. 2, see Second Symphony
Third Symphony, xix
Une voix dans le désert
Variations on an Original Theme, op. 36 (the Enigma Variations)
composing of
“Nimrod” variation
premiere of
Very Easy Melodious Exercises in the First Position, op. 22 for violin and piano
Vesper Voluntaries for organ, op. 14
Violin Concerto in B Minor, op. 61
Wand of Youth Suite, op. 1A
Subject and Name Index
Note: EE stands for Edward Elgar throughout the index
Abbate, Carolyn
Aberdeen University Choral
Orchestral Society
Abraham, Gerald
Adams, Byron
Adler, Guido, Handbuch der Musikgeschichte
Albani, Emma
Albert Hall
Aldington, Richard
Alexandra, Queen
Anderson, Mary
Anderson, Percy
Anderson, Robert
Anglican Church
Aristotle
Arkwright, John Stanhope
Arnold, Matthew,
Culture and Anarchy
Arvin, Newton
Asquith, Herbert
Athenaeum Club
Atkins, Ivor
Austen, Jane
Austin, Frederic
Austin, William W.
Bach, Johann Sebastian,
B-Minor Mass
Bailey, Peter
Baker, Geoffrey, Chronicles
Baker, Dalton
Balfour, Frank
Bantock, Granville
Barker, Felix, The House That Stoll Built
Barrie, J. M.
Barringer, Tim
Batten, Mabel Veronica
Baughan, Edward Algernon
Baughan, J. H. G.
BBC
Beethoven, Ludwig van,
Drei Equale
Eighth Symphony
Emperor Concerto
Eroica Symphony
Bennett, Joseph
Bennett, Thomas Case Sterndale, My Hymn of Hate
Bennett, William Sterndale
Benson, A. C.
Berlioz, Hector
Treatise on Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration
Bernhard, Walter
Betts, Percy
Binyon, Lawrence
see also The Winnowing-Fan: Poems of the Great War
Birchwood Lodge (Elgar home)
Bird, John
Birmingham Festival
Birmingham Post
Biswas, Tarak Nath
Black, Andrew
Blake, William
Bliss, Arthur
Blumenthal, Jacques
Boatwright, Thomas, Indian March: The Diamond Jubilee
Boer Wars
Bookman, The
Booth, John
Borodin, Alexander
Prince Igor
Borwick Leonard
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Botstein, Leon
Boughton, Rutland
Boult, Adrian
Bouverie, Helen, (Viscountess Folkestone, Lady Radnor)
Bradley, A. C., “The Rejection of
Falstaff”
Brahms, Johannes
“Four Serious Songs”
Third Symphony
Brand, Tita
Braun, Francis
Brema, Marie
Brewer, A. H.
Bridge, Frank
Bridges, Robert
The Spirit of Man
Brinkwells (Elgar home)
British Musical Renaissance
Britten, Benjamin
Brooke, Rupert