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An English musician: Edward Elgar by R.A. Streatfeild.
Wij hadden het genoegen van den heer R.A. Streatfeild onderstaand artikel voor De Nieuwe Gids te ontvangen.
Ter introductie voor onze lezers, die den heer Streatfeild niet mochten kennen, diene, dat de heer R.A. Streatfeild, B.A. sinds het jaar 1898 muziek-criticus is van de Daily Graphic, en volgens den Hr. de Villiers, (onder-directeur van het Britsch Museum), ‘een autoriteit van beteekenis’.
De werken over muziek die hij het licht deed zien, zijn: Masters of Italian Music; The Opera; 3e druk in 1907, Modern Music and Musicians; en Händel. Bezorgd voor de pers werden door hem: George Darley's Nepenthe, Christopher Smart's Song to David, Darley's Selected poems, T.J. Hogg's Shelley at Oxford; en de nagelaten werken van Samuel Butler, den schrijver van ‘Erewhon’; ook vertaalde hij Ibsen's Lyrische gedichten in het Engelsch.
Redactie N.G.
Towards the close of the nineteenth century we English had almost resigned ourselves to the belief that we were, as our German friends had so often assured us, an ‘unmusical nation’. We could look back, it is true, to a glorious past. We could remind ourselves that in the days of Queen Elizabeth, to go no farther back into antiquity, our composers for the virginals were admittedly the first in Europe, and that our madrigalists were worthy of being compared to the great composers of France, Flanders and Italy. We could point also to the great figure of Purcell, whose genius is admitted by critics of all countries to have been of the first rank. But as regards modern times we
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felt that it was vain to claim equality with the nations of the continent. We had, it is true, composers whom we ourselves honoured, whose music we loved and admired: Parry, whose great choral works are animated by the mighty breath of Haendel and Mendelssohn: Stanford, who gave us symphonies, quartets and cantatas uniting the gentle melancholy of his native Ireland to the form bequeathed by Schumann and Brahms: Sullivan, whose operettas had been the delight of London for more than twenty years. But it was no longer possible to conceal from ourselves the fact that our music had not a cosmopolitan character. We might amuse ourselves as we chose among our insular fogs, but we could not pretend to form a part of the great international confraternity of art.
But the proverb says that it is always darkest before the dawn, and it was at the moment when the hopes of even the most patriotic music-lover in England had sunk almost to zero that a new voice arose, which, if I am not mistaken, is destined to carry the fame of England far afield and to give a new impression of English music to foreign ears.
It would be difficult for me to recall precisely the moment at which I first met the name of Edward Elgar, but I remember very clearly the occasion when I heard his music for the first time. It was at one of those ‘Three Choirs' Festivals’, which in an epoch of change have retained so much of their intimate and peculiarly English character. The Festival of the Three Choirs is a very ancient institution, dating from the early years of the eighteenth century, when, it is hardly necessary to say, provincial people had far fewer opportunities than they now enjoy of hearing good music, particularly in the West of England, where the three ancient cities of Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester stand like sentinels on the borders of Wales. It was in the year 1724 that the first festival of the Three Choirs took place. The choirs of the three cathedrals joined forces to give a series of sacred concerts in the cathedral of Gloucester. Since then the festivals have taken place every year in turn in one of the three cathedrals. Once in three years the sleepy old cities wake to sudden life. The hotels are full, the dwellers in the city entertain their friends, and from the surrounding districts the
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magnates of the county assemble. The venerable weather-beaten streets - usually so quiet - are full of life and activity. But within the cathedral precincts the busy movement is hushed to silence, There, where the grey towers of the old cathedral rise from the trimly kept greensward, all is peace and tranquillity. The secular elms breathe forth their sacred secrets and the holy stillness is only broken by the cries of the jackdaws which wheel their flight around the pinnacles of the cathedral. Within the church the peace is still more profound. A dim light suffuses the mighty nave, where the great pillars spring aloft like the trees in some vast primeval forest, soaring up into twilight shadows far above. Below the audience sits in awed silence, while the strains of the organ float through the mighty arches and the voices of children in the distant recesses of the cathedral sound like a choir of unseen angels.
It was in such surroundings as these that I first heard the music of Edward Elgar, and certainly no environment more completely in harmony with the mystic and devotional character of his short oratorio ‘The Light of Life’ could be imagined. I heard this work for the first time at its production at the Worcester Festival of 1896, and I knew that a new voice had arisen in England. The work as a whole charmed me by its intimate feeling, and by its freedom from the conventionality of English sacred music. In particular the orchestral ‘Meditation’, with which it opened, seemed to me to be different from anything that any English composer had previously written - different in its handling of the orchestra and different in its expression of emotion. After the production of ‘The Light of Life’ Elgar became, if not precisely famous, at any rate a man with whom it was necessary to reckon. People asked who this new composer was and whence he had learnt the secrets of composition, and the history of his early years soon became public property.
Elgar owes nothing to schools and academies and very little to teachers. Born in 1857 of a father who was organist at the Catholic Church of St. George in the city of Worcester and a good violinist, besides keeping a music-shop, the child passed his earliest years in the bosom of the beautiful hills of Malvern which lift their graceful outline above the valley of the Severn.
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In the environs of Worcester the landscape has not the savage aspect of the neighbouring country of Wales, with its wild heaths and craggy mountains. The Malvern hills, though the loftiest in the South of England, have nothing terrifying for a childish soul. Nature there shows herself amiable and smiling, and the mild breezes of the Severn valley have a caressing touch such as one finds in few other districts of England. In the midst of scenes for which his pensive and introspective nature must have felt a lively if unconscious sympathy the child grew to boyhood. From his father he learnt the violin and the organ, and circumstances gave him practical acquaintance with many other instruments and diverse forms of music. We hear of his playing the bassoon in a quintet of wind instruments and of composing many pieces for that combination, of his leading the orchestra of a private society of amateurs at Worcester, and of his playing the violin in the orchestra at the annual festivals of the Three Choirs. But of regular musical education he had little. He never crossed the threshold of an academy; he never attended the lectures of a professor; he never wrote an exercise in counterpoint in his life. His father, who realised the talent of his son, wished to send him to Leipzig, but res angusta domi forbade the development of this scheme. When he was twenty years old, wishing to make a career as a violinist, he visited London and took a series of lessons from Pollitzer. But this plan also came to nothing, and he returned to the sacred shades of Worcester and to the calm solitudes of the Malvern Hills, to pursue his quiet life of student. There, with the scores of the great masters open before him, his talent slowly unfolded itself. In 1885 he succeeded his father as organist of St. George's Church, Worcester, where he composed a great deal of music for the service of the Catholic church. In 1899, after his marriage, he once more turned his
footsteps to London, hoping to win a wider fame in the metropolis than a provincial city could give him. But the citadel was not yet to be stormed. In vain he laid siege to publishers and managers. Disappointment and disillusion met him at every turn, and after two years of unavailing effort he returned once more to Worcester.
In 1896, as we have seen, fortune smiled upon him, and the
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production of his oratorio ‘The Light of Life’ marked him out as a composer from whom great things might be expected. A few months later his growing reputation was strengthened by the production at Hanley, an important town not far from Birmingham, of a large choral cantata ‘King Olaf’, a work of remarkable freshness of inspiration and rhythmic force; and soon he was commissioned to write a choral work for the Leeds Festival of 1898. ‘Caractacus’, the work in question, won a success, but it was a success of technique rather than of inspiration. The composer, conscious that the eye of England was upon him, had taken enormous pains with his work, and this limae labor was apparent on almost every page of the score. It was admitted at the time that no English composer had ever assimilated the methods of Wagner more completely than Elgar, yet, when one had duly admired the manner in which the intricate web of ‘guiding motives’ was handled, it was after all the simpler scenes that made the deepest impression upon the memory. A love duet full of lyric feeling, a march with a vigorous swing, if with a slight touch of vulgarity, and above all a lament chanted by a vanquished king over his fallen warriors - these were the passages in which the real Elgar peeped out most unmistakably from behind the folds of his Wagnerian mantle.
Hitherto Elgar had been known to the English public mainly as a writer of choral cantatas. He had, it is true, already composed various orchestral pieces, overtures and serenades, which had been performed here and there in the provinces, but these had passed almost unperceived. He was now to reveal himself as a master of the orchestra and to lay the foundations of that fame which will, if I am not mistaken, immortalize his name, when his choral works have passed into oblivion.
Elgar's ‘Enigma Variations’ had the good fortune to be introduced to the world under the aegis of the celebrated conductor, Hans Richter, who performed them for the first time in the now demolished St. James's Hall, London, in June, 1899. As to the enigma, which gives the variations their name, it lies in the fact that the melody on which the variations are founded is itself, according to the composer, nothing but a counterpoint or accompaniment to another melody, said to be a well-known
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one, the identity of which he does not choose to reveal. The fact that Elgar has kept his little secret for twelve years proves incontestably that it has little importance for the comprehension of his work. What is far more important is the manner in which he has treated the actual theme of the variations. When one thinks of all the soporific banalities, in the guise of variations, which have been served out to us during recent years, one ought to be grateful to Elgar for having breathed a new life into the musical formula, which is perhaps of all that exist the most old-fashioned and academic. To make ‘programme music’ out of a set of variations is indeed something unexpected. It is true that Strauss had already written his ‘Don Quixote’, which is incontestably a symphonic poem in the form of variations, and it is said that Brahms had in his mind a programme for his variations on Haydn's ‘Chorale S. Antonii’, which according to some critics are intended as a musical picture of the temptation of S. Anthony. But Elgar's variations have little in common with these two works. His work is a musical tribute to a group of his friends, whose respective characters he has traced in each successive variation, viewing, as it were, the theme of the variations through the temperament of each friend in turn. The work is therefore in a sense a ‘tableau de genre’, corresponding to the famous ‘Hommage à Delacroix’ for example, where a group of pupils and friends is assembled around the figure of an adored master. And with what a master's hand Elgar has drawn the portraits of his dramatis personae! They are only sketches, it is true, but dashed off with wonderful certainty of touch. One by one the figures rise before us, this one pensive and melancholy, that one proud and noble; another is lively and passionate, and yet another amorous and sentimental. Elgar has labelled each
variation with initials or a nickname, some of which have been identified. One can distinguish here the gracious silhouette of his wife, there one finds a noble tribute, under the sobriquet ‘Nimrod’, to a friend, since dead, the young Alfred Jaeger, an enthusiastic musician and one of the first writers to announce to an incredulous world the dawning genius of Elgar. But whether one can trace the identity of each individual or not, one is never in doubt as to the truth of the
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likeness. The whole work is a gallery of life-like portraits, enriched with every secret of modern harmony and orchestrated with dazzling brilliancy. The success of the variations was very great. The work was performed at countless concerts throughout the United Kingdom, and Elgar took his place definitely in the front rank of English musicians.
The variations were followed by several other instrumental works, showing an equal mastery of the modern orchestra, if a somewhat less striking individuality of character. The ‘Cockaigne’ overture is a clever attempt to set the life of London to music. The ‘brouhaha’ of the streets is well suggested, but the deeper note of London life escaped the composer, and the work, though accomplished in the writing, is a little insignificant and even a little vulgar in general effect. Another overture, ‘In the South’, translates into music the composer's impressions of Italy. At this point in his career Elgar appears to have undergone the influence of Richard Strauss, of which the traces are perceptible both in the phraseology and in the employment of orchestral devices in this overture. More original, though less showy and effective, is the ‘Introduction and Allegro’ for stringed instruments, in which Elgar made ingenious use of the concerto form of the eighteenth century, while infusing into it the ideas and emotions of the twentieth.
But in England it is not by instrumental works that the heart of the multitude is reached. The cult of the orchestra is a plant of recent growth. It is only during the last thirty years that English society has learnt from Richter, Manns, Hallé and other conductors how to understand symphonic music. And it is only the élite musicale that sits at the feet of these masters. For the mass of Englishmen the summit of musical art is still, as it was in the days of Haendel and Mendelssohn, the oratorio - at least it was so ten years ago, for since the beginning of the twentieth century we have seen great changes effected in the musical taste of England. This fortress of conservatism was taken by Elgar with his ‘Dream of Gerontius’. Produced at the Birmingham Festival of 1900 and badly executed, ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ was somewhat coldly received, but with every repetition the success of the work was strengthened, and it must be confessed that
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the triumphant career of the work in Germany and above all the words which the celebrated Richard Strauss addressed to the composer after a performance of the oratorio at Düsseldorf reacted very favourably upon English opinion. At present the success of ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ in England cannot any more be disputed. It is performed everywhere, not merely at the great festivals but in every town where there is a choir and an orchestra capable of struggling with the truly formidable difficulties of the score.
The success achieved by ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ in Protestant England has always been a matter of some surprise to me, for the work is Catholic to the core. It is true that thirty years ago a success no less complete was won by another Catholic oratorio ‘The Redemption’ of Gounod, but the subject of the latter was one that appealed equally to Christians of all sects and churches, and there was nothing in the treatment to shock Protestant susceptibilities.
‘The Dream of Gerontius’, on the other hand, is not merely Catholic but distinctly anti-Protestant in feeling, and the fact that its subject has not militated against its success in England is a proof that Protestant prejudices are less violent in the United Kingdom than they used to be. The poem of Cardinal Newman, which Elgar set to music, is remarkable, whether one regards it as a work of imagination or as a poetical statement of Catholic dogma, designed to instruct the faithful as to what the Church inculcates with regard to the life after death. It deals with the death of a believer, the passage of his soul to the Judgment-seat of God and its subsequent immersion in the healing waters of purgatory. The poem is written with a carefully studied precision of language, which is rare in English poetry, particularly in connection with a subject that is usually shrouded in mystery, and the literary ability of the author cannot be questioned even by those to whom his views are least sympathetic. It is plain that the poem appealed profoundly to Elgar's temperament. To him the composition of ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ was an act of faith. His fervid conviction makes itself felt in every bar of the music. Every resource of his art is consecrated to the task of heightening the poignancy of the poem. The frenzied terror
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of the dying man is finely contrasted with the solemn tones of the priest chanting at his bedside. Another striking contrast is found in the passage where the tranquil dialogue between the soul of Gerontius and its Guardian Angel is interrupted, in their flight to the Judgment-seat, by a wild chorus of furious demons. To this succeeds the chorus of angels around the throne of God, which only falls short of sublimity by reason of its over-elaboration of detail, and the work ends in exquisite serenity with the song of the Guardian Angel as it dips the ransomed soul into the lake of Purgatory.
‘The Dream of Gerontius’ brought a breath of new life into the somewhat jaded atmosphere of English oratorio. Its vivid picturesqueness, its dramatic power and its brilliant and sonorous orchestration struck like a trumpet call upon ears trained to the placid harmonies of the school of Mendelssohn, which had ruled the world of English sacred music almost unchallenged until the advent of Elgar.
To ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ succeeded two more oratorios, ‘The Apostles’ (1903) and ‘The Kingdom’ (1906), works of a more familiar type, neither of which has won in England anything like the degree of success which has been accorded to Elgar's earlier oratorio. In the first of these two works the story of the calling of the Apostles and of their share in Christ's ministry and passion is told, mainly in the words of the Gospels; in the second the foundation of the Christian Church is recounted according to the Acts of the Apostles. The general plan of ‘The Apostles’ and ‘The Kingdom’ follows that of Gounod's ‘Redemption’ pretty closely. The composer has striven to thrust into prominence the dramatic and picturesque incidents of the narrative, and many of the scenes are treated with a masterly hand. But in both works there is a lack of unity and cohesion. Each of them is less an artistic whole than a string of disconnected scenes, and even Elgar's clever use of an elaborate system of guiding themes does not suffice to give continuity to the fabric of the two oratorios. It must be admitted that in ‘The Apostles’ and ‘The Kingdom’ there is a great deal of fine music, particularly in the interpretation of individual emotion - as in the scenes allotted to Mary Magdalene and to Judas Iscariot in ‘The Apostles’, and
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in the meditation of the Virgin Mary in ‘The Kingdom’, which are at the same time highly original and profoundly felt - but the grand epical breadth of style which should animate works of so ambitious a plan is absent from both oratorios.
After writing ‘The Kingdom’ Elgar left the field of oratorio and returned once more to that of the orchestra in which his most brilliant triumphs had already been won.
His later years have been mainly devoted to the composition of three important works - two symphonies and a violin concerto, in which in my opinion he has reached far greater heights than he had previously attained. These three works are closely connected in feeling as in form. They are the product of one mood, or rather of one series of moods. Elgar turned from oratorio to symphony, from the objective to the subjective, impelled by a craving for self-expression. In his two symphonies and violin concerto he has written the story of his own soul, the story of his own struggles, beliefs and aspirations, and one cannot but feel that this craving for self-expression came at just the right moment. How many composers have striven to express themselves in music before experience had taught them how to use their material. Others have waited too long, until manner has degenerated into mannerism and character has been stifled by convention. To Elgar, however, the desire came at the moment when the power to express it was ripe. In the three works with which his career so far has reached its climax manner and matter are so closely allied and interact upon each other so harmoniously that his music may be taken as a perfect exemplification of Buffon's famous saying, ‘Le style est l'homme même’.
Elgar's first symphony in A flat was performed for the first time in December 1908, his violin concerto in D in November 1910, and his second symphony in E flat in May 1911. During the period of the production of these works he composed nothing else of importance, and we may therefore with reason look upon the two symphonies and the concerto as one great work in three sections, a symphonic trilogy - an artistic Trinity, three in one, and one in three. I ought to say that Elgar himself has given no hint of the existence of any connection between these three works. They have been performed and published independently of each other,
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and it is perhaps somewhat fantastic on my part to imagine that they are united by a psychological bond. Yet, having heard all three of them repeatedly and having studied them with love, reverence and enthusiasm, I have persuaded myself that the connection exists, whether the composer is conscious of it himself or not. Summing up the general tendency of the trilogy I should describe the three sections of which it consists as illustrating Strife - Contemplation - Joy, the whole composing a vast picture of the development of an artist's soul such as perhaps no other composer of our time has hitherto attempted.
It now remains for me to deal with each work in more detail. Elgar has prefixed no definite programme to his first symphony, but his admission that it represents ‘a composer's outlook upon life’ gives a broad hint that there is more than a touch of autobiography in it. The struggle of a soul towards the light, the warfare of the material and the ideal - this is what the symphony paints in the richest and most glowing colours that the modern orchestra can supply, employed with a science such as only a composer profoundly versed in the history of musical development can command. The first movement is all strife and turmoil. It opens, somewhat in the manner of Schubert's great symphony in C, with the call of the ideal, a melody of arresting breadth and nobility, which pervades the whole work from beginning to end. With this summons to a higher life are contrasted the wiles of the world, the flesh and the devil. Bewildering siren-calls seem to summon the hero to destruction. Pleasure spreads her net around his feet, the call of the ideal sounds brokenly and fitfully and through the maze of changing harmonies winds ever the dark and sinister theme of sin. The conflict of passions is drawn with astonishing vigour, and the movement surges along its tumultuous course with inexhaustible spirit.
The scherzo seems to carry us unto the world of sheer hard work. The music tingles with life and energy. We seem to be plunged into the midst of the human struggle for existence, and a curiously abrupt and square-cut melody shows us the hero bracing himself for his life's task. By a happily conceived transition the scherzo melts, as it were, into the adagio, a movement of extraordinary beauty, in which the deepest and purest aspirations
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of the soul of man are clothed in sound. The atmosphere is one of tense yearning and high-wrought rapture. The principal theme soars upward, at first struggling with difficulty like a climber among steep rocks, afterwards mounting aloft as if upon the wings of faith. Throughout the movement the composer's mood is one of peculiar exaltation. He seems to be moving in a world of spiritual ecstasy, through an air growing ever more and more rarified, till at the close the atmosphere becomes so fully charged with mysticism that the hearer seems, like St. Paul in his strange vision, to be ‘caught up into Paradise and to hear unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.’
The last movement is in some respects the most remarkable of all, and undoubtedly it is at a first acquaintance the most immediately effective. The introduction is curiously eerie in feeling and colour. The hero seems to be sunk in the lethargy of despair. Memories of his old life, of his early struggles and ambitions flit idly across his mind, but they cannot rouse him to action. At last with a supreme effort he shakes off his torpor, and throws himself once more into the fray. From this point onwards all is feverish energy and exaltation. We are hurried from climax to climax. The horizon seems to widen, the air to grow purer. The magnificent theme of the ideal, transfigured and glorified, seems, like a vast tree, to spread its branches over all, and the work ends in a blaze of triumph and splendour.
Elgar's violin concerto belongs to the same world of thought and feeling as his first symphony, but a different atmosphere envelops it. It is throughout less strenuous and more contemplative in tone. As befits a work in which a soloist rules supreme we are here concerned not with those generalized emotions, in the expression of which one man stands as the type of his race, but with individual struggles and aspirations. To what extent cause and effect interact upon each other in these matters it is hard to say. Did Elgar choose the concerto form because he felt it to be the most suitable for what he had to say, or did his choice of the form mould the character of his music? This is a problem, which perhaps the composer himself could scarcely solve. At any rate, in treatment, if not in character, the later work forms a striking and beautiful contrast to the earlier. The
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grand sweep and noble breadth of style which characterize the symphony are exchanged for a more personal and more intimate note. The hearer seems to be taken into the confidence of the composer and to be listening to a recital of his private joys and sorrows, of his most secret emotions and aspirations. The first movement of the concerto resembles mutatis mutandis the corresponding movement of the symphony. It is a picture of warring passions, of the clash of high-strung feelings - not on the tremendous scale of the symphony, it is true, - but, though less wide in scope, no less deeply felt and no less sincere. On this tempest of emotion the opening notes of the andante fall like a dewy veil. Peace seems to descend from heaven and to enfold all things in her calm embrace. We seem to be transported to some region of clear air and cloudless radiance. The forms of the blessed seem to move through asphodel meadows under a serener sky than earth has ever known. The deep and tranquil beauty of this movement lies beyond the power of words to express. The music has the serene loveliness of some exquisite fresco by Puvis de Chavannes, some vision of the Elysian Fields, from which all earthly strife and rancour are for ever banished. From the dream-world of the andante we return once more to the bustle of real life in the finale, a movement of abounding energy, which hurries along its vigorous course in the most brilliant style. Yet even here the contemplative note, to which I have already referred as characteristic of the concerto, makes itself felt. The movement is at the zenith of its buoyant career when the solo violin glides almost imperceptibly into a long and elaborate accompanied cadenza - no! that is too conventional a word; I would rather call it a soliloquy - in which, leaving earthly things far beneath, it seems to soar into wondrous regions of spiritual ecstasy. It is as though a man in the midst of his worldly avocations were
suddenly rapt away in a trance. The veil of mortal sense is rent asunder and he stands face to face with the vast mystery of eternity. But the vision fades gradually away, and we are once more on the solid earth. Yet memories of this strange interlude of mystic contemplation still survive, and the work ends upon a strain of grave and exalted nobility.
Elgar's second symphony completes his great symphonic trilogy
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in the most satisfying manner. After strife and contemplation comes joy, and the symphony in E flat is full of a rapturous exultation which we do not find in the two earlier works. At the head of his score the composer has written the opening lines of a famous poem by Shelley:
Rarely, rarely comest thou
But this motto is only to be taken in the most general sense. The symphony is in no way a musical transcription of the poem. Let no one take Shelley's poem in hand and try to trace it stanza by stanza in the four movements of Elgar's symphony. It is the Spirit of Delight itself that has inspired the composer, and we must look in his music not for the despondent poet, but for the vision of beauty that he regrets. This vision pervades the symphony from beginning to end. It is always the beauty of things on which the musician's eye rests, not upon their ugliness. He sings of growth, not of decay. Even in the passages of deeper feeling, in which the larghetto is rich, the composer derives strength not weakness from suffering and by the magic of his art draws beauty from the sorest trial. The opening allegro strikes the note which prevails through the whole work. Spring is its theme, the Spring of which artists dream and musicians sing. Like a fountain suddenly unsealed the music leaps up to heaven, and surges along in buoyant waves. The swing and rush of it are irresistible. All that Spring ever meant to a poet is here translated into sound - the rising sap, the bursting bud, the opening flower and wild bird-raptures in the clear heaven of March. Yet the movement is not all joy and ravishment. Midway in its course a shadow seems to fall over the scene, and we see the vernal vision, as it were, in a glass darkly, but soon the sky clears, the sun shines forth again, and the movement ends radiantly upon a note of pure ecstasy.
The larghetto offers a broad and striking contrast to this carnival of joy. The fact that the symphony is dedicated to the memory of King Edward VII caused certain not very clear-sighted critics to suggest that this movement was intended by the composer as a funeral march in honour of the dead King. This is not so,
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since the symphony was planned early in 1910, before the death of King Edward, nor does the larghetto touch a funereal note. In character it is strong, sober and serene. It looks out upon the world with a calm and steadfast gaze, and though it has moments of almost agonized emotion, moments in which one feels that the musician has not won his way to fortitude and tranquillity without inward struggles that are beyond the knowledge of ordinary men, it never suggests the anguish of bereavement.
The rondo, which takes the place of the usual scherzo, is in some sort a problem. Judged as absolute music it is effective enough, though it has not Elgar's accustomed distinction of style, but it is difficult to understand its connection with the remainder of the work, and throughout its course one has the uneasy sense of a secret lurking somewhere within it, that baffles the inquiring mind. No shadow of doubt, however, hangs over the superb finale, in which we return once more to the glittering realm of the Spirit of Delight. We bask in the same glory that illuminated the initial allegro - the same, yet not the same, for the keen, almost acrid freshness of Spring has yielded to a richer mellower feeling. Resplendent Summer seems to breathe in the glowing music, and the very heartbeat of the world throbs in the wonderful rhythm, upon which the whole movement is built. So the music rolls upon its way, piling climax upon climax, scaling dizzy and still dizzier heights, until after soaring to one final summit, it sinks back, as it were, into an ocean of tranquillity, and the work ends in a peace all the more divine for the tumult and excitement that came before.
I have written of Elgar with an enthusiasm which may appear excessive to those who know little or nothing of his music, and who find it hard to believe that any music worth listening to can come out of England. Time alone can prove whether my estimate of the genius of Elgar is correct, but meanwhile I will venture to conclude with the words that Richard Strauss addressed to him at the supper given in his honour after the performance of ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ at the Lower Rhenish Festival in Düsseldorf in May 1902:
‘I deplore that England has not yet taken her proper place among musical nations because ever since the period of her
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musical greatness in the Middle Ages she has lacked progressive men (“Fortschritts-manner”). But the creation of a work like “The Dream of Gerontius” shows that the gap has been filled, and that a day of musical reciprocity between England and the rest of Europe is dawning. I call on all present to drink success to the British musical renaissance and in particular to Edward Elgar, a musician of the highest attainments, whom I am proud to welcome as a fellow-worker in the sacred cause of art’.
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