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30.1.2012 (and 7-11-2011) Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
1/5. Donald Macleod focuses on Elgar's work during the Edwardian Golden Summer in 1914
2/5. The year 1915, when Elgar wrote music for The Starlight Express.
3/5. How Elgar was moved by the war dead arriving at Charing Cross Station.
4/5. Elgar's song cycle The Fringes of the Fleet.
5/5. The effect of the Armistice in Great Britain in 1918.
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Quite a lot of the 'patriotic' Elgar so far...but we have to accept this in the context of his times. Also quite a lot of choral stuff. I wonder if any of the secular part songs will be mentioned...or sung? IMO he is a very fine choral writer with as good a feel for vocal textures as for instrumental ones. I can't rememeber when I last heard (for instance) Death on the Hills, a great piece. About 25 years ago (when Elgar was evne more unfashionable) I insisted on doing half a dozen of his part songs in a concert programme with a rather uppity little chamber choir. [Gawd, I hope they're not reading this!] They were very sneering about my choice of music...that is until we really got into rehearsing them. They were genuinely won over and found them rewarding to sing. So let's have more, please. PS Might suit the BBC Singers????
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Also, the whole series seems to be focused on a very narrow chronological period; in fact, just the war years.Originally Posted by ardcarp
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Nevertheless, I am glad for the chance to be hearing these seemingly rarely performed works. For Elgar's generation, not explained by his syncophatic attitude to royalty and the aristocracy, and indeed my own father's (b. 1908), (not to mention all the unquestioning Mr Pees and Simons of that generation's outlook) the loss of Empire, followed by the horrors of WW1, amounted to a massive ideological and psychological shock, from which many never recovered.
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The Spirit of England is a quite stunning work of the war years. Nothing patriotic about it and right up there with Britten's War Requiem.
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A shame they only played the last movement.
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I suppose this particular time of the year is a good excuse (?) to explore these 'patriotic' works. I think DM is keeping the balance between the musical and historical elements quite well. It can’t be very easy. Considering the programme’s content, I thought Sean Rafferty’s remark at the end of In Tune ‘what Elgar was up to’ was rather inappropriate.
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The only wartime piece by Elgar that is openly patriotic is his Carillon recitation. A Voice in the Desert is quite different.
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I agree about Une Voix. Maybe we're using the wrong word. There's no doubt that something like The Spirit of England is patriotic. What it's not is especially jingoistic. Elgar dithered for months over whether to depict the Germans as evil; he finally did so only after the blood-letting of the Somme (it's the bit in The Fourth of August that quotes from the Demons' Chorus; Elgar said that its relevance lies in the demons' knowledge that they have fallen. (This was how he saw the Germans.). Le Drapeau Belge, Carillon and Polonia are more difficult to classify - they are not exactly patriotic in the usual sense, since they were written to raise funds for Belgian and Polish refugees. But I'd say they are jingoistic (anti-German propoganda pieces); in that case, Une Voix is too. The only overtly patriotic and jingoistic Elgar I know of from WW1 is the song Follow the Colours - at least I feel that The Fringes of the Fleet avoids much of the jingoism that was around.
Last edited by Pabmusic; 09-11-11 at 08:00. Reason: Emphasis
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Slightly off-topic, but BBC4 is showing Derek Jarman's take on the War Requiem at 2230 on Sunday 13th November.
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