An Elgar Enigma: Might he sound better in German?
Album Of The WeekFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
There was a time when I could not get through the month without experiencing Elgar’s music in the flesh. So English, so reassuring, so easily chiming with a young man’s frustrations and aspirations. These days, there is much less Elgar about, and I have no idea where one
might turn for instant comfort. The arrival of two Elgar sets in the same week is both encouraging and challenging: might there be two paths to Elgar in a century of cultural retrogression?
Read on in The Critic here.
And here.
Thanks for bringing the Soddy to our attention – I’ll have to put it on tonight. You’re right about not getting enough of the 2nd. When I was younger, and more impatient I guess, I found the Elgar symphonies inscrutable. But then one day something clicked, especially with the Second. I must have 30 CD version on the shelves and play one of them frequently. It’s utterly addicting music; so profound and so beautiful. It’s too bad orchestras (at least here in the US) don’t play them more often. Given a chance audiences would find them every bit as stimulating as the symphonies of Mahler. In 50 years of going to concerts and travelling to music festivals I’ve only heard each symphony once in a live performance.
Leonard Slatkin is a great admirer of Elgar’s music.
It wasn’t until the early 70s that English audiences began to accept the possibility of non-English conductors performing Elgar’s music. Before then, it had to be either Boult or Barbirolli – Beecham’s performances were largely awful, as he didn’t rate Elgar at all.
Things changed when Solti recorded both symphonies. Those recordings were well received and people began to ditch the rather insular view that only English conductors knew how to conduct Elgar.
This notion that traditionally the British public would only listen to Elgar if it was conducted by a British conductor is often raised by Americans especially, but I really wonder how true this is. AIUI very little Elgar was played at all between the composer’s death in 1934 and the revival led by Boult and Barbirolli in the 1960s. You got the Dream of Gerontius, the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circus, the Cockaigne Overture and the Chanson de Matin, and even those were only performed in the UK. So it would be fairer to say, perhaps, that British audiences only listened to British orchestras playing Elgar not from chauvinism but out of sheer necessity!
one of the best recordings of Enigma-Variations are with Eugen Jochum and Bavarian Radio ..
There is no Jochum Enigma Variations with the BRSO. He recorded it with the LSO.
Was about to note that. DG CD coupled w. Brahms Haydn Varns. much admired by critic E Greenfield in Gramophone. Download only now I believe.
Yes, more Elgar please! English and reassuring… that’s what the world needs…
Elgar may sometimes sound better with a German accent.
Another example, kind of, is a 1957 live recording of his Enigma Variations with the Cleveland Orchestra under German born William Steinberg. I am in awe of this deeply felt interpretation. I’d love to hear opinions from people who may know the work better than I.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXPp-iYL0D8
I’ve always liked Colin Davis’ Staatskapelle Dresden recording of Elgar 1 on Profil. Barenboim recorded both Elgar symphonies (plus the “Enigma” Variations, I think) with the Staatskapelle Berlin on Decca. Those received very good notices. As for Mark Elder, he’s just a very good conductor in general.
I conducted the Enigma variations with an orchestra in London last summer. There’s certainly a lot of Elgar in my life Norman. Simply wonderful composer- but lets not forget- his music is more ‘Germanic’ than ‘English’ anyhow. Take the finale variation of Enigma for example- where did he get that motto theme from? Yes- Bruch’s violin concerto! There are plenty more quotes from Brahms & others throughout it. Nimrod is based on the harmonic/melodic structure of the adagio of Beeethoven’s Pathetique Sonata- not identical but close.
I always find it slightly irritating that Elgar is often described as quintessentially English. The reason why it took him so long to establish himself was the fact that he was anything but quintessentially English. His music was appreciated far more in Germany than it was here and he was championed by Mahler and Richard Strauss.
While Elgar was struggling, Victorian England was far more in tune with the cloying stuff performed by huge choirs, which has long been consigned to oblivion.
It’s a pity that, for so many people, he is seen as the man who gave us Land of Hope and Glory. He wrote the piece as an orchestral march. He told a friend that he had a tune which ‘will knock ’em flat.’ How right he was. Unfortunately, he was then commissioned to set A.C. Benson’s Coronation Ode, which included the jingoistic words which some love and Elgar loathed. I am firmly with Elgar!
I have fine recordings of both Elgar symphonies by Sir Colin Davis and the LSO (on their own label)…definitely should be heard…also in my collection is what I suppose to be a bit of a rarity, a recording of No. 2 with Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic on a Musical Heritage Society LP (MHS
1335) – in Stereo! Is it still available somewhere? Probably…these antiques will always be around.
You are referring to the Lyrita recording made in the Walthamstow Assembly Hall on January 30-31, 1968. It was issued on a Musical Heritage Society LP in the US. It, along with the Symphony #1 recorded in the same venue on December 19-20, 1967, are on Lyrita CD SRCD 221, a two disc set. Both symphonies were recorded without the violins being divided. That irritated Sir Adrian but the producer and/or engineer said it was not possible sound wise to do them in the way he always sat the orchestra.
Thanks for the info!
As a devoted Elgarian, I have many recordings of his Symphonies (Elgar’s own; Boult’s; Barbirolli’s; Elder’s; Previn’s; Haitink’s; Solti’s; Andrew Davis’s two versions; Colin Davis’s LSO Live recordings and his excellent Dresden 1st – I think there’s an old BBCSO recording he did on vinyl out there somewhere; Handley’s; Alex Gibson’s; Mackerras’s, but wouldn’t touch Barenboim’s with a barge pole!
I heard a memorable performance of Elgar 1 in London’s Royal Festival Hall with Sir Charles Groves – a great Elgar interpreter – conducting the RPO many years ago (late 70s/early 80s), and think it a great pity that he was never asked to record the Symphonies. Elgar is my true ‘soul composer’ and his music never fails to move, console and uplift me. His Symphonies really ought to be out there on DVD/Blu-ray by now. As a horn player in Glasgow, I’m looking forward to playing both the Concert Overture In the South ‘Alassio’ and the First Symphony – as well as Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes – in the same Concert early next year, as part of the orchestra’s 2024/2025 Season. The more Elgar we can hear, the better, in my opinion.
*I forgot to add Leonard Slatkin’s excellent Elgar Symphonies recordings to my list and his similarly excellent version of The Kingdom – also with the LPO – although it was a pity that Robert Tear, who sang in the Concert performance alongside Yvonne Kenny, Alfreda Hodgson and Ben Luxon, was indisposed for the recording; his place being taken by Christopher Gillett.
The Boult Elgar recordings on Lyrita I mentioned above are also streaming on Spotify.
Not a wild enthusiast about Elgar (other than In the South) but this version of Symphony No 2 at the Proms by Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO is just stunning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8cUFZ2T0X0
Alassio is Elgar at his most Straussian.
I agree about the Petrenko Prom. Absolutely superb.
Kirill Petrenko is a great admirer of Elgar 2. He calls it one of his ‘ orphan symphonies’ and he conducted it during his first season with the Berlin Phil. It was subsequently discovered that their previous performance of the work had occurred thirty years previously.
Alex Soddy is fantastic. He worked miracles with the solid provincial band in Mannheim….He really transformed the orchestra within weeks into a first rate orchestra….He brought them to listen to each other, making chamber music even in the thickest textures…His approach is very much like that of his former boss, Kirill Petrenko..Orchestra performance is 99 percent about clarity, transparency, inner balance..This creates focus on emotion…He works tirelessly, relentlessly,yet always very friendly on those imperatives. The results were phenomenal….We´ll here great things from him.
I think Elgar is getting plenty of recognition in Europe. The latest recording of S#1 is with the Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim. Came out just two days ago.
No-one has so far mentioned Sargent.
BBC Music issued a CD transfer of Symphony 2 performed at Colston Hall Bristol. It was my awakening to the work, especially for Sargent’s account of the slow movt. Shame it never resurfaced on another label (such as ICA Classics).
The Elder 2CD set isn’t available until some time in May. But are they new recordings or just reissues? Presto says (ambiguously):
‘Among the first releases on the Hallé recording label, established in 2003, were Elgar’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 2. This recording revisits those works nearly 20 years later, and mark the culmination of Sir Mark Elder’s tenure as Music Director…’