Death claims an Elgar legend
RIPThe passing of the passionate Elgar researcher Jerrold Northrop Moore lays to rest a glorious adventurer in self-fired musical research.
Jerry, whom I knew well some years back, came to England for the Three Choirs Festival in 1954, met survivors of Elgar’s circle including his daughter Carice, and devoted the rest of his life to exploring the composer’s essence. His monumental biography, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life, may never be surpassed.
It was no easy task. Jerry arrived in a post-imperial society that associated Elgar with the pomp and circumstance of a lost Arcadia. He recontextualised the composer as an uncomfortable outsider – a small-town Roman Catholic who married into a military family, out of his class, a man who wore cloaks of many colours to disguise his essential unbelonging.
Jerry envisaged Elgar as a lonely man of little faith. The confidence that boomed from his two symphonies was not what it seemed. The friends he commemorated in Enigma Variations were not, on the whole, intimate. Elgar, like every person blessed with great gifts, stood alone, unconnected, unknowable.
Jerry perceived that isolation and applied his whole life to analysing the man and the work in around a dozen published volumes. An American in England, he adopted Elgarian mannerisms, eccentricities and bluster to mask his deep shyness. Elgar was his vocation, his faith, his surrogate in art. If Elgar speaks to us today, it is largely through the troubled personality reconceived by his dogged, dedicated American biographer.
Jerry died on May 18, aged 90.
I loved reading his great biography
Thank you Norman. Lovely and sympathetic words about a great scholar, sometimes criticised for his almost slavish devotion to Elgar but who leaves a legacy of research that remains unmatched.
R.I.P.Jerrold Northrop Moore.
I’m reading presently ‘A creative Life’ -great insight and a must for an Elgar interpreter.
Mr. Lebrecht , thank you for not posting Bernstein’s version of Nimrod.
I still prefer George Hurst’s – my master – with Bournemouth S.O.
Quite so. In matters of tempo Bernstein often made Celibidace look like a greyhound – and a most modest greyhound too.
While your tribute to Mr. Moore is well-deserved, I would say the real reason that “Elgar speaks to us today” is the quality of his music, as performed by current musicians.
Nice tribute. Wished you’d posted the convulsive Solti (w.LPO) ‘Nimrod’ on YouTube for anyone who’s never seen it! Far better than this Barenboim, anyway.
A lovely tribute, Norman.
I still have his “Elgar on Record”, which came along with an EMI set of Elgar’s electrical recordings (excluding the symphonies and concerti, which had been reissued previously) that came out in the mid 70s. It was quite a surprise to find a substantial and informative book included in a set that contained a splendid Froissart Overture, excerpts from Gerontius and many other treasures.
RIP, Jerrold Northrop Moore.
RIP. I loved his book. Thanks for the tribute.
As an inspired author and music critic (in the best sense of the word), he was a household name. Rest in peace – you will never be forgotten.
I agree that it’s the quality of Elgar’s music that speaks to us today. But yes, kudos to Moore for his tireless work and dedication to the composer who has been sometimes called the English Mahler.
In particular I find Elgar’s Second to be one of the great symphonies of the repertoire, quite beautiful and moving, and wish he had composed more of them beyond the unfinished Third.
It was Elgar who in his scores used the charmingly British musical direction “Nobilmente”. (Has any other composer ever used this term? It may have been his own coinage.) The term seems an expression of aspirational humanity as well as indication of playing style. He used it in the context of a body of work that critic and writer Michael Steinberg called “music of unassailable excellence”.
Thank you for this, Norman. Jerrold Northrop Moore was very kind and encouraging to me when as an undergraduate I wrote to him about Elgar. That was thirty years ago, and for a mere undergraduate dissertation; but I have from JNM several long and carefully considered letters, bashed out on an old mechanical typewriter and ensconced in small brown paper envelopes. It seems to me that JNM’s overarching theme in his writings on Elgar is how the composer transformed experience – sometimes unhappy experience, including the experience of being an outsider – into art. I had the strong feeling that, as you say, JNM did the same via biography.
I remember going to see JNM at is house in Broadway Glos and receiving encouragement and insights into the Elgar violin concerto I was performing at the time.
A very convivial and delightful man with absolute dedication to Elgar.
Incidentally the best ‘Nimrod’ I ever played was under Boult at Covent Garden for the Royal Ballet. Sublime!
For some reason the ballet required Elgar’s original ending for Enigma. Not the extended coda Jaeger encouraged Elgar to compose instead.
That’s interesting!
A good friend starting from my years in the LPO, we spoke only three weeks ago. He was so knowledgeable about artists, recordings and several cultures that included many people other than Elgar. His was knowledge in-the-round and I will sorely miss him.
He carried the complete record catalogue in his head…
Very sad to hear this. Just before Christmas I was delighted to receive a handwritten letter from JNM thanking me for an article I had written for the Elgar Society finally laying to rest a story that Elgar had had an illegitimate daughter who was a dancer. Michael Kennedy heard the story from Kenneth Clark and tried to trace the woman. It was clear from JNM’s references he was unhappy with this story. Thanks to a fellow researcher I was able to explain that she was actually Elgar’s great niece, his brother illegitimate granddaughter) Mary Teresa, who lived as Mignon Harman (not any Dora.) it’s a very sad story but getting a personal note from JNM was wonderful. I’m so glad that this nagging mystery which had led to suspicions about Elgar was resolved while he could appreciate it.
How lovely.
How very sad to read of JNM’s passing. I have enjoyed reading all of Jerrold Northrop Moore’s outstanding books on Elgar. They are surely the best and most authoritative on the subject; although Michael Kennedy’s should also be on any true Elgar lover’s bookshelves. JNM has left us so much treasured information on Elgar gathered over many years of dedication, almost obsession. We have much to thank him for.
Interesting to read some of the comments on this article, tho. For me, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Bernstein’s recording of Nimrod. It is moving in many ways against some other recordings that are merely routine. As for the comment regarding the original, shorter, ending of the Enigma Variations, this is included on Mark Elder’s fine recording with the Hallé.
Elgar has been my soulmate composer since my teenage years and JNM’s books have been invaluable and constant companions bought in Elgar’s Birthplace Museum and second-hand bookstores along the way. RIP and many thanks for all you have given us.
I had the great privilege of meeting Mr Northrop Moore through a fellow Elgar enthusiast many years ago when I was a teenager. I remember his courtesy, energy and limitless exuberance in talking about EE to a couple of young strangers who were interested in the composer. I will always remember the meeting with pleasure. May he rest in peace…and, even better, I hope he has got to meet the great man who he championed so brilliantly
Dear Jerry, may you rest in peace