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| Page 16 | Music Page - CD | March 2009 |
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Elgar conducting Elgar, Symphony No. 1 & Falstaff, Naxos Historical, 79:35 min., 8.111256
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By Alidė Kohlhaas Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 inspired a strange sense of nostalgia, which gripped me when I listened to Naxos's restored version of a 1930 recording at Kingsway Hall, London with the composer conducting his own work. Despite the restoration, it still sounds like an early recording. To me, at least, this gives it all the more charm. But, listening to this work by this British composer, it appeared to me to have a universal appeal. A question has been on my mind for a long time. Why is it that continental Europeans have such a low opinion of early British music, either folk or classic, calling it too parochial or regional? I ask this question now all the more after I heard Elgar's Symphony No. 1 and his Falstaff Symphonic Study, presented together on the CD of the restored recordings from the early 1930s. German composers, either past or present, are easy to identify. It takes little to identify composers from France, Spain, or Italy, and Russia. Musical works by composers from these countries have a specific tone, temperament, color, attitude, that is specific to their nationality. Each is capable of bombastic jingoism as well as offering up music of a universal nature, and each is able to capture the physical nature of their country, think Sibelius and Finland, or Dvorak and Czech Republic to mention just two, and let us not forget Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, the Pastoral. So why are the British denied an equal right to express their nature and personality through music? Why do some critics chide Elgar for apparently being inspired by the British general, Charles George Gordon, when Beethoven openly admitted to having been inspired by Napoleon to write his Symphony No. 3, more commonly known as the Eroica? Napoleon was a far more imperialistic and destructive conqueror than Gordon, who spent most of his salary to help the poor, and was in the Sudan to help suppress the slave trade, which lead to his death in Khartoum. Reading Gordon's history, and listening to Elgar's work that may have been inspired by the general's life—Elgar never explicitly stated so—we can hear that the composer chose a cyclical form, but it becomes apparent that he uses the theme not so much as a motif running through the entire work, but as a mood that captures the imagination without the work actually being programmatic. Elgar stated to a fellow composer, Walford Davies, that "There is no program beyond a wide experience of human life with a great charity (love) and a massive hope in the future." This is, indeed, what one can hear in this Symphony No. 1, which makes it a universal musical statement. Hence, it should set aside all perceived prejudices. As for Elgar's Symphonic Study Falstaff, one very quickly becomes aware that he is not depicting the Falstaff of the Merry Wives of Windsor, but the disillusioned one who had been cast aside by his former pal, Prince Hal. But it is also clearly a study, not a fully developed symphony, which ends rather abruptly to indicate Falstaff's death. Yet, there is something monumental about this work, which begs the question, "why is it is so rarely performed?" The same question must be asked about the Symphony No. 1. I do not recall ever having heard it performed live. Is it perhaps that Elgar is too closely associated with his 'Pomp and Circumstance' March No. 1 so that his other works are shunted aside, except for the Enigma Variations? The lyrics, which now identify Pomp and Circumstance as Land of Hope and Glory, were added later and the composer disliked its use greatly because he felt these words had been turned his work into a jingoistic song during WWI, not in keeping with the loss of life during this war. So much to tell has been moved to Archives . |
