This is an exceptionally
interesting book, published to mark
the 150th anniversary of Elgar’s birth
– to which a great deal more attention
has been paid than to the centenary
in 1957; a telling reflection of the
change of climate in the appreciation
and understanding of this composer.
The book comprises
fifteen chapters dealing, as the jacket
states, ‘with Elgar the man and composer,
as well as with issues connected to
Elgar’s lasting legacy and to the performance
of his music’. These are conveniently
subdivided into sections looking at
‘Elgar the Man’ (four chapters); ‘Elgar
the Composer’ (five); ‘Performing Elgar’
(five); and ‘The Legacy’ (one). The
authors are ‘scholars and musicians
that understand him best’, but avoiding
‘the usual suspects’ in favour of many
with a thoroughly practical understanding
of ‘the Elgar experience’.
To begin the book with
an essay by the historian David Cannadine
– Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Professor
of British History at the Institute
of Historical Research, University of
London, author of The Decline and
Fall of the British Aristocracy
and of the forthcoming nineteenth century
volume of the New Penguin History of
Britain – puts the subject firmly in
the mainstream and away from the parish
pump. This is the longest chapter in
the book and perhaps the most important,
for it looks at Elgar less as a musician
than as an historical personality, how
he regarded society and how society
regarded him, given his humble background
and the lifelong neuroses this entailed.
The endnotes are quite as fascinating
as the main text!
In similar scholarly
vein Julian Rushton traces the development
of Elgar biography, from the reverential
approaches appropriate to a living composer
to the present-day need ‘finally to
come to grips with the music itself
and its significance’. One of the writers
he mentions, Diana McVeagh – author
of one of the first post-War books about
Elgar (published in the same year as
Percy Young’s Elgar OM) – delightfully
recounts how her book came to be written:
the result of the intended author William
McNaught’s affliction with inoperable
cancer. But few would agree with her
view that in choosing her, a 20-year-old
girl student, ‘poor [Eric] Blom was
scraping the bottom of the barrel’.
One might say that he showed astonishing
percipience!
Finally in this first
section, the pianist Stephen Hough,
writes about ‘Elgar the Catholic’, beginning
with a vivid personal recollection of
discovering The Dream of Gerontius
as a boy, and ending with the thought
that ‘Elgar might have been more at
home living now than he was in his own
times’. This chapter is a considerable
tour-de-force from this multi-talented
musician – not only a superb pianist,
but also the composer of a new cello
concerto, whose premiere he conducted
– and author of a book, The Bible
as Prayer, and a regular reviewer
for the Catholic Herald.
The rest of Elgar:
an anniversary portrait comprises
pieces by Robert Anderson, Christopher
Kent, Hans Keller, Adrian Partington
and Anthony Payne on various aspects
of ‘Elgar the Composer’; Mark Elder
(interviewed by Richard Morrison), Janet
Baker, Yehudi Menuhin, Tasmin Little
and Andrew Keener on ‘Performing Elgar’;
and finally, an exceptionally interesting
piece by Michael Messenger on the Elgar
Foundation and the Birthplace Museum,
illustrating ‘The Legacy’. A most enjoyable
book.
It is, therefore with
regret that I end my review in a state
of irritability at the sloppy editing
of this volume. Indeed, who is the editor
(if there is one)? Nicholas Kenyon writes
an Introduction, but makes no claims
to be the editor, nor is anyone else
named as such. Who selected and commissioned
the individual pieces (not that I’m
complaining of the choice!)? Who put
the book together and proofread it?
Who considered whether any additional
explanatory material would be helpful?
Actually, the book,
qua book, is very nicely designed, set
and printed, but there are a fair number
of typos, at least two widows (pp 119
and 149) – and a howler as early as
the second page of Kenyon’s Introduction
where the author of ‘Dover Beach’ appears
as Malcolm Arnold rather than Matthew!
Furthermore, I, and no doubt most people
reading this, may know who the distinguished
authors are, but this book will be read
by a much wider community who would
benefit from the list of contributors
with brief biographies that is customary
in compilations of this kind.
Finally, it is rather
misleading to claim that this is a ‘collection
of new essays’, when it includes Hans
Keller’s piece ‘Elgar the Progressive’
(first published in The Music Review,
18, 1957, then in Essays on Music,
Cambridge, 1994) and Yehudi Menuhin’s
‘Sir Edward Elgar: My Musical Grandfather’
(first given as a talk to the London
Branch of the Elgar Society in January
1976 and subsequently printed by the
Society). This is not noted, so that
uninformed readers may wonder at references
to ‘thirty years ago’, or ‘recently’
in some of these narratives and fail
to realize that this is not from a present-day
viewpoint.
It is a pity that these
avoidable irritations detract from an
otherwise very welcome and stimulating
addition to the Elgar bibliography.
Garry Humphreys
www.garryhumphreys.com
