Elgar was always ready to return (in thought) to the world of
his childhood and never more so than in the winter of 1915-1916.
The war had profoundly depressed him - he had never had any
illusions about a quick victory. When it was suggested that
he write incidental music for an escapist fantasy he did not
need much convincing. Little did he know that this effort would
grow to become one his longest and most personal scores.
Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was a well-known writer of both
fantasy and ghost stories. Before the war he had written a novel
entitled A Prisoner in Fairyland, a work of more seriousness
than the title might suggest. In 1914 the writer Violet Pearn
had dramatized the novel under the title The Starlight Express,
leaving out much of what we might call the “Blackwood”
elements. The dramatization was not produced, but in 1915 Ms.
Pearn tried again, enlisting the combined assistance of Blackwood
and Elgar. The two men hit it off and evolved a joint vision
of what the dramatized version should be like, although they
were to be disappointed. At first Elgar planned merely to adapt
some of his Wand of Youth pieces, but as he became more
interested in the project he began writing new music as well.
The score evolved into a large sale monodrama in which the old
and new themes are developed in a symphonic way.
While the official designation for The Starlight Express
is “incidental music” the score is over 300 pages
long. It accompanies most of the spoken dialogue of the play,
as well as incorporating orchestral interludes and free-standing
songs for various characters sung by a soprano and a baritone.
The songs have been described as in “Elgar’s best
light style”, but the effect of the music in its entirety
is both child-like and serious at the same time, not unlike
in several of the composer’s other works.
As indicated above Blackburn’s novel can be described
as a children’s fantasy with a serious side. Unfortunately
some of the more adult aspects of the novel were lost in Violet
Pearn’s dramatization, a fact that distressed Elgar as
much as Blackwood. The drama involves an English family living
in Switzerland in which both the father and mother have strayed
from their youthful selves (“wumbled” in the language
of the story) as opposed to their three children, full of imagination
and concern for others. As dramatized, each act of the play
is preceded by a song for baritone from The Organ Grinder, one
of the fantastic characters who appear in the play. These songs
point out the main theme of each act. The first song “To
the Children” lets us know that the three children will
indeed be the focus of the action (track 1). The first scene
contrasts them not only with their ‘wumbled’ parents
in some poignant music (track 8) but with their equally at sea
adult neighbors. In scene 2 warm-hearted music introduces us
to the children’s’ Uncle Henry, the only “unwumbled”
adult in sight, if not the only one in Europe at the time. He
tells them of his childhood dreams of an alternate world of
fairies and sprites including the Organ Grinder and The Laugher.
The second act opens with the song “The Blue-Eyed Fairy”
(track 17) prefiguring the fantastic world where most of the
act will take place. Henry and the children fall asleep during
a jaunt in the woods and their spirit selves emerge to some
of the loveliest music in the score (tracks 18-19). They are
joined by the Laugher (sung by soprano), the Organ-Grinder,
the Gardener, the Dustman, and a variety of other sprites from
Uncle Henry’s fairy world. The spirits arrive on a comet
in the form of a railroad train - the Starlight Express. This
sequence is accompanied by music that combines fantasy and mystery
as only Elgar could create (track 30). Following the complete
Sun Dance from The Wand of Youth as interlude,
scene 2 shows the sprites, Uncle Henry, and the children working
their magic on the assorted adults from Act 1 (tracks 37-43).
This music includes the wonderful song “O stars Shine
Brightly”) and the act ends with the evenly lovelier “Dawn
Song” (track 45), perhaps the highpoint of the score.
The Act 3 Organ-Grinder song “My Old Tunes” affirms
the power of empathy to make the world better. Elgar brilliantly
increases the dramatic intensity as the adults see the world
with new eyes (tracks 2 and 3 of CD2) and the sprites join the
humans (tracks 7-9). The poignant final song (track 10) suggests
that the whole world needs to be “unwumbled”, but
Elgar’s coda is more bittersweet than triumphant (track
11).
It is easy to see how this story would appeal to Elgar. While
the music of The Starlight Express is some of the composer’s
most personal, the fact that it was written to accompany spoken
dialogue renders the score hard to follow if one is not watching
or reading the play itself. Sir Andrew Davis has found one solution
to this problem by creating a part for narrator taken from the
texts of both A Prisoner in Fairyland and The Starlight
Express. This provides a structure for the music, making
the story easy to follow, but inevitably focuses attention on
the narration more than the music. The alternative is to record
the music as written and have the listener follow a synopsis.
This is what Vernon Handley did in his complete recording of
1976 (re-released on CD in 1990). For those interested only
in the score’s free-standing songs and interludes Sir
Andrew has also extracted these as a separate item for this
set and they are helpfully keyed to the complete text in the
booklet.
In addition to both the complete incidental music and the suite,
this set includes music for the first, aborted, production of
The Starlight Express. This was written by Clive Carey,
composer, actor, singer, director, folk-song collector and singing
teacher (he coached Joan Sutherland). Sir Andrew has resurrected
three of the songs Carey wrote for that first production and
orchestrated them for the same ensemble as Elgar’s. The
first song, for the Organ-Grinder, is simpler than its Elgarian
counterpart, but quite touching. Carey’s second song,
for the character of the Dustman, is rather forward-looking,
as is the Gardener’s Song. All three are sufficiently
interesting to make one wish to hear more of Carey’s music.
Whatever the merits of having a narrator for The Starlight
Express there can be no doubt that Simon Callow was an excellent
choice for the task. His ability to bring out both the varied
elements of the story, not to mention his well-known enthusiasm,
put over the dated text and its various characters. Elin Manahan
Thomas has the right kind of bright, airy, voice for her role
of the Laugher and sings with great naturalness. The same cannot
be said for Roderick Williams, whose Elgar (and other) performances
I have always admired. He is in good voice here but his delivery
of the Organ-Grinder’s songs is much too stagy and misses
the composer’s intentions. Elgar scored The Starlight
Express for a large theatre orchestra and this provides
an interesting contrast to his music for full or string orchestra.
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra takes full advantage of this
opportunity, playing with both subtlety and conviction. The
instrumental solos in Act II are especially well performed.
Davis obviously has great affection for this score. He conducts
in a less symphonic manner than does Vernon Handley, even in
the suite, but with equal attention to detail and equal enthusiasm
for the music.
In terms of recording, the singers and narrator sound quite
lifelike, being well-served by Chandos’ 24-bit recording
and SACD. However, even with these, the Usher Hall renders the
orchestral sound a little distant, negating some of the beauties
of the orchestral texture. Sir Andrew wrote the notes for these
discs himself and they are very informative both about Algernon
Blackwood and about the play’s war-time run, as well as
his researches into the play and his reasons for constructing
the part for narrator. Unfortunately, he does not say enough
about the actual story of the play (see Jerrold Northrop Moore’s
excellent descriptions elsewhere). One should also mention that
text and discs are contained in an attractive box with individual
sleeves for each disc.
Although excerpts from the Starlight music have been
recorded by a number of conductors including Elgar himself the only comparison for the complete music is the Vernon
Handley recording mentioned above. The Davis recording benefits
from up to date recording although Handley’s, old as it
is, is a slightly more animated rendering but as this is currently
available only in a 30-CD set [see link] Sir Andrew’s version is the one to get.
William Kreindler
See also review by Paul Corfield Godfrey
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Simon Callow (narrator)*; Elin Manahan Thomas (soprano) (Laugher/Jane
Anne)*‡; Roderick Williams baritone (Organ-Grinder/Gardener)
[58:03+80:05] 