Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(Dylan Thomas)
Edward
Elgar may not quite have raged in his old age. He was
far too much of a gentleman to do that. But neither could he
be accused of merely fading quietly away for, even in the final
years of his life the old man clearly enjoyed a challenge. Having
passed his 75 birthday, he both accepted a commission from the
BBC to compose a third symphony and took his first ever aeroplane
flight – to Paris where he conducted a performance
of his violin concerto with the young Yehudi Menuhin as soloist.
Surprisingly, however, that is not a record: Elgar’s admirer
Richard Strauss was to make his own first flight – to London in 1947 – at the ripe old age of 83!
In
that same late spirit of purposeful energy, from 1926 onwards
Elgar had been systematically setting down on disc authoritative
accounts of his own compositions - including the two symphonies,
the violin concerto, the cello concerto, the Enigma variations
and the Pomp and Circumstance marches - using the
latest electrical recording technology with its much improved
sound.
That
whole recording project testified to the remarkable drive and
determination that Elgar still exhibited well into his eighth
decade – and, appropriately enough, when it comes to the individual
interpretations that he set down on disc in those years, they
too are frequently characterised by the same remarkable vim
and vigour.
YouTube
offers a fascinating, if tantalisingly brief, piece of film
in which Elgar directs the London Symphony Orchestra in part
of his Pomp and Circumstance march no.1 and, before he
begins, asks the musicians to “play this tune as though you’ve
never heard it before”. One suspects that he may well have adopted
the same blowing-the-cobwebs-away approach in this recording
of the first symphony, a score that can easily be – and has
frequently been – played, on the contrary, as a sort of comfortable,
nostalgic musical depiction of the British Empire at its zenith.
Thus
it is that this account of the opening movement is far more
direct and purposeful than is often the case, wrapped up in
just 17:14 (Barbirolli’s rightly
much-admired live recording from the 1970 King’s Lynn Festival
on BBC Legends BBCL 4106-2 adds no less than an extra 3½ minutes).
Elgar is similarly forthright in the third movement adagio,
with a timing of just 10:16: even Sir Georg Solti’s iconoclastic
1972 studio account, often credited with restoring the composer’s
own propulsive approach to the mainstream after two decades
dominated by Barbirolli and Boult, is almost two minutes longer.
There
is also no doubt that Elgar’s emphasis throughout this performance
is well and truly on the disquieting elements of angst that
lie just below the symphony’s surface. Thus, from 9:20
onwards in the finale, when one might have expected the great
nobilmente tune of the opening movement to return as
some sort of triumphant climactic peroration, the composer instead
chooses to emphasise the strings that slash disruptively across
the melody. It is almost as if Elgar, who, as we know, had been
deeply affected by the tragedy and waste of the First World
War and the widespread sense of moral collapse that followed
in its wake, is pointing out that the surface self-confidence
of the Edwardian era’s had, in reality, been fundamentally
self-destructive and flawed. It is easily possible to perform
– and to interpret - this passage in an entirely different way:
see, for example, Paul
Serotsky’s fascinating analysis.
Falstaff, acknowledged from
its very first performance as a difficult work “that the public
used to the older Elgar will not assimilate very easily” (Ernest
Newman), also dates from before the First World War. But Ian
Julier’s booklet notes suggest persuasively that it too demonstrates,
beneath the surface, a sense of the composer’s increasing alienation
and disillusionment. This performance – conveying even more
of sense of occasion, no doubt, as it was set down on the opening
day of EMI’s new Abbey Road studios – is both gripping and authoritative
and, like that of the symphony, should certainly be heard, in
the unlikely event that it hasn’t already been, by any admirer
of Elgar’s music.
The
London Symphony Orchestra’s association with Elgar and his music
went back, of course, a long way, ever since the Enigma Variations
had featured prominently in the orchestra’s very first concert
on 9
June 1904. There was clearly a high
degree of admiration on both sides and the performances recorded
on this disc – though very much characteristic of their time
in such features as frequent portamento - are excellent
examples of the standards that English musicians of the inter-war
period could reach when suitably inspired.
Mark
Obert-Thorn’s restoration work has been praised so frequently
by me and other reviewers that it seems almost unnecessary to
add that it is of his usual high standard here. Modern technology,
able to retrieve long-lost sounds, has rescued many old 78 rpm
recordings from oblivion. These particular interpretations are
so central to the Elgar discography that their importance has
always been recognised, but it is good to hear them in this new
incarnation in the very best possible sound and to see them marketed
at a price that makes them available to the widest possible audience.
Rob
Maynard
see
also Review
by Dominy Clements
