Edward Elgar and His World

 

 

 

EDWARD ELGAR AND HIS WORLD

OTHER PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS VOLUMES PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE BARD MUSIC FESTIVAL

Brahms and His World
edited by Walter Frisch (1990)

Mendelssohn and His World
edited by R. Larry Todd (1991)

Richard Strauss and His World
edited by Bryan Gilliam (1992)

Dvo
ák and His World
edited by Michael Beckerman (1993)

Schumann and His World
edited by R. Larry Todd (1994)

Bartók and His World
edited by Peter Laki (1995)

Charles Ives and His World
edited by J. Peter Burkholder (1996)

Haydn and His World
edited by Elaine R. Sisman (1997)

Tchaikovsky and His World
edited by Leslie Kearney (1998)

Schoenberg and His World
edited by Walter Frisch (1999)

Beethoven and His World
edited by Scott Burnham and Michael P. Steinberg (2000)

Debussy and His World
edited by Jane F. Fulcher (2001)

Mahler and His World
edited by Karen Painter (2002)

Janá
ek and His World
edited by Michael Beckerman (2003)

Shostakovich and His World
edited by Laurel E. Fay (2004)

Aaron Copland and His World
edited by Carol J.Oja and Judith Tick (2005)

Franz Liszt and His World
edited by Christopher H. Gibbs and Dana Gooley (2006)

 

 

Edward Elgar
and His World

EDITED BY BYRON ADAMS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD

 

 

Copyright © 2007 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY

All Rights Reserved

For permissions information, see page xi.

Library of Congress Control Number 2007924749

ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13445-1 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13446-8 (paperback)

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This publication has been produced by the Bard College Publications Office:
Ginger Shore, Director
Mary Smith, Cover design
Natalie Kelly, Design
Text edited by Paul De Angelis and Erin Clermont
Music typeset by Don Giller

This publication has been underwritten in part by a grant from
Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

Printed on acid-free paper. ∞

press.princeton.edu

Printed in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

 

 

To the memory of William W. Austin
Scholar, Musician, and Teacher

 

This, then, is the message, which, knowing no more as I unfolded the scroll of it, what next would be written there, than a blade of grass knows what the form of its fruit shall be, I have been led on year by year to speak, even to this its end.

—John Ruskin,
Fors Clavigera
, June 1877

Contents

Acknowledgments

Permissions

Of Worcester and London: An Introduction

BYRON ADAMS

PART I
WORCESTER

Measure of a Man: Catechizing Elgar's Catholic Avatars

CHARLES EDWARD MCGUIRE

Elgar the Escapist?

MATTHEW RILEY

Elgar and the Persistence of Memory

BYRON ADAMS

“The Spirit-Stirring Drum”: Elgar and Populism

DANIEL M. GRIMLEY

PART II
DOCUMENTS

Early Reviews of
The Apostles
in British Periodicals

SELECTED, INTRODUCED, AND ANNOTATED BY AIDAN J. THOMSON

Charles Sanford Terry and Elgar's Violin Concerto

TRANSCRIBED AND INTRODUCED BY ALISON I. SHIEL

PART III
LONDON

Elgar's Critical Critics

AIDAN J. THOMSON

Elgar and the Salons: The Significance of a Private Musical World

SOPHIE FULLER

Elgar and the British Raj: Can the Mughals March?

NALINI GHUMAN

Working the Crowd: Elgar, Class, and Reformulations of Popular Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

DEBORAH HECKERT

Elgar's War Requiem

RACHEL COWGILL

PART IV
SUMMATION

Transcending the Enigmas of Biography: The Cultural Context of Sir Edward Elgar's Career

LEON BOTSTEIN

Index

Notes on the Contributors

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I must thank Leon Botstein, whose leadership of the Bard Music Festival is masterful; indeed, this series is the direct result of his vision. I am grateful for the support of Irene Zedlacher and indebted to the encouragement proffered by Christopher H. Gibbs. As with all the volumes in this series, the production schedule for
Edward Elgar and His World
came with inviolable deadlines, and so I must express my gratitude to the fine scholars who have contributed to this volume. All the contributors have been cooperative, alert, erudite, and much to my relief, good-humored. I commend my editorial assistant, Eric N. Peterson, for his alacrity, meticulousness, and willingness to work through the night if necessary. I offer thanks to my student Brennon Bortz, who patiently initiated me into the mysteries of editing at the computer. I am grateful to Lauren Cowdery for her tactful but expert advice. I owe a debt of gratitude to Gary Mick, Brett Banducci, and, especially, Marcus Desmond Harmon, all of whom helped me to correct the proofs. It has been a privilege to work with Paul De Angelis and Natalie Kelly, and with Ginger Shore of the Bard Publications Office, as well as with that paragon of copy editors, Erin Clermont.

Among the many archives consulted by the contributors to this volume, I want especially to acknowledge the British Library, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, The Worcester County Records Office, the Faculty of Music Library at Oxford, and the Elgar Birthplace Museum; thanks to other such institutions are scattered throughout. I thank the Academic Senate of the University of California, Riverside, for their practical support of this project, as well as my colleagues and students in the Department of Music who have assisted me in innumerable ways.

Permissions and Credits

Novello & Co. has graciously given permission to reprint musical excerpts from the following works by Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto in E Minor, op. 85; “Chanson de nuit”;
The Crown of India,
op. 66;
The Dream of Gerontius; Falstaff,
op. 68;
The Music Makers; Nursery Suite; The Sanguine Fan,
op. 8;
The Spirit of England;
Symphony no. 1 in A-flat Major, op. 55; Symphony no. 2 in E-flat Major, op. 63; Variations on an Original Theme, op. 36 (the
Enigma
Variations).

The following copyright holders have graciously granted permission to reprint or reproduce the following copyrighted material. Acknowledgments for other works may also appear under some of the figures or in the notes.

Ascension.
Stained glass window (1887), St. Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham, Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Photo: Jonathan Berg /
www.bplphoto.co.uk

The Golden Stairs.
1880, Edward Burne-Jones, © Tate Gallery, London 2007.

Christ in the Wilderness.
1873 (oil on canvas), Ivan Nikoleevich Kramskoy (1837–87). Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia, RIA Novostl / The Bridgeman Art Library.

Christ in the House of His Parents.
1849–50, Sir John Everett Millais. Photo credit: Tate Gallery, London / AA Resource, NY.

The Elgar Window and the Elgar memorial plaque, Worcester Cathedral, by permission from Worcester Cathedral.

Isabella
, Sir John Everett Millais (1829–96) / © Guildhall Art Gallery, city of London / The Bridgeman Art Library.

“The Murder of Nurse Cavell,” from
The War Illustrated: A Picture Record of Events by Land, Sea and Air.
Reproduced by permission of the British Library.

The P. S. Wings in the O.P. Mirror,
Walter Sickert, by permission of the Musée des Beaux Arts, Rouen.

Portrait of Cardinal Newman
(1801–90), oil on canvas, Sir John Everett Millais (1829–96) / Private collection / The Bridgeman Art Library.

Vesta Victoria at the Bedford,
Walter Sickert, Richard Burrows Collection.

Grateful acknowledgment is also made to Furthermore, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund, for a grant underwriting the publication of this volume

Of Worcester and London:
An Introduction

BYRON ADAMS

We begin now to see clearly the Elgar dichotomy: the Worcestershire Elgar and the London Elgar, the private Elgar and the public Elgar. The division is apparent in the music. The great works of 1899 and 1900 belong to Worcestershire and to the private Elgar, accordingly they have an authentic ring of truth.

—Percy M. Young,
Elgar O.M.: A Study of a Musician
, 1955

By all rights, 1912 should have been the crowning year of Edward Elgar's career, his long progress from provincial obscurity to fame and riches consummated at last. In this year Elgar and his wife, Alice, whose faith in her husband's genius had been vindicated so spectacularly, moved into Severn House, an elegantly appointed home in London designed by the fashionable architect Norman Shaw. As they took possession on New Year's Day, Sir Edward and Lady Alice Elgar may have reflected on how far they had come since 1890, when an earlier attempt to gain a foothold in the metropolis met with discouragement. During this uncertain and disappointing period in Kensington, Alice Elgar, who was forty-one and pregnant with her first and only child, had been forced to sell her pearls to make ends meet.
¹
In the autumn of that unhappy year, Elgar and his family abandoned London, retiring once again into the dull routines of provincial Worcestershire. Some twenty-two years later, their situation took the sting from memories of earlier struggles: the Elgars had arrived, and in a style befitting Britain's leading composer. As their daughter, Carice, later reminisced, Severn House, grand as it might be, was “by no means everybody's house as it would only accommodate a small family such as ours, as everything was sacrificed to the long stately corridor and the large music room and annexe, a large dining room and large basement, two large bedrooms and three quite small ones, and two even smaller for the staff.”
²

Here a proud Lady Elgar held “at homes” on Saturday afternoons, attracting eminent guests such as Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, and Arthur Nikisch.
³
Sir Edward was less sanguine than his wife about the move to London, however. When flighty Dora Penny, portrayed as “Dorabella” in the tenth of the
Enigma
Variations, first entered Severn House, she enthused to the composer, “You
are
in clover here.” Elgar replied darkly, “I don't know about clover—I've left that behind at Hereford—but Hereford is too far from London; that's the trouble.”
⁴