Elgar: Violin Concerto / Cockaigne Overture

Description

Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934) Violin Concerto, Op. 61 Overture: Cockaigne (In London Town), Op. 40 The image of Sir Edward Elgar as an Edwardian gentleman,happier at the race-course or with his dogs than in the concert hall or with musicians issadly deceptive. Popularly associated with the heyday of British imperialism, through hisall too well known Pomp and Circumstance marches and other occasional celebrations ofEmpire that have lasted less well, he has seemed the musical epitome of a period inBritish history that it has become fashionable to decry. The picture is a false one. InEdwardian terms Elgar was a counter-jumper, a man of relatively humble origins, son of ajobbing musician who kept a shop in Worcester, and later the husband of an imprudent ifwell connected spinster, the daughter of a Major-General in the Indian Army and nine yearshis senior. As a Catholic in a largely Protestant and strongly prejudiced community, hemust seem very much less of an Establishment figure, whatever mask he may have chosen toassume as his fame grew. Initial recognition was slow in coming. In 1890 the Elgarsmoved to London, but the following year retreated again to the West Country, taking ahouse at Malvern, allowing Elgar to return to his earlier activities as a provincialmusician, enjoying a merely local reputation. During the last decade of the century heturned his attention largely to the writing of choral works, designed for the flourishingchoral societies of his native region and of the North of England. It was the EnigmaVariations, completed in 1899, that first established his fame in London and, therefore,nationally. The oratorio The Dream of Gerontius,which followed in 1900, was less successful at its first performance in Birmingham and thepublishers, Novello, were not particularly generous in their treatment of him, although hecame to rely on the encouragement of the German-born Augustus Johannes Jaeger, a readerfor the firm, who found in Elgar's music something much more akin to the music of his ownnative country.The concert overture Cockaignewas written in 1901, an evocation of London, a connotation of the title explained in anadded parenthesis, In London Town. Cockaigne, Elgar noted, was traditionally a land of alldelights, but also was identified with London and its suburbs, the supposed origin of theword Cockney to describe a native Londoner. The principal theme came to him during a visitto the Guildhall in the City of London, and this theme provided the germ of the wholework, with its second subject "lovers' theme" and a passing military band. Theoverture was dedicated to "my many friends the members of British orchestras".At the end of the score Elgar wrote words from a favourite poem of his, the medieval PiersPlowman: "Metelees and moneless on Malverne hulles", a reflection of thematerial conditions in which he and his wife were forced to exist. Cockaigne was not offered to Novello, who had provedunhelpful in publishing scores of the oratorios,