{"id":9461,"date":"2021-03-15T13:03:10","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T12:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=9461"},"modified":"2021-03-15T13:30:15","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T12:30:15","slug":"explore-the-score-elgar-violin-concerto-and-violin-sonata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2021\/03\/15\/explore-the-score-elgar-violin-concerto-and-violin-sonata\/","title":{"rendered":"Explore the Score &#8211; Elgar Violin Concerto and Violin Sonata"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you love Elgar, you&#8217;ll want to catch the English Symphony Orchestra&#8217;s Virtual Concert with Raphael Wallfisch, Elgar Re-Imagined.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eso.co.uk\/elgar-reimagined-1\/\"> Available from the 19th of March here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Trailer - Elgar Reimagined (Part 1)\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y5wQrkYINqY?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Elgar-Violin-Concerto-Sonata\/dp\/B08PXK13FC?dchild=1&amp;keywords=Elgar+Violin+Concerto+Capucon&amp;qid=1615809287&amp;sr=8-2&amp;linkCode=li3&amp;tag=aviewfromthep-21&amp;linkId=653d7fdb077c1f49d3ea568591be9ee5&amp;language=en_GB&amp;ref_=as_li_ss_il\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"\/\/ws-eu.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B08PXK13FC&amp;Format=_SL250_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=GB&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=aviewfromthep-21&amp;language=en_GB\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>This essay was commissioned by Erato for the recently released recording of these works by Renaud Capu\u00e7on, Simon Rattle, the London Symphony Orchestra and Stephen Hough.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-uk.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=aviewfromthep-21&amp;language=en_GB&amp;l=li3&amp;o=2&amp;a=B08PXK13FC\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Only eight years separate the Violin Concerto (written in 1910) from the Violin Sonata (written in 1918), but those years were, of course, some of the most turbulent in history. Elgar was deeply affected by World War One, and could even hear the sound of artillery in France from his home in Brinkwells while writing the Violin Sonata, but he was also haunted in these years by a sense of life and history leaving him behind. In the years between the Violin Concerto and the Violin Sonata, he\u2019d gone from being one of the two or three most celebrated modernist composers in the world to being regarded, perhaps even in his own eyes, as something of an anachronism. And, with his own wife\u2019s health beginning to fail, he was becoming ever more conscious of entering the final chapters of his own life.<\/p>\n<p>A superficial look at Elgar\u2019s Violin Concerto might lead one to conclude that it is yet another typical example of post-Romantic excess, along the lines of Mahler\u2019s Eighth Symphony or Strauss\u2019s <em>Ein Heldenleben.<\/em> But, just as the enormity those works by Mahler and Strauss belies their more personal subtexts, Elgar\u2019s Violin Concerto, for all its grandeur and virtuosity, is one of his most personal, even private, statements.<\/p>\n<p>Elgar had considered writing a violin concerto as early as 1890, but it was not util Fritz Kreisler first asked for a concerto in 1907 that Elgar began to pursue the idea in earnest. Kreisler had come to admire Elgar enormously through the <em>Dream of Gerontius<\/em>. His enthusiasm was typical of a generation of European musicians like Richard Strauss and Hans Richter, who were quick to recognise Elgar\u2019s importance. Kreisler had said of Elgar:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you want to know whom I consider to be the greatest living composer, I say without hesitation Elgar&#8230; I say this to please no one; it is my own conviction&#8230; I place him on an equal footing with my idols, Beethoven and Brahms. He is of the same aristocratic family. His invention, his orchestration, his harmony, his grandeur, it is wonderful. And it is all pure, unaffected music. I wish Elgar would write something for the violin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Royal Philharmonic Society formally commissioned the work in 1909. In spite of his intimate knowledge of the violin, Elgar worked closely with the newly-appointed Leader of the London Symphony Orchestram \u00a0W. H. &#8220;Billy&#8221; Reed, a man who would become one of Elgar\u2019s closest friends, on the violin writing. Kreisler also offered suggestions. The result was a work of unprecedented virtuosity. The violin part is itself almost orchestral, with the soloist playing whole passages in double and triple stops. The work is also a striking monument to a musician at the absolute peak of his craft as both a composer and conductor. With <em>Gerontius<\/em>, the <em>Enigma Variations<\/em> and the <em>First Symphony<\/em> under his belt, Elgar had developed a level of understanding of orchestration and performance practise that remains perhaps unsurpassed even today. The <em>Violin Concerto<\/em> is thus perhaps unique not only in its scale but in the density of its working out \u2013 there is a tempo change in almost every bar, and an expressive marking on almost every note.<\/p>\n<p>The premiere was at a Royal Philharmonic Society concert on 10 November 1910, with Kreisler and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer. Reed recalled, &#8220;the Concerto proved to be a complete triumph, the concert a brilliant and unforgettable occasion.\u201d It was to be the last great public success of his career. When Elgar\u2019s Second Symphony was premiered just a year later, it met a dismal reception.<\/p>\n<p>Behind the Concerto\u2019s monumental fa\u00e7ade, however, lay a more private and enigmatic story. On the first page of ths score, Elgar placed a Spanish epigraph \u201cAqui\u00ed est\u00e1 encerrda el alma de\u2026..\u201d, which Elgar himself translated in a letter as \u201cHere, or more emphatically <em>In here<\/em> is enshrined or (simply) enclosed \u2013 buried is perhaps too definite \u2013 <em>the soul of? <\/em>the final \u2018de\u2019 leaves it indefinite as to sex or rather gender.\u201d It was no typographical accident that the epigraph ended with five dots rather than the standard three. Elgar welcomed, even invited speculation as to the owner of \u201c<em>the soul of?\u201d, <\/em>continuing in one letter by saying \u201cNow guess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elgar, as was his wont with other \u201cdark sayings,\u201d never gave a definitive answer, but the most likely candidate was Alice Stuart-Wortley. The Elgars and the Stuart- Wortleys were family friends in the years before the composition of the Concerto, and Elgar, in order to avoid confusion with his wife who shared the same first name, had bestowed on Mrs. Stuart-Wortley the nickname \u201cWindflower.\u201d As the concerto developed, Elgar wrote to her, describing it as both \u201cyour concerto\u201d and \u201cour concerto\u201d, describing several phrases as \u201cWindflower themes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other names have been suggested besides that of Alice Stuart-Wortley, including Elgar\u2019s young love Helen Weaver and his best friend August Jaeger (\u201cNimrod\u201d of the Enigma Variations). But often overlooked is the first part of the epigraph: \u201cHere, or more emphatically <em>In here.<\/em>\u201d The Concerto is not simply a portrait of \u2018<em>the soul of?\u2019,<\/em> it is a grand depiction of \u201c<em>In here<\/em>.\u201d It seems obvious that it is a depiction of Elgar\u2019s own soul in which that of \u201c\u2026\u2026\u201d has found a permanent place.<\/p>\n<p>The work opens in symphonic tone with a long orchestral exposition. It introduces three main themes which will carry the listener through the work to come. The first is heard in the opening bars and is built mostly of wide leaps up and down, as if the music is being pulled in two different directions. The second, which Elgar called \u2018dejection,\u2019 is built mostly of sighing semitones. And, finally, there is the \u2018Windflower\u2019 theme itself, ascending gently in the major where \u2018dejection\u2019 falls inexorably in the minor.<\/p>\n<p>After the high drama of the first movement, the second is more understated: a tender <em>Andante <\/em>rather than a brooding <em>Adagio<\/em>, which nevertheless hints at tensions hidden beneath the surface in its recurring use of Wagner\u2019s \u201cTristan chord,\u201d by then a well-known musical shorthand for tragic love.<\/p>\n<p>It is the <em>Finale <\/em>which is the most original part of the work. Brahms and Beethoven had already expanded the concerto form long before Elgar, but they always left the weight of the musical argument in the first movement of their concertos, saving the finale for music that was generally lighter in character and tighter in construction. In this work, Elgar makes the finale the emotional centre of the work. It\u2019s a big ask after the two previous movements, and Kreisler found in later performances that it was a mountain he could no longer climb, introducing cuts in his later performances and eventually declining Elgar\u2019s initiation to record the work. Not only has Elgar moved the emotional centre of gravity to the finale, he has moved the cadenza, and in doing so changed the function of the cadenza from a moment of virtuoso display (often even left to the performer to improvise or compose themselves) to one of deep contemplation. Instead of the loud chord one normally hears before a cadenza, the orchestra barely breathes the violin to life with a magical sound Elgar called \u2018thrumming\u2019, a sort of pizzicato tremolo done with the flattened flesh of the fingers. The violin takes us on extended tour of Elgar\u2019s soul, built almost entirely of those three themes which opened the work. In the end, he finishes not with \u2018dejection\u2019 or \u2018Windflower\u2019, but with the Janus-like melody with the rising and falling leaps which opened the work. And, as the orchestra comes in for the final pages, Elgar settles on a new course. Torn no longer between the life he had and the life he might have had, he ends with the theme of the Finale, one with only rises, and rises.<\/p>\n<div class=\"woocommerce \"><ul class=\"products columns-4\">\n<li class=\"product type-product post-7376 status-publish first instock product_cat-cds product_tag-avie-records product_tag-elgar product_tag-english-chamber-orchestra product_tag-english-symphony-orchestra product_tag-piano-quintet product_tag-rodolfus-choir product_tag-sea-pictures has-post-thumbnail shipping-taxable purchasable product-type-simple\">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/product\/elgar-piano-quintet-sea-pictures-orchestrated-by-donald-fraser\/\" class=\"woocommerce-LoopProduct-link woocommerce-loop-product__link\"><span class=\"et_shop_image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362.jpg\" class=\"attachment-woocommerce_thumbnail size-woocommerce_thumbnail\" alt=\"Elgar- Piano Quintet, Sea Pictures. Orchestrated by Donald Fraser.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-420x420.jpg 420w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-744x744.jpg 744w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-90x90.jpg 90w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-1140x1140.jpg 1140w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-570x570.jpg 570w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-380x380.jpg 380w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/AV2362-285x285.jpg 285w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><span class=\"et_overlay\"><\/span><\/span><h2 class=\"woocommerce-loop-product__title\">Elgar- Piano Quintet, Sea Pictures. Orchestrated by Donald Fraser.<\/h2>\n\t<span class=\"price\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\"><bdi><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&pound;<\/span>12.00<\/bdi><\/span><\/span>\n<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Elgar wrote only three mature chamber works, all at more or less the same time while living in Brinkwells during the dark years of World War One. They were among the final pieces he would complete, with only the Cello Concerto to follow a year later. Whether Elgar turned to chamber music out of ianner need or because the war made the performance of new orchestral works impractical is unknowable, but the music from Brinkwells is among the most personal and powerful he ever wrote. Elgar was sensitive to the fact that a new generation of musicians was taking the artform in directions he could neither embrace nor follow, but the Sonata is one of his most original works, and also one of his riches. Unlike the triumphant premiere of the Concerto, the first performance of the Sonata took place at a meeting of the British Musical Society and featured Anthony Bernard\u00a0 at the piano and Elgar\u2019s good friend, Billy Reed, whose advice had been so important in shaping the Concerto, on the violin.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Elgar-Slider-1-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-9462\" src=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Elgar-Slider-1-1000x211.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Elgar-Slider-1-980x206.jpg 980w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Elgar-Slider-1-480x101.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1000px, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2021\/03\/15\/explore-the-score-elgar-violin-concerto-and-violin-sonata\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you love Elgar, you&#8217;ll want to catch the English Symphony Orchestra&#8217;s Virtual Concert with Raphael Wallfisch, Elgar Re-Imagined. Available from the 19th of March here. This essay was commissioned by Erato for the recently released recording of these works by Renaud Capu\u00e7on, Simon Rattle, the London Symphony Orchestra and Stephen Hough. Only eight years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-opion-life-as-a-performing-musician"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9461"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9467,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461\/revisions\/9467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}