Edward Elgar and His World

by Adams, Byron

  Thus did one septuagenarian member of the British establishment pay homage to another, in a period when British society was in crisis, threatened both economically (the aftermath of the Wall Street crash) and politically (the rise of socialism at home). How better to ameliorate such a situation than address an imagined national community—“a heritage for all our generations to come,” “a landmark in our present advance”—in praise of a figure now identified in the public mind with Englishness itself?97 If any proof were needed of the fundamentally historical and contextual nature of reception history, this would be it. But I suspect that Elgar, ever the idealist, might have regarded Hadow’s tribute to him as evidence of a “real, lasting educational good”—truth—“gained from the mature slowly-wrought opinion.” Indeed, he might even have considered it a belated “conversion.”

  NOTES

  1. Edward Elgar, A Future for English Music and Other Lectures, ed. Percy M. Young (London: Dobson, 1968), 163, 177, 167.

  2. Ibid., 163.

  3. Ibid., 183.

  4. Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

  5. Carl Dahlhaus, Foundations in Music History, trans. J. B. Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 151.

  6. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 167.

  7. Brian Trowell, “Elgar’s Use of Literature,” in Edward Elgar: Music and Literature, ed. Raymond Monk (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1993), 230, 280. Compare Rev. H. R. Haweis’s similarly Platonist Music and Morals (London: W. H. Allen, 1871), which was sufficiently celebrated to go through twenty editions; see Meirion Hughes, The English Musical Renaissance and the Press 1850–1914: Watchmen of Music (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 6–8.

  8. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 167–73, 207.

  9. Ibid., 105; Trowell, “Elgar’s Use of Literature,” 254–56. The extent of the “absolute” character of the First Symphony is also debateable; see Aidan J. Thomson, “Elgar and Chivalry,” 19th-Century Music 28, no. 3 (2005): 259–67.

  10. Letter to Ernest Newman, 4 November 1908, quoted in Jerrold Northrop Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 537.

  11. The Strand Magazine (May 1904): 543–44, quoted in Moore, Elgar: A Creative Life, 339.

  12. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 51, 53.

  13. Ibid., 187. Fuller-Maitland intended his obituary to act as a rejoinder to the overthe-top (and sometimes inaccurate) articles that followed Sullivan’s death in 1900, but his description of these accounts as an example of “Jumboism” was somewhat crass. See J. A. Fuller Maitland [sic], “Sir Arthur Sullivan,” Cornhill Magazine 495 (1901): 300–309.

  14. Musical News (9 December 1905), quoted in Moore, Elgar: A Creative Life, 480. In his inaugural lecture, for instance, Elgar criticized British composers who had written rhapsodies (“Could anything be more inconceivably inept. To rhapsodise is one thing Englishmen cannot do”). Stanford, the composer of several Irish rhapsodies, was almost certainly his target. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 51, 53.

  15. J. A. Fuller-Maitland, English Music in the Nineteenth Century (London: Grant Richards, 1902).

  16. Meirion Hughes and Robert Stradling, The English Musical Renaissance 1840–1940: Constructing a National Music (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 41; Hughes, Watchmen of Music, 29–38.

  17. Hughes, Watchmen of Music, 164, 167–68, 172; Moore, Elgar: A Creative Life, 359.

  18. Hughes, Watchmen of Music, 181–82; Moore, Elgar: A Creative Life, 549.

  19. Moore, for instance, dismisses Fuller-Maitland as “a notorious reactionary,” ironically only a few lines after he refers, in far less loaded terms, to the even more conservative, but pro-Elgar, Joseph Bennett as an “old stager.” See Moore, Elgar: A Creative Life, 333.

  20. Hughes, Watchmen of Music, 55–56.

  21. Kalisch was a progressive critic who not only translated the libretti of both Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, but “as secretary of the old Concert-goers’ Club and chairman of the later Music Club … was able by lectures and demonstrations to introduce a wide public to the new works as they were produced.” See Kalisch’s obituary in the Times (London), 18 May 1933, 16. Thompson was an enthusiastic Wagnerian, whose one music monograph was titled Wagner and Wagenseil: A Source of Wagner’s Opera “Die Meistersinger” (London: Oxford University Press, 1927). Both critics befriended Elgar.

  22. Vaughan Williams recalled that Parry described the Prelude to Parsifal as “mere scene painting,” and that he was “always very insistent on the importance of form as opposed to colour,” and further, that he possessed an “almost moral abhorrence of mere luscious sound.” See Hughes and Stradling, The English Musical Renaissance, 31, 26; Jeremy Dibble, C. Hubert H. Parry: His Life and Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 243; and Ralph Vaughan Williams, National Music and Other Essays, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 182. For a fuller examination of British attitudes to Wagner in this period, see Anne Dzamba Sessa, Richard Wagner and the English (London: Associated University Presses, 1979); and Emma Sutton, Aubrey Beardsley and British Wagnerism in the 1890s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

  23. H. C. Colles, “Maclean, Charles (Donald),” in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., ed. Eric Blom (London: Macmillan, 1954), 5:480; Who’s Who on CD-ROM, 1897–1998. Oxford University Press.

  24. Zeitschrift 1, no. 5 (February 1900): 120. According to Fleischer, the society aimed to be “a federation of the musicians and musical connoisseurs of all countries, for purposes of mutual information on matters of research or on more current matters.” Charles Maclean, “International Musical Society,” Grove 5th ed., 4:518.

  25. My use of Oscar Schmitz’s famous denunciation of English music is intentional: as one might expect, given its Leipzig origins, the IMG had more members from Germany than from any other country between 1899 and 1914. German scholarly attitudes to English music at the time are perhaps best summed up by Wilibald Nagel’s Geschichte der Musik in England (Strasbourg: Trübner, 1894), which ended with the death of Purcell; see also “Two Histories of English Music,” Zeitschrift 12, no. 3 (December 1910): 72–75.

  26. Charles Maclean, “Worcester,” “Notizien,” Zeitschrift 4, no. 1 (October 1902): 31.

  27. My thanks to Julian Rushton for suggesting this argument.

  28. W. H. Hadow, Studies in Modern Music: Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner (London: Seeley, 1893; hereafter Studies 1); Studies in Modern Music: Frederick Chopin, Antonin Dvořák, Johannes Brahms (London: Seeley, 1895; hereafter Studies 2); The Oxford History of Music, Vol. 5, The Viennese Period (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904).

  29. W. H. Hadow, “British Music: A Report upon the History and Present Prospects of Music in the United Kingdom” (Dunfermline: Carnegie Trustees, 1921); English Music (London: Longmans, Green, 1931). The English Heritage series also included “Cricket” by Neville Cardus and “English Humour” by J. B. Priestley.

  30. Hughes, Watchmen of Music, 37.

  31. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 49.

  32. Moore, Elgar: A Creative Life, 85, 259, 438; Jerrold Northrop Moore, ed., Elgar and His Publishers: Letters of a Creative Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 2:613, 677; Elgar, A Future for English Music, 51, 53; Jeremy Dibble, “Elgar and his British Contemporaries” in The Cambridge Companion to Elgar, ed. Daniel M. Grimley and Julian Rushton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 20 (Elgar’s italics). Jaeger himself was not always uncritical of Parry’s work, describing the latter’s Magnificat privately to Elgar as “poor stuff” (28 February 1898; Moore, Elgar and His Publishers, 1:66), and commenting disparagingly of the Thanksgiving Te Deum, “[O]h. Parry!! very MUCH Parry!!! Toujours Parry!!!! Fiddles sawing all the time!!!!! DEAR old Parry!!!!!!” 12 July 1900; Moore, Elgar and His Publishers, 1:213.

  33. Letter to Jaeger, 9 March 1898, quoted in Moore, Elgar and His Publishers, 1:69 (Elgar’
s italics). Elgar’s views on Parry’s orchestration would change over time: many years later Elgar took Vaughan Williams to task for his criticism of Parry’s scoring in the Symphonic Variations; see Dibble, “Elgar and his British Contemporaries,” in Cambridge Companion to Elgar, 23.

  34. J. A. Fuller-Maitland, English Music in the Nineteenth Century (London: Grant Richards, 1902), 252.

  35. Ibid., 201. In addition to the ten pages on Parry, Fuller-Maitland devoted eight to Stanford and five to Mackenzie.

  36. J.E.B., “Reviews: English Nineteenth Century Music,” Musical News 22 (19 April 1902): 378; Common Time, “Musical Gossip of the Month,” Musical Opinion 25 (April 1902): 510.

  37. “Elgar, Sir Edward,” in J. A. Fuller-Maitland, ed., Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1904), 1:773–74.

  38. Ibid., 774.

  39. “Parry, Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Bart,” Grove 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1907), 3:625.

  40. Charles Maclean, “Hubert Parry’s Latest Work,” Zeitschrift 4, no. 12 (September 1903): 676, 678.

  41. Ibid.: 678–79.

  42. “Parry and Elgar,” “Comments on Events,” Musical News 25 (26 September 1903): 255.

  43. Herbert Thompson, “Gloucester,” “Notizien,” Zeitschrift 6, no. 1 (October 1904): 41–42. For a similar perspective see also E. A. Baughan, “The Gloucester Festival: The New Works,” Monthly Musical Record 34 (1904): 185–86.

  44. C[harles] M[aclean], “Gloucester,” “Notizien,” Zeitschrift 6, no. 1 (October 1904): 43.

  45. Quoted in Basil Maine, Elgar: His Life and Works (London: G. Bell, 1933), 2:278. While Dent’s comments seemingly passed unnoticed in the first edition of the Handbuch, they caused an outcry when the revised edition was published, even though, as Brian Trowell has pointed out, the two versions of the article were identical; see Trowell, “Elgar’s Use of Literature,” 183. An earlier accusation of vulgarity with a particularly Elgarian twist came from Francis Toye in an article entitled “Velgarity” [sic] that appeared in Vanity Fair shortly after the premiere of the Violin Concerto. Toye drew attention to the “torrents of snobbery, advertisement and flattery that now accompany the production of [Elgar’s] every new work,” and warned that “this untroubled enthusiasm is bound to produce a reaction sooner or later, and that the cause of Elgar is best served by a total abstention from ‘velgarity.’” Quoted in Moore, Elgar: A Creative Life, 594.

  46. Elgar, A Future for English Music, 47.

  47. C. Fred Kenyon, “The Destroyer of Genius,” Musical Opinion 24 (July 1901): 696. Kenyon wrote under the psuedonym “Gerald Cumberland.”

  48. Maclean, “Hubert Parry’s Latest Work,” 680.

  49. Common Time, “Musical Gossip of the Month,” Musical Opinion 26 (April 1903): 522–23. The author noted that the presence on the committee of Henry Hadow, and his closeness to the Royal College clique, raised questions about the committee’s professed impartiality.

  50. “The Musical Season” in “Comments and Opinions,” The Musical Standard 65 (18 July 1903): 36.

  51. Moore, Elgar: A Creative Life, 401; “‘Somewhere Farther North’: Echoes of the Morecambe Festival,” The Musical Times 44 (July 1903): 460.

  52. “‘The Sleepy London Press’” in “Comments and Opinions,” The Musical Standard 65 (4 July 1903): 3.

  53. See Hughes and Stradling, English Musical Renaissance, 66–74, and Elgar, A Future for English Music, 53, 284.

  54. Fuller-Maitland, English Music in the Nineteenth Century, 185.

  55. Maclean, “Gloucester,” 43; and “Hubert Parry’s Latest Work,” 679.

  56. “There is an oddity at the core of Elgar’s music which does not lie in the line of beauty, but consummate skill in figuration and orchestration conceals this.” Charles Maclean, “Music in London,” Zeitschrift 2, no. 11 (August 1901): 401.

  57. Alfred Kalisch, “Musikberichte: Birmingham,” Zeitschrift 5, no. 3 (December 1903): 132; Herbert Thompson, “The English Autumn Provincial Festivals,” Zeitschrift 5, no. 4 (January 1904): 176; R. J. Buckley, Sir Edward Elgar (London: John Lane, 1904), 80.

  58. W. H. Hadow, “Some Tendencies in Modern Music,” The Edinburgh Review 204, no. 418 (1906): 397. Hadow is not identified as the author of the article in the Review itself but is in a review of the article by Charles Maclean in the Zeitschrift; see C[harles] M[aclean], “London,” “Notizien,” Zeitschrift 8, no. 3 (December 1906): 99.

  59. Hadow, “Some Tendencies,” 398–99.

  60. This allusion has some basis in fact. It was no accident that five “leaders” of the English musical renaissance were highlighted in English Music: Fuller-Maitland explicitly compared Parry and his colleagues favorably with the Moguchaya Kuchka (the Mighty Fire), claiming that there was “more stability in their aims” (186); similarly, Hadow saw the development of nationalism in Russian music as “the best of auguries for the further progress and development of our own”; see “Some Tendencies,” 396. The columnist Common Time of Musical Opinion argued that Elgar and Bantock were influenced by both Tchaikovsky and Wagner; see “Musical Gossip of the Month,” Musical Opinion 25 (December 1901): 190. Similarly, Charles L. Graves identified Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, and Wagner as influences on Elgar’s First Symphony; see Post-Victorian Music with Other Studies and Sketches (London: Macmillan, 1911), 39.

  61. Hadow, Studies 1, 325.

  62. This idealism prevailed outside the renaissance set, too. Ernest Newman, in his monograph of Elgar’s early works, Elgar (London: John Lane, 1906), ostentatiously avoids any discussion of nonmusical issues until the final chapter. Elgar’s admiration for Hanslick has been noted earlier.

  63. Michael Kennedy, Portrait of Elgar, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 76.

  64. J. H. G. B[aughan], “The Oratorio Musically Considered,” From the Concert Room, The Musical Standard 68 (18 February 1905): 100–101. The identity of this critic has caused some confusion. Jerrold Northrop Moore claims that J. H. G. B. was Percy Betts of the Daily News (a critic whom, like Baughan, Elgar described as a “pig”; see Moore, Elgar and His Publishers, 1:111), but this is incorrect: Percy Betts’s full name was Thomas Percival Milbourne, and he had died on August 27, 1904. See “Obituary: Mr. Percy Betts,” The Musical Times 45 (October 1904): 652. Rather, J. H. G. B. was J. H. G. Baughan (d. 1927), who succeeded his brother, the better-known E. A. Baughan, as editor of the Musical Standard in 1902, a post he held until June 1913. Baughan wrote regularly for other periodicals, and for the Daily Mail. See “Obituary: J. H. G. Baughan,” The Musical Times 69 (February 1928): 173.

  65. J. H. G. B[aughan], “The Elgar Festival,” Some Events of the Week, The Musical Standard 66 (19 March 1904): 185; “Dr. Elgar’s ‘King Olaf,’” Some Events of the Week, The Musical Standard 66 (30 April 1904): 277.

  66. “Ernest Newman on Elgar’s ‘The Apostles,’” Comments and Opinions, The Musical Standard 69 (23 September 1905): 192.

  67. Common Time, “Musical Gossip of the Month,” Musical Opinion 27 (November 1903): 112.

  68. Charles Maclean, London Notes, Zeitschrift 14, no. 3 (December 1912): 79.

  69. Charles Maclean, “International Musical Supplement: Local,” Zeitschrift 10, no. 3 (December 1908): 64b. This was an editorial that though lacking any authorial attribution would have been written by Maclean. Charles Maclean, “Music in England,” Zeitschrift 1, no. 1–2 (October–November 1899): 16.

  70. Charles Maclean, “Three Recent English Productions,” Zeitschrift 5, no. 9 (June 1904): 362; London Notes, Zeitschrift 14, no. 3 (December 1912): 79. The Crown of India Suite was “Elgar up to date, discarding early puerilities and uglinesses, and leaning on his own matured individuality.” “London Notes,” Zeitschrift 13, no. 7 (April 1912): 238. The praise for the First Symphony perhaps reflects that work’s apparently more conservative idiom (in comparison with, say, The Apostles): “At last. As on a surf-board coast a boat drifts backwards and forwards, then recoils, then suddenly on the crest of a high
wave touches land, so with England in this case. In respect of the latest developments of highly charged emotional music her attitude has been indeterminate, baffling. Now at the hands of one of her own veritable sons, not those of an alien or a naturalized person, a work has been produced so absolutely up to date in every sense, of such commanding merit, and of such extraordinary and immediate success, that no one can doubt land has been touched, nay a definite territorial point in music-evolution has been annexed. All honour to Elgar, who has secured this for England.” “International Musical Supplement,” Local section, Zeitschrift 10, no. 3 (December 1908): 64a–64b. See also Thomson, “Elgar and Chivalry,” 266–67.

  71. Maclean considered Parsifal to be blasphemous (“It is revolting to Christians, who know of but one Redeemer, to have a second mediaeval one staged”) and claimed that Tristan was “a glorification of that which all the rest of the world condemns; an offence against everyone who takes satisfaction in the fact that Aphrodite has no power over Athene goddess of the mind or Hestia goddess and guardian of the hearth.” But on another occasion he praised the music of Parsifal for “go[ing] on its majestic course in its own way, following the mood merely of the text, the words being fitted subsequently with consummate art into the stream of sound”. See C[harles] M[aclean], review of Ernest Newman, Wagner, “Music of the Masters” Series (London: Wellby, 1904); “Kritische Bücherschau,” Zeitschrift 6, no. 10 (July 1905): 443; Charles Maclean, “Music and Morals,” Zeitschrift 8, no. 12 (September 1907): 462; “London Notes,” Zeitschrift 13, no. 7: 238.