Next weekend we will perform a masterpiece by a composer who, for me, expresses the feeling of being human more richly than any other: Edward Elgar. Even within his hyper-sensitive, evocative, nostalgic and romantic oeuvre, Elgar’s Violin Concerto stands apart as a work of unparalleled tenderness and yearning.
By 1910, Elgar was at the height of his creative powers. World famous, he was riding high on the successes of “The Dream of Gerontius”, the Enigma Variations, the First Symphony and the Pomp and Circumstance Marches. Such was his reputation that the greatest violinist of the day, Fritz Kreisler, wrote asking for a violin concerto. The timing was perfect; Elgar had been making sketches for years, well aware of the prestige of the genre (it is surely no coincidence that Elgar’s concerto bears the same opus number as Beethoven’s: op. 61). The premiere was an enormous success and the piece immediately entered the repertoire.
The first movement begins as if we’re overhearing a serious conversation, rather hushed, before erupting in passion. The melodies are short and compact, unlike Elgar’s usual expansive style, giving a sense of tremendous purpose and emotional urgency. Elgar was a fine amateur violinist, and from the moment the soloist begins to play it is as if we are hearing the composer’s voice speaking directly to us. Ferociously difficult, the concerto has only ever been in the repertoires of a handful of the world’s finest violinists. I’m delighted that we’ll be welcoming one of them, the Canadian-born but Florida-living James Ehnes.
Despite a long and happy marriage, Elgar had many close friendships with women, sometimes encoding romantic tributes in his music. The score of the Violin Concerto contains a typically enigmatic dedication: “Aqui está encerrada el alma de …..” (“Herein is enshrined the soul of …..”), a quotation from the novel “Gil Blas” by Alain-René Lesage. The ellipsis probably refers to Alice Stuart-Wortley, the daughter of a painter, to whom Elgar was hopelessly devoted. It’s likely she is the same love depicted in both the “Romanza” movement of the Enigma Variations and the Second Symphony. The music is full of a sense of ‘what might have been’, and although Elgar refused to comment on the inscription’s meaning, he did say of the Violin Concerto: “It’s good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional, but I love it. Full of romantic feeling.” The second movement begins with a melody that sounds as if the wind is singing through the trees, at once gentle and deeply moving. In a letter to Alice Stuart-Wortley, Elgar labeled it ‘windflower’, his nickname for her.
The concerto’s finale is very unusual. After a spectacular ten minutes of brilliant violin and orchestral writing, the music slows down while the soloist ruminates on melodies from every movement of the concerto. Elgar writes a cadenza – that moment in a concerto when the orchestra stops and the soloist plays or improvises alone – except this cadenza is accompanied by the orchestra who create a mist of nostalgia and longing around the soloist. There is a mood of absolute calm and poignant memory and a reluctance to move on, as if ending the piece will mean saying good bye to love. Indeed, an early commentator, H.C. Colles, said just that: “Elgar dwells on his themes as though he could not bear to say good-bye to them, lest he should lose the soul enshrined therein.”
I always leave Elgar’s music feeling morally nourished. There is something about the atmosphere he creates that inspires us to be better, kinder people. He is always trying to talk about the biggest, most important things in life, but with a total lack of dogma. His is the voice quietly reminding you what is worthwhile, what is honest, what is loving. I will give the last words to Fritz Kreisler. Two years before the premiere of the Violin Concerto, an English newspaper asked him what he thought of Elgar. He replied:
“If you want to know whom I consider to be the greatest living composer, I say without hesitation Elgar…I say this to please no one; it is my own conviction…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.”
Edward Elgar violen concerto is by far and undefined love and emotional triangle between the woman he loves and the woman he wants.
the violen concerto of Edward Elgar is like a volcanic emotional eruption that is expressed between the hopes of holding on to what you have but still not letting go of what you want.
# courtesy Lewis . The “Romanza” do you believe this is a Edward Elgar way of expressing the love that he feels for his wildflower “Alice Stewart ” and his devotion to his “wife. ”
Stephen S.