Elgar: Cello Concerto/Sea Pictures
Violoncello Concerto in E minor, Op.85
Adagio-Moderato
Allegro Molto
Adagio
Allegro-Moderato-Allegro non troppo
Elgar wrote his ‘Cello Concerto in the summer of 1919, and it was to be his last major orchestral work. He had been deeply saddened by the war, he was suffering from a painful chronic ear condition, and the recent deaths of several old friends had made him acutely aware of his own age. The biographer Percy Young feels that without his wife, Caroline Alice, even this concerto would have remained unwritten. "After the war of 1914-18, having accomplished all that his earliest visions held, he would almost certainly have renounced composition altogether but for the still ardent aspirations of Lady Elgar". She realized that he needed peace and seclusion if he was to write music again, and in May 1917 found him Brinkwells, West Sussex, a woodland cottage deep amongst the South Downs. Sure enough, he composed once more, but a very different kind of music to his opulent pre-war masterpieces. In 1918 he wrote his Violin Sonata, String Quartet, and Piano Quintet; intimate, melancholy works, and the following year came the ‘Cello Concerto, in spirit and conception every bit as much a piece of chamber music. Felix Salmond was the soloist for its première on October 27th. Elgar was not given sufficient rehearsal time, and the audience, as so many composers this century have discovered, had no interest in hearing a new work by a living composer and did not even fill the hall. A week later, Lady Elgar fell into her final illness. After her death the following April, Elgar stopped composing for over a decade. When he finally felt able to write again, it was too late, and his own final illness overtook him before he could complete his opera, piano concerto, or Third Symphony.
For many years after that disappointing première, the ‘Cello Concerto was widely regarded as an understated piece, uncharacteristic of its composer. Some critics even maintained that it was sub-standard Elgar, its very simplicity evidence of fading inspiration. Thanks largely to the 1965 recording of the concerto by Jacqueline du Pré and the no less passionate Sir John Barbirolli, this is no longer the case. The concerto is widely recognized as a deeply emotional masterpiece, and has even outstripped the first "Pomp and Circumstance" march in popularity. Indeed, that famous recording, together with Michael Kennedy’s seminal 1968 biography "Portrait of Elgar" has almost single-handedly transformed Elgar’s posthumous reputation from Edwardian bandmaster to tormented genius. The ‘Cello Concerto is now seen almost as a musical equivalent of Great War poetry, its quiet intimacy forgotten. It is a lament, certainly, but not a public one. Elgar’s great public laments, such as the slow movement of his Second Symphony, are very different affairs. The ‘Cello Concerto is more of a private meditation, full of whims, moments of hope and even (in the second and fourth movements) humour. Tovey called it a "fairy-tale", and it is worth remembering that this music was conceived in solitude, amongst wooded hills. Throughout his life, Elgar was always most himself when deep in the countryside with his own thoughts. This concerto’s emotions came from deep within him.
As befits its meditative character, the concerto largely dispenses with rigorous musical forms, and each movement except the third is introduced by an expressive recitative for the solo ‘cello. After the declamatory opening recitative, the first movement fades into a Moderato song based on a lilting viola melody. Michael Kennedy called it "music of falling leaves and autumn smoke". The next recitative follows without break and leads directly into the second movement, Allegro molto. After a few false starts and pauses for thought, this speeds away as a good-humoured, fantastic scherzo, which finally vanishes like a bursting bubble. The third movement, Adagio, stands alone, in the distant key of B flat major. A simple song, its emotion runs too deep for any words, and begins and ends in profound quiet. The Finale is the most formally complex movement, modeled on the finale Dvorák’s ‘Cello Concerto. The orchestral introduction and ‘cello recitative begin in anger, and launch a brisk, march-like rondo, the episodes of which do allow some hope and good humour to shine briefly through. As it seems to approach a final climax, the tempo and mood of the music is suddenly transformed, and an extended coda begins in an atmosphere of profound anguish. The ‘cello pours out a pained lament over bitter chromatic harmonies; it is surely significant that these are the same chords Elgar used to accompany the Angel of the Agony in "The Dream of Gerontius". The emotion grows too tense, the mood breaks, and the ‘cello restates the concerto’s opening recitative before the orchestra closes with a final brusque gesture.
Richard Bratby, 1999
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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