Musical Moments #22
“The greatness of Elgar’s music and its immortality, lies in its fundamental religious mysticism and faith.”
Sir Malcolm Sargent
“Slumber Scene” from Wands of Youth Suite - Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
There is much more to Sir Edward Elgar than his most famous work Pomp and Circumstance. Thought of as quintessentially British in his musical style, this primarily self-taught composer found inspiration in the German romantic composers. On a trip to Leipzig in 1882 he wrote, "I got pretty well dosed with Schumann (my ideal!), Brahms, Rubinstein and Wagner, so had no cause to complain.”
Like his father, Elgar was an accomplished violinist and organist, though he lacked confidence in his own abilities. He found luck in his wife Alice, however, as she became his emotional rock and his muse. Alice’s family, horrified that their daughter was marrying an unknown musician, disinherited her, but her abiding belief in the church musician and violinist provided the confidence he needed. From the day they married until her death, Alice was his business manager, handled his correspondence, dealt with his mood swings, and championed his music. She wrote of life with him, “The care of a genius is enough of a life work for any woman.”
When prominent conductor Hans Richter premiered “Enigma” Theme and Variations, the forty-two-year-old Elgar finally experienced success, and upon the death of Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1900, Elgar became recognized as one of the most important English composers of his time.
England’s famed Covent Garden featured Elgar’s music in a 1904 three-day festival, about which the London Times commented, “Four or five years ago if anyone had predicted that the Opera-house would be full from floor to ceiling for a performance of an oratorio by an English composer, he would probably have been supposed to be out of his mind.” King and Queen of England, Edward and Alexandria, attended the concerts and knighted him the same year. Other tributes followed, including an honorary doctorate from Yale on one of his trips to the United States.
Elgar’s music remained very popular until the early 1920s, and he holds a claim to fame as the first composer to take gramophone recordings seriously. Between 1914 and 1925 he made numerous recordings and then re-recorded them as better microphones became available.
Today’s featured performance comes from this past February’s “Spiritual Spaces” concert. Elgar had sketched for piano the “Slumber Scene” when he was a ten-year-old boy and later in life orchestrated it.
Sir Yehudi Menuhin remembers Elgar as, “a figure of great dignity without a shred of self-importance.”
-John V. Sinclair
Listen on YouTube
“Peace is liberty in tranquility.”
Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
“Nun ruht Er” - Christian Gregor (1723-1801)
We need peace!
Rather than offering a contrasting work as I usually do, let’s continue in a meditative mood. Moravian composer Christian Gregor’s “Nun ruht Er” (Now Rests He) might just be the answer. The translated text is, “Now rests He and is refreshed. This is the Sabbath of rest, the holy rest of the Lord. And his rest shall be glorious.”
The Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) traces its roots back to the 15th century as followers of Czech priest Jan Hus, who was martyred, and the sect might be identified as Protestant before Martin Luther King was born. Within five years of the church’s revival in 1727, they began sending missionaries around the world, including to a young American nation in 1735. (A longer introduction on the Moravians can be found in Musical Moments #4.)
Music has always played an essential role in the lives of Moravians. In emigrating from Europe to America, they brought with them the great music of Bach, Haydn, and others. And to their additional credit, they were prolific composers themselves—in my eyes, our country’s first sophisticated music-makers.
Gregor, has been called the “father of Moravian music.” He joined the Church when he was seventeen and served as an organist, minister and administrator in many countries: Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Russia, and he came to America from 1770-1772. In addition to his several hundred works, he influenced the church service by introducing concerted anthems and arias.
It has been my great joy and privilege to have worked with the Moravian denomination and its musicians for over 25 years. One such collaboration resulted in today’s recording by the Bach Festival Choir, including Moravian singers, and features the Reverend Dr. Nola Reed Knouse, director of the Moravian Music Foundation, playing flute, as well as the Bach Festival Orchestra’s principal cellist, Brenda Higgins.
-John V. Sinclair
“Just give peace a chance.”
John Lennon