Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Adagio – Moderato
Allegro molto
Adagio
Allegro ma non troppo
The renaissance of English music in the twentieth-century
began at its turn with the revelation of Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations, a work
soon taken up by the greatest conductors of the time and of all nationalities.
In the two following decades, Elgar composed oratorios, symphonies and
concertos but only at the end of this period, in the last of his large scale
works, this Cello Concerto, did he create another which also earned its place,
if more gradually, as a well-loved item in the permanent international
repertoire. It was, effectively, Elgar’s swansong. Composed in 1919, it was
first played by Felix Salmond at the Queen’s Hall, London, with Elgar
conducting, on October 26 of the year.
Although cast in four main sections, in contrast to the
three movement of the earlier Violin Concerto, the Cello Concerto is a leaner
and more concise score. Here, Elgar, self-taught but wise in orchestral
experience, successfully projects the solo cello line in clear relief against
an orchestral background of unusual refinement and stripped of all
inessentials.
The Concerto begins with a brief recitative-like
introduction by the solo cello, leading into the first subject of the first
movement proper, a Moderato in nine-eight time. Announced by the violas, it
moves like a winding path in autumnal moods. It passes to the solo cello and
then to an orchestral tutti before this opening section is rounded off by its
return to the solo instrument. Clarinet and bassoons then introduce a second
them, which, counterpointed by the solo cello, the violins continue. This then,
in Tovey’s well-chosen word, blossoms into the major mode, before reverting to
the minor and leading to a recapitulation of the opening section of the
movement.
Cello recitative, anticipations of the succeeding scherzo,
and a brief cadenza lead into the common-time Allegro molto, a kind of nimble
moto perpetuo in E minor, with a contrasted second idea beginning in the
remoteness of E Flat major. The music soon reverts to E minor and the initial
idea, with the second theme reappearing in G major before the swiftly scurrying
coda.
The slow movement unfolds like a prayer, led by the solo
cello. I B flat major and three-eight time, it comes to rest on the dominant (F
major). This leads into B flat minor for a false start to the finale, an
introduction soon swerving into E minor for
another noble recitative and brief cadenza. They lead to the resolute
announcement of the main subject of the final Allegro, ma non troppo (E minor,
two-four time) by the solo cello to an off-beat accompaniment. An orchestral
tutti leads to a more wayward second idea. Resourceful development, in which
the initial them recurs rondo-like and engenders a powerful climax, is followed
by a chromatic episode, (Poco piu lento, common-time) of deep poignancy. It
subsides into a recall of the second phrase of the slow movement, and a final
glance at the opening recitative of the Concerto. After which, the main subject
supplies a brisk and brusque coda.
With hindsight, it is possible to read into the stately
sorrow of the Cello Concerto, and particularly its penultimate episode, Elgar’s
farewell to a former world, the more prosperous and leisurely Edwardian era he
knew before the first world war. With the death of Lady Elgar in 1920, Elgar
lost his creative mainspring, so that the Cello Concerto was indeed a
valediction: certainly, he wrote little of real consequence after it.
Programme Note c Felix Aprahamian, 1983
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