Elgar’s distractions

In a radio interview in 1937, Edward Elgar’s violinist friend William H. Reed described Elgar’s “distractions” while composing the violin concerto:

I can never play the last movement without seeing the River Wye flowing past the meadow at Hereford where Sir Edward and I used to practise throwing a boomerang in our “off-time” between working out these themes in the Finale [of the Violin Concerto]. It has been said that all Elgar’s music owes a good deal to the inspiration of the countryside which he loved so well. He loved his rivers too, the Severn in particular. One could almost label the moments in the Violin Concerto the Severn, the Thames and the Wye; for they seem to flow through all his music.

Jeremy Pound, “First Violin”, BBC Music Magazine, October 2010, p. 36.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

, ,

Featured Content

Accessibility for kids
Benjamin Britten wrote the score to Instruments of the Orchestra, which would become the concert work, Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra. The theme to the score was based on a hornpipe from Purcell’s Abdelzer. Britten commented to the producer, Basil Wright, that “I was never really worried that it was too sophisticated for kids […]
Imagination
“Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world’s supreme good.” – Pascal Blaise, French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. C. Prendergast, A history of modern French literature: from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2017, p. 237.
Quasi Dance II
Title: Quasi Dance II Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:
Maiky’s recording of Bach’s cello suites
“The Latvian cellist Mischa Maisky recorded the Bach’s cello suites “at a small guest house he converted into a studio and called Sarabande, he had a fence built around it with all the notes of the fifth sarabande crafted on the metalwork.  He gleefully points out that the studio’s address is 720, his Montagnana cello […]
Bach’s reputation
“The difference between the reputation that Bach enjoyed in his lifetime and that which accumulated posthumously is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of music.” Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites.  Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 65.
Mozart: the myth versus the man
We often focus too much on the myth of Mozart, the myth of the prodigy and the myth of the genius – but as he writes in some of his letters, he often feels totally misunderstood and that people don’t give him credit for all the tireless work which he does. In one letter he […]
Music is richer than words
“If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.” Jean Sibelius, in an interview with Berlingske Tidende, 10th June 1919. Cited at: www.sibelius.fi […]
Debussy on Metronome markings
You know what I think about metronome marks: they’re right for a single bar, like “roses, with a morning life”. Only there are “those” who don’t hear music and who take these marks as authority to hear it still less! But do what you please. — Debussy, Letter to Jacques Durand of 9 October 1915 […]
Satie on La Mer
At the 1905 premiere of La Mer, one of whose movements is called “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea”, Debussy received the usual post-performance congratulations. Satie’s deflating comment was, “Ah, my dear friend, there’s one particular moment between half past ten and a quarter to eleven that I found especially stunning.” Levison, B. (2015). […]
The first soundtrack: Snow White
The first soundtrack to be commercially released was Disney’s 1938 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The songs were written by Frank Churchill (music) and Lary Morey (lyrics). The score was written by Churchill and Leigh Harline, with some additional music by Paul Smith. Although Churchill and Morey originally wrote 25 songs for the […]