On Sunday 14th September Southern Branch members will be undertaking an Elgarian expedition to the parts of the Isle of Wight where Edward and Alice spent their honeymoon in 1889. The plan is to walk from Shanklin along the romantic wooded path known as the Landslip, to Ventnor, as the Elgars themselves did in the first week of their honeymoon. The current owner of their lodging house in Ventnor, John Allen, is kindly offering to provide refreshments, and the visit will coincide with Ventnor Museum's Heritage Day, so there will be much to enjoy.

All are welcome. For further information please email Kevin Allen

They may be seen by clicking here.

The first performance of a new orchestration of the Organ Sonata, Op. 28, was given on January 27th 2008 by the Siemens Orchestra in Erlangen, Germany. This orchestration was made without reference to the well-known version by Gordon Jacob, and originally conceived by the conductor and composer Anthony Addison for chamber orchestra with double woodwind, including cor anglais and piccolo. On this occasion the orchestra was augmented with additional brass and percussion to 65 players.

In an introduction before the performance, the conductor Lukas Meuli compared recordings of the organ and orchestral versions, which amply demonstrated how Elgar’s original was crying out to be orchestrated, besides being fiendishly difficult (Meuli said the organist really needed five hands and three feet!). Particularly memorable was the Andante Espressivo in the slow movement (which players at rehearsal referred to as their ‘Nimrod’!), and there were felicitous solos for the leader and woodwind, reminiscent of Richard Strauss and Mahler. This orchestra of gifted amateurs gave a memorable performance to an audience of around 800, and as encore Addison conducted the Andante to tumultuous applause.

Volume 37, Music for Violin, and Volume 4, Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf, are now available. Please contact John Norris (01923 775882) for details.

Kevin Allen has written another book, The Portsmouth North End Choral Society, Elgar, and 'Caractacus', which tells the story of Elgar's visit to Portsmouth in 1928 to conduct his cantata.

One neglected aspect of Elgar's career is the extent to which his presence, willing or unwilling, was invited to boost declining audiences for choral societies during the twenties and thirties. Such conducting opportunities may have served to reassure the ageing and often lonely composer that his music was still wanted, and provided welcome income, but his moods and behaviour could be unpredictable, as when he reputedly interrupted a lengthy introductory speech from a local dignitary before a performance of The Apostles by telling him to 'shut up, you bloody fool.' One conducting experience of a happier kind was that of April, 1928, when Elgar visited the dockyard city of Portsmouth to conduct Caractacus at the Guildhall. It was Elgar's only appearance there, and he came at the invitation of Ernest Birch, a dynamic, meticulous organist and choirmaster who single-handedly founded a new Choir which outshone other local bodies, especially after the imprimatur of Elgar's visit. The occasion was a success, although no doubt Birch was disconcerted by Elgar's insistence on a shopping trip to Woolworth's before the rehearsal. The Portsmouth North End Choral Society, Elgar, and Caractacus is based almost entirely on local documentary sources and on the reminiscences of people present at the Caractacus concert, and has been specially issued to mark the 150th Anniversary.

Profusely illustrated, 38 pp including acknowledgements and footnotes, it is available from the Birthplace at £5 plus p&p.

Andrew Neill gave a talk entitled The Spirit of England, 2007 at the 2007 Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester. It ma be downloaded as a Word file by clicking here.

Composer Anthony Payne agrees to complete the orchestration of the music for Elgar’s Crown of India

In 1912, Elgar composed the music to a masque celebrating the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Delhi the previous December. The masque was produced at London’s Coliseum theatre on 11 March 1912 and Elgar subsequently produced an orchestral suite of the music and a separate march. The complete score was only published in a piano-vocal version by Hugh Blair, the remaining orchestral parts being destroyed sometime in the 1960s.

The Council of the Society has decided to complete the celebrations of this Year of Elgar by commissioning the composer, Anthony Payne, to complete the scoring of the piano-vocal version and combining this, where appropriate, with the orchestral suite and march.

It is hoped that a broadcast by the BBC of the completed score and a subsequent recording of the music in 2009 will lead to a wider interest in this little known music.

Anthony Payne is a widely known composer for works such as The Spirit’s Harvest and Time’s Arrow for orchestra and the fantasy-sextet A Day in the Life of a Mayfly. He is also well known for his orchestration of Elgar’s Queen Alexandra Memorial Ode and completion of the composer’s Pomp & Circumstance March No 6 and celebrated for his ‘elaboration’ of the sketches for Elgar’s Symphony No. 3.

The Elgar Birthplace Museum has launched a Donate an Elgar scheme to raise funds towards the upkeep of the Museum. The £20 note with Elgar's image is being withdrawn this year. If you can afford it, you can now donate one (or more!) to the Museum. Click here to access the Elgar Birthplace Museum "Donate an Elgar" page for full details.

A 3-CD set of broadcasts, mostly from the 1930s, recorded 'off-air' by Kenneth Leech has recently been issued by the Elgar Society. It contains excerpts from performances of Gerontius, Sea Pictures, King Olaf, Caractacus, The Spirit of England, etc., conducted by such Elgarians as Adrian Boult, Percy Hull, and Malcolm Sargent. The set can be ordered from the Elgar Birthplace Museum Shop, which can be accessed here.

The firm of printers and music publishers in Munich, Musikproduktion Juergen Hoeflich (www.musikmph.de), specialise in producing very fine quality study scores (about 9" x 6.5") of music that isn't available in print elsewhere.  For instance, their catalogue includes much orchestral music by Raff, Rubenstein, Rudi Stephan, Svendsen, Schmidt, Chadwick, Magnard, Suk, Novak and Bruch, as well as Parry, Stanford, Hurlstone, Holst, Grainger and others.

Each volume has an introduction in English and German, giving the background and context of each work, and contains details of where to obtain performance material.  This is the real purpose of this series - to encourage performances.  The publishers have subscribers all over the world.

MPH have just published Parry's music to The Birds, several pieces by Josef Strauss, and two volumes of the complete orchestral and chamber music of George Butterworth, much of which has been newly typeset.  More importantly for the Elgar Society, they have just brought out Elgar's Falstaff, with the composer's own analytical note, plus a volume of all four string pieces (Serenade, Intro & Allegro, Elegy and Sospiri).  They have the Three Bavarian Dances in print as well.

In the coming months, they will publish study scores of The Coronation Ode, Coronation March and God Save the King, From the Bavarian Highlands (with orchestra), The Banner of St George, and several short works (inc. Sevillana, Spanish Serenade and the Three pieces Opus 10), the P & C Marches (with the Imperial March), the Crown of India, Polonia and all the concertante works (inc. the Romance for Bassoon).

Full details of The Elgar Education Programme may be seen by clicking here.

The Elgar Society has agreed a sponsorship deal with the British Schools Cycling Association which marks a new and exciting venture for the Society by linking up with a non-musical organisation.

As part of the Society’s remit to engage with young people, it was felt that the society could tap into the fact that Elgar was a very keen cyclist all his life and composed some of his greatest music while out riding his bicycle over the Malvern hills.

Lucy Chittenden (14yrs) a member of the Farnborough & Camberley Cycling Club and who also rides for British Schools Cycling was presented with £1000 at the Porsche Centre Guildford who kindly hosted the presentation. Lucy said "From what I know of Elgar he was quite an amazing guy and I am quite impressed that he rode a bike". Lucy went to say "This sponsorship was really kind of the Elgar Education Programme and hopefully this will encourage more young people to get active and like Elgar better themselves". Lucy has aspirations to compete for Great Britain in the 2012 Olympics in the Triathlon.

Mr. Ron Dowling, representing the British Schools Cycling Association said that "this sponsorship deal between us and the Elgar Society was a great opportunity for holding an Inter-County Schools Team Competition on a closed circuit. This type of event would be a first for us and without this generous sponsorship it would not be possible for it to happen. The South of England would be hosting the first event in summer 2006".

The Elgar Society would like to encourage - by giving financial assistance - performances of Elgar's works that are rarely performed and to encourage performances of any of his works in areas where his music is rarely heard. In particular, the Society would be delighted to encourage with such assistance performances which otherwise would not take place.

Full details of the scheme, and an application form for financial assistance, are available elsewhere on this website.

This, the first CD on the Elgar Editions label, contains four world première recordings, and other piano music, played by David Owen Norris. The recording was made in late 2002 by the Classical Recording Company Ltd, holder of a number of prestigious awards, and runs to some 77 minutes in total.

The Elgar Birthplace Museum now has its own website. This can be accessed at www.elgarmuseum.org

This exciting new site is now live, and all pages on the Elgar Society site referring to the Birthplace have been redirected.