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100 YEARS
AGO...
The Elgars arrived in London from Italy on 16 May, and spent a week or so there seeing friends such as Richter,
Schuster, Lee Williams, Pitt and Kalisch. On 20 may they heard Nikisch conduct the Variations in the afternoon
(Elgar called the interpretation 'odd'), and attended a performance of Die Meistersinger in the evening. They
also spent a couple of nights at Ridgehurst with the Speyers. Alice returned to Hereford on the 25th, and Edward
followed four days later, having stayed at the Langham. He returned to 'a mass of correspondence'. The modern world was
impinging on his rural idyll: on 1 June Alice wrote: 'E. depressed about bicycling on account of Motors'. Three days
later modern distractions were closer to home: 'E. C. & May out for bicycling day to escape Vacuum cleaner'. Elgar was
finding it difficult to settle to work now he was home, and wrote in a depressed state to Jaeger saying that he could
'only get orders for rot of kinds', but financial demands meant he was forced to write them. He went on: 'Of course I
have the thing - the biggest of all sketched - but I cannot afford for the sake of others to waste any time on it'. Yet
ten days later Alice's diary reads: 'E. writing beautiful Symphony': on the same day Edward wrote to Jaeger: 'Oh! such
a tune' - the opening 'motto' theme. At last he was inspired to work consistently at the long-awaited symphony. 'E.
deep in his musics' Alice wrote on 19 June; and Elgar wrote to Ivor Atkins on the 25th: 'The Symphony grows - a
squalling child with teeth & hair'.
The first week in July found Elgar in Birmingham and London for meetings, and then he went to The Hut for a few days.
Schuster was 'quite wild with enthusiasm' when the Symphony was played to him. Elgar's spirits were raised by the
progress made on the new work; his letters at this time to Edwards and Atkins in particular are lighthearted and happy.
Edwards lived in Potters Bar, and Elgar began his letter of 17 July: 'Who was Potter & why did he possess a Bar? What
sort of Bar?', continuing in similar vein two days later. On 1 July, while riding with Carice and May Grafton, he
asked if they would like to take tea in the village of 'Synago'guinetta'; when the two girls professed ignorance he
explained it was Little D[J]ewchurch: 'They nearly fell off their cycles & have felt mentally incapable since'.
At this time Elgar was also writing his programme note for the second Wand of Youth Suite which was to be
performed at the forthcoming Worcester Three Choirs Festival. Another short break from composition was a week-long
visit to Ostend, where on 14 August Elgar conducted In the South, Sea Pictures, the Variations,
the first Wand of Youth Suite, and the Triumphal March from Caractacus. 'Great ovation' wrote Alice, 'then
suddenly "God Save the King" most stirring & affecting, proud to be English'.
Disturbances during particularly fruitful periods of creativity often upset Elgar and this was no exception: on 5
August he was 'trying to finish his Scherzo. Very badly all P.M. distressingly so'. However, he was able to leave the
first two movements at Novello's before going to Belgium; and the day after they returned (18 August) Alice was able
to write: 'E. feeling his way to his Symphony again'. (One can almost hear her relief!) The Speyers arrived on 19
August for a short stay, and Troyte Griffith and Ivor Atkins came over the following day. 'All very congenial spirits
& very nice evening' was Alice's comment.
A difficult and depressing chapter closed at the end of the month. On 29 August: 'E. wrote resigning [the]
Birm[ingham professorship]'. The following day: 'A. posted E's letters resigning Birgm'. And on the last day of the
month: 'E. anxious about Birm. but feeling weight lifted'.
Geoffrey Hodgkins
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