Julian Lloyd Webber has been elected President of the Elgar Society in succession to Richard Hickox.

The latest CD on the Elgar Editions label contains the Karg-Elert transcription of Falstaff, a manuscript lost for many years in the bowels of the British Library until rediscovered by David Owen Norris. The CD also includes David's own transcriptions of the first five Pomp and Circumstance Marches, and Elgar's fullest draft of his sixth Pomp and Circumstance March, only discovered in June 2007 after the Payne realisation had received its premiere.

The CD can be ordered from the Elgar Birthplace Museum Shop, which can be accessed here.

World premiere recordings of Elgar's three unfinished movements for piano trio, completed by Paul Adrian Rooke and recorded by Dutton, are now available. The CD also contains the Bridge Piano Quartet and Adele Maddison's Piano Quintet, again in world premier recordings. The full score of the Elgar trio movements, published by Elgar Works, is also available, complete with separate violin and 'cello parts.

The CD and score can be ordered from the Elgar Birthplace Museum Shop, which can be accessed here.

The Berlioz Society - a non-profit-making organisation of persons with an interest in and a love of the music of the great French Composer Hector Berlioz (1803 -1869) - is a registered Charity. Chaired by David Cairns, author of the definitive two-volume life of the composer, the Society has an international membership including the world-renowned conductor Sir Colin Davis and Professor Hugh Macdonald, editor of the New Berlioz Edition.

The Society's aim is to increase the public's awareness of the life and works of this great composer, especially the lesser known works. To this end the Society organises meetings, weekends, conferences and publications, and other events.

The Berlioz Society Website can be accessed here.

The death of the Elgar Society's President, Richard Hickox is a considerable loss to the musical world. His championship of the music of Elgar was second to none, as was his championship of the Elgar Society.

The Daily Telegraph obituary can be found by clicking here.

No convincing solution was forthcoming so, sadly, it has not been possible to award the prize.

The competition seems to have set many eager sleuths to work, with, no doubt, countless hours of frustrating effort bringing little reward. From personnel experience we know that the siren-like draw of this never-ending quest can become a n all-consuming addiction. So heartfelt commiserations to any cipher widows - or widowers - out there! The Dorabella Cipher continues to taunt a large and enthusiastic web community that includes a number of professional code-breakers. Sometimes the solution seems tantalisingly close, a few cracks appear in its impenetrable surface, but they lead nowhere and we’re back where we started. Clearly the efforts of many skilled potential entrants were to no avail and they were unable to extract a solution. The judges share their conviction that when the correct solution is found it will be glaringly obvious.

Nevertheless, seven individuals were brave enough to submit entries to the competition, encompassing an encouragingly wide global spread. Some merely hinted at what steps to take towards decipherment, with their authors admitting they remained stumped. Others, despite taking arbitrary liberties with the decoding process, produced awkwardly assembled, contrived and unconvincing ‘solutions’.

One or two entries did contain some impressively ambitious and thoughtful analysis. These entries, though, having matched Elgar’s symbols to the alphabet, invariably ended up with a fairly arbitrary sequence of letters. When a phonetic interpretation of the resulting TXT like ‘message’ is attempted, in the manner of Eric Sam’s 1970 Musical Times solution, the results read as a disconnected chain of bizarre utterances, such as an imaginative mind could conjure up from any group of random letters, and make little sense. One implausible, though entertaining interpretation made liberal use of racy 20th Century American slang – perhaps a spoof entry!

Another solution suggested that the code was a form of musical notation. Whilst an interesting idea, when transcribed, the resulting somewhat messy arrangement of notes can hardly be called music. Others have attempted similar musical mappings of Elgar’s cipher symbols before with equally unsatisfactory results. In fact, any sequence of code or symbols can be translated into ‘random’ music of this sort. I do, though, rather enjoy the implication that Elgar may have shared the aesthetic principles of John Cage. (Not as implausible as it might seem!)

So, in spite of much admirable effort, Elgar’s puzzle remains stubbornly impenetrable. It will no doubt continue to exercise many minds for years to come.

Kevin Jones, Chair of judging panel
Emeritus Professor of Music, Kingston University
September 2008

More on Elgar’s Dorabella Cipher can be found in Professor Jones’ article for the BBC 2007 Proms website.

This can be found by clicking here.

An article on the Cipher by Stephen Colbourn may be found by clicking here.

Volume 22, Music for Powick Asylum, and Volume 4, Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf, are now available. Please contact John Norris (01923 775882) for details.

The death of Vernon Handley is a particular loss to the world of British music. He enabled us to explore parts of the musical repertoire which, through no fault of their own, had become byways. His resurrection of the symphonies of Stanford (unlike Sir Charles, Elgar never got a commission from the Berlin Philharmonic to write one!) is just one highlight in a long career.

The Daily Telegraph obituary can be found by clicking here.

The Elgar Society is proud to release this first commercial recording of The Dream of Gerontius performed in German. Licensed from Austrian Radio (ORF), the recording was made in Vienna in January 1960 with Julius Patzak, Ira Malaniuk, Ludwig Welter, and the Chorus and Orchestra of Austrian Radio, conducted by Hans Swarowsky. The set can be ordered from the Elgar Birthplace Museum Shop, which can be accessed here.

They may be seen by clicking here.

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 may 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.

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.