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100 YEARS
AGO...
A few days after returning from their Welsh holiday the Elgars stayed for a week at Schuster's home, The Hut. John
Coates, Henry Wood, and Julia Worthington were among the other guests. They were in London on 4 September for the premiere
of the fourth Pomp & Circumstance March, conducted by Wood. The next day Elgar attended rehearsals for the two
great oratorios, which were to be given at the Three Choirs. He and Alice went to Gloucester on the 9th: the Festival
began the following day. There was a performance of The Apostles in the evening, and The Kingdom the next
morning - the first time they had been given in this way. 'Most beautiful performance - immense & devout audience' Alice
wrote. Other works given that year were Horatio Parker's Organ Concerto; Parry's Sinfonia Sacra; and Brewer's
Emmaus (which Elgar had orchestrated for the 1901 Festival).
Back home in Hereford on 14 September, Elgar worked on the completion of his Wand of Youth music. He went to
London on the 20th for a rehearsal of The Kingdom, which was to be given at the Leeds Festival. In Hereford again,
he began to correct proofs of The Wand of Youth, before leaving on 23rd for the Cardiff Festival where he
conducted The Kingdom on the 26th. Another work given there was Parry's A Vision of Life: Elgar was so
impressed by it that he suggested to Ivor Atkins and Nicholas Kilburn that they consider performing it.
The Elgars planned to go to Italy for the winter, where Edward could complete his long-awaited symphony: Plas Gwyn
was let for four months to a Captain Inglefield and his wife. The Kingdom was given to great acclaim at Leeds on
11 October and at Hanley four days later. In Birmingham on the 16th they met up with Richter. Alice noted: 'Fervent
appeal to E. to finish the Sinfonie - dear noble old man'. But ten days later her diary reads: 'E. wrote IVt'. It
appears likely that this was the music later used in the central movements of the First Symphony.
The Elgars left for Italy on 5 November, accompanied by Carice and May Grafton. They travelled by train via Paris
and Genoa, arriving in Rome two days later, and found a flat in the Via Gregoriana which they took for five months.
Elgar loved Rome, writing to Schuster: 'Here is my Mecca & 1 love it all - Note the fact that I am pagan not Xtian at
present'. Yet later in the same letter he wrote: 'I am trying to write music but the bitterness is that it pays not at
all & 1 must write & arrange what my soul loathes to permit me to write what you like & I like'. Novello were pushing
him to compose some short pieces which would sell. There were two marching songs - one called Marching Song, the
other The Reveille. Edwards of the Musical Times sent some hymn-like words which Elgar set as How Calmly the
Evening. There was also a request from Sinclair for a Christmas piece for his cathedral choir: Elgar set some words
of Alice's entitled A Christmas Greeting, which contrast Christmas in Italy and Hereford. But towards the end of
the year he composed four large part-songs, his Opus 53: There is Sweet Music, Deep in My Soul, 0 Wild West Wind,
and Owls. These were not commissioned so far as we know, and yet Elgar took time off from his work on the
symphony to write them. They are dated 'December 1907', the last bearing the date '31 December'.
The Elgars met the composers Giovanni Sgambati - whom they had first met earlier in the year - and the young
American John Alden Carpenter. The latter came from a wealthy Chicago family and was recommended to Elgar as a
pupil by the widow of Theodore Thomas. No doubt Carpenter's willingness to pay for lessons in composition was a factor
in Elgar's agreeing to take him on! Carpenter later referred to Elgar as 'a fine man but a poor teacher'.
Geoffrey Hodgkins
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