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It is now well known that the First World War changed Elgar irrevocably. The chamber works and Cello Concerto that soon followed the war have an air of
introspection and wistful longing for a world that had gone forever, shattered by the brutality of
four years of conflict. But the changes that the war was to bring were not apparent from the
outset. The war was not expected to last for more than six months and began in an atmosphere
of patriotic fervour intent on settling old scores. And since this was a world war, the mood of
patriotism extended to embrace other countries suffering at the hands of the Germans.
The mood unsettled Elgar. He counted a number of Germans among his close friends and,
after all, it was the Germans who had rescued The Dream of
Gerontius from potential early oblivion following its disastrous premiere in
Birmingham. But Elgar nevertheless responded to the needs of the hour by writing within the first
year of the war two pieces whose proceeds went to support war charities in countries overrun by
the Germans.
The first piece came about when Elgar was asked to nominate something for an anthology,
to be called King Albert's Book, which was to be published to raise money for Belgian
charities. Elgar's search for a suitable contribution led him to a poem entitled Carillon
by the Belgian poet Emile Cammaerts. Elgar determined to set the poem to music.
Rather than setting it as a choral work, however, he decided instead to provide an orchestral
accompaniment over which the poem is recited.
The work was first performed at the Queen's Hall, London in December 1914, with
the poem read by Tita Brand, Cammaerts' wife and, coincidentally, the daughter of
Marie Brema who sang the role of the Angel in that disastrous first performance of The Dream of Gerontius. The work is a rousing, even
exuberant,
piece, making extensive use of bells to replicate the carillon but with some touchingly lyrical
passages to reflect the more sombre passages of the poem. It is not a great piece, but it did meet
the needs of the moment. Now that moment has passed, it is difficult to imagine the tumultuous
reception afforded the work in 1914. Rapturous acclaim of the first performance was followed
by an equally triumphant and extensive provincial tour of Britain, with Elgar conducting the
London Symphony Orchestra and a variety of distinguished reciters, including on
occasion Cammaerts himself, performing the work in most major towns throughout Britain.
In the following two years, Elgar tried to recapture the success of Carillon with two
further accompaniments to poems by Cammaerts - Une Voix dans le Desert in 1915 and
Le Drapeau Belge in 1916. These are in most respects superior works to
Carillon - more expressive in capturing the conflicting tensions and horrors or war.
Une Voix dans le Desert is the more complex work, setting a part of the poem as a
delightful song for solo soprano, in marked contrast to the soulful passages of recitation that
surround it, while the much shorter Le Drapeau Belge shares with The Spirit of England, the greatest of Elgar's wartime works,
the feeling of the tragic inevitability of war. But by the time Elgar wrote these later works, the
war had moved on and the horrors of trench warfare had become more widely realised. And it
is rarely possible to recapture success - the pieces failed to make the impact of Carillon,
as did Carillon itself when revived during the Second World War with new words by
Laurence Binyon.
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