English music is more than simply ham, lamb, and strawberry jam. On the next “Music from Marlboro,” we’ll highlight one of the most deeply personal utterances of perhaps Albion’s most respected composer.
In the spring of 1918, Sir Edward Elgar underwent an operation in London to have an infected tonsil removed. At the time, this was considered a dangerous operation for a 61 year-old man. When the composer regained consciousness, the first thing he did was ask for a piece of paper, and he jotted down the opening theme of what was to become his last major work, the Cello Concerto in E minor.
The Elgars retired to Brinkwells, a thatched cottage that was their summer home near Fittleworth, in Sussex, so that they could have time to relax and recover from their ailments. Even in this idyllic setting, with its trees and farmland, the guns could be heard at night rumbling across the Channel. The First World War had a profound effect on Elgar, as it did on everyone, but most especially those of the older generation, who had regarded the Boer War as a yardstick against which the cost and loss of armed conflict had been measured.
Nevertheless, by August, Elgar was composing again. In quick succession came the Violin Sonata in E minor, the Piano Quintet in A minor, and the String Quartet in E minor. All three works were given their first performances one hundred years ago, in May of 1919, at which point Elgar launched into the Cello Concerto, which was to be his final masterpiece.
Elgar labored with great intensity, rising at 4 or 5:00 every morning. His music from this period is spare and almost confessional in nature, colored by nostalgia, introspection, and a kind of sad beauty.
But when it came time to play through the quintet, the composer was surrounded by some of his closest confidantes, and he couldn’t have been happier. These included W.H. Reed, with whom he had worked on the Violin Concerto; Albert Sammons, who would make the concerto’s first complete recording, and Felix Salmond, who would assist him on the Cello Concerto.
We’ll hear a performance of Elgar’s Piano Quintet from the 2002 Marlboro Music Festival, featuring pianist Jeremy Denk, violinists Erin Keefe and Bradley Creswick, violist Teng Li, and cellist Joel Noyes.
That will be prefaced by another quintet, from 1912, by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams’ “Phantasy Quintet” was one of a number of works commissioned from England’s great composers by Walter Wilson Cobbett, a businessman and amateur musician whose dual passions were chamber music and music of the Elizabethan era. (“Phantasy” was Cobbett’s preferred spelling.)
Vaughan Williams’ quintet is full of Tudor inflections and stamped by the composer’s tell-tale love of folk music. RVW doubles his violas, and the instrument is heard to great effect throughout the piece. We’ll enjoy it in a 1975 performance from Marlboro, featuring violinists James Buswell and Sachiko Nakajima, violists Philipp Naegele and Caroline Levine, and cellist Anne Martindale.
I hope you’ll join me for the quintessence of English quintets – and one fantastic phantasy – on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page
