The eloquence of Edward Elgar

July 15, 2005
Friday

The eloquence of Edward Elgar

Johnathan Pearce (London) Arts & Entertainment • UK affairs

(0)

I have just got in, hot and tired after my trudge back from the office. Flicking on the television, and, behold on BBC 1, is the first night at the Proms, commencing the famous series of music nights held for a period of weeks at the Royal Albert Hall.

The orchestra is bashing out a piece by Edward Elgar right now, a composer associated - not entirely correctly - with brash British patriotism. In the current climate, it makes me smile rather wryly that this supreme genius of British music should be beamed into our homes on this sultry Friday evening, and via those lovely people at the BBC.

Comments

The Beeb probably don't know Elgar is British,otherwise his music would never get on the play list.

Posted by Peter at July 15, 2005 08:16 PM

On the radio last weekend (in Tucson here), they put on Hilary Hahn playing the violin concerto (I think it was a beeb radio production). It was awesome.

Posted by BridgetB at July 15, 2005 08:41 PM

Johnathan

I heard this too. Very fine.

The piece we heard, Cockaigne, as the announcer explained, is about London, rather than about an illegal substance.

Posted by Brian Micklethwait at July 15, 2005 09:14 PM

If the BBC didn't know Elgar was British (believable), do you think they'd play Gustav Holst's "The Planets - Jupiter"?

Posted by John J. Coupal at July 15, 2005 09:45 PM

Don't equate the BBC's political views with the magnificent Proms concerts. Listening to Berlioz, Mendelssohn and then Elgar's Overture - Cockaigne, promptly followed on BBC2 by Tippett's A Child of Our Time must surely equate to one of the high points of this week.

Posted by Julian Taylor at July 16, 2005 12:43 AM

Yes, whatever they were thinking, the B.B.C. did broadcast the concerts - and that is a good thing.

Posted by Paul Marks at July 16, 2005 12:55 AM

Yup.
After 9/11, in the weeks and months to follow, I returned several time to Elgar's incomparably swaggering, confident, celebratory music.

It was the antidote to the post-modern, morally relativist swill I had forcibly imbibed earlier.

I highly recommend all British late romantics - but elgar in particular: the symphonies, the Dream of Gerontius, and more.

He restoreth the soul, after helping one weep.

Posted by Orson Olson at July 18, 2005 06:14 AM

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