The faces behind the Enigma...

Elgar's Enigma Variations are well known for being dedicated to, as he put it, "my friends pictured within".  Each characterful variation is packed full of personality, and whilst the music can give a vivid portrayal of a person's nature, I've often found myself wondering what Elgar's friends actually looked like.  Well, wonder no more!  Thanks to our wonderful friends at The Elgar Birthplace Museum, we now know have pictures of each of them, in all their Victorian glory.

Variation I (L'istesso tempo) C.A.E.
C. Alice Elgar - Elgar's wife.

C. Alice Elgar.

Variation II (Allegro) H.D.S-P.
Hew David Steuart-Powell - a well-known amateur pianist and a great player of chamber music.

Hew David Steuart-Powell

Variation III (Allegretto) R.B.T.
Richard Baxter Townshend, Oxford don and author of the "Tenderfoot" series of books.

Richard Baxter Townshend

Variation IV (Allegro di molto) W.M.B.
William Meath Baker, squire of Hasfield, Gloucestershire.

William Meath Baker

Variation V (Moderato) R.P.A.
Richard Penrose Arnold, the son of the poet Matthew Arnold, and himself an amateur pianist.

Richard Penrose Arnold

Variation VI (Andantino) Ysobel
Isabel Fitton, a viola pupil of Elgar's.

Isabel Fitton

Variation VII (Presto) Troyte
Arthur Troyte Griffith, an architect and an "incompetent pianist"!

Arthur Troyte Griffith

Variation VIII (Allegretto) W.N.
Winifred Norbury, a easy-going friend Elgar's.

Winifred Norbury

Variation IX (Adagio) Nimrod
Augustus J. Jaeger - Elgar's close friend and music editor for his publisher, Novello & Co.

Augustus J. Jaeger

Variation X (Intermezzo: Allegretto) Dorabella
Dora Penny, a friend whose stutter is depicted by the woodwinds.

Dora Penny

Variation XI (Allegro di molto) G.R.S.
George Robertson Sinclair, the energetic organist of Hereford Cathedral, with his bulldog, Dan (a well-known character) whose falling down a riverbank inspired this variation.

George Robertson Sinclair and Dan the bulldog

Variation XII (Andante) B.G.N.
Basil G. Nevinson, a well known cellist. In later years, Nevinson would become the inspiration for Elgar's Cello Concerto.

Basil G. Nevinson

Variation XIII (Romanza: Moderato)  * * * 
Lady Mary Lygon, eldest daughter of the late 6th Earl Beauchamp, a personal friend of Alice and Edward Elgar's. She also promoted the Madresfield Music Festivals and was a keen supporter of Elgar's music.

Lady Mary Lygon

Variation XIV (Finale: Allegro Presto) E.D.U.
Edward Elgar!

Edward Elgar

So there we have it, a face to put to the name... or should that be a face to put to the variation!  I know I'll certainly enjoy thinking of these pictures at our Elgar's Enigma concerts this weekend. 

You can hear the RSNO perform Elgar's Enigma Variations, conducted by Rory Macdonald, on Friday 7 November in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh and on Saturday 8 November at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Both concerts start at 7.30pm.

Some tickets are still available should you not have yours yet - just click here to book!

Until the next time...

Cat

All images courtesy of The Elgar Birthplace Museum in Lower Broadheath, Worcester.

Sitting in the balcony with old friends.

Today I'm back in my favourite seat in Henry Wood Hall; up in the balcony listening to the first rehearsal of the week. As poppies start appearing on lapels across the land, the RSNO will be performing a very special programme to commemorate Remembrance Day in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

This week's concerts are conducted by Rory Macdonald – a young Scot who is establishing a great career conducting in the likes of Covent Garden, Vienna Konzerthaus, Sydney Opera House and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing.  Earlier this week he spoke to Kate Molleson of The Herald: 

"There's a special kind of nervousness that applies to performing at home. How can there not be? I'll have friends, family, my old music teachers in the audience. They'll all be remembering me as a wee boy."

And he was right, in a way. When Rory arrived last week for an RSNO chorus rehearsal with Sally Beamish (for the Scottish Premiere of her new work Equal Voices), I realised we were seeing each other for the first time in about 14 or 15 years. You see, Rory and I played in West of Scotland Schools Symphony Orchestra (WSSSO) together between 1996 and 1998, under the baton of William Conway. But I wouldn't say I remember him as a "wee boy". Even back then, I realised that Rory was an immensely talented individual. When we first met, I was in 3rd year at school sitting in the second violins; he was in 5th year – the leader of the Orchestra, and an incredible violinist. (Incidentally, it turned out that his then desk partner, Martin Suckling, would go on to great things too. His compositions have been performed by orchestras such as the LSO, BBC SSO, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, London Sinfonietta, Scottish Ensemble and Hebrides Ensemble and he is currently the Composer in Association with our colleagues at the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.)

I mention my time at WSSSO not simply because it's how I knew Rory back in the day, but because in our second year at WSSSO – Rory still leading, me now in the ranks of the first violins – we performed Elgar's Enigma Variations, one of the pieces he will be conducting with the RSNO this week.  I still have very fond memories of the residential week of rehearsals in Castle Toward and the performances that followed so this is why, when I saw Rory's name on the Season planning documents alongside the Enigma Variations, I just knew within myself that this week's concerts were going to be great.

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I had to just stop writing there. The orchestra had just got to that amazing bit where the last note from the eighth variation leads into the ninth... Nimrod. I just had to stop and listen. My heart is thumping and I don't mind admitting that my eyes are welling up. Wow.

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Right, where was I? Ah yes, the concerts. Elgar's Enigma Variations are simply stunning. And I'm not just talking about Nimrod. My personal favourite is actually the twelfth – B.G.N. The soaring cello line is so intense; hesitant in places, insistent in others. It has an inherent sadness, and yet, so beautiful...

It's little wonder that this piece, alongside his Cello Concerto which Aleksei Kiseliov performed so wonderfully a couple of weeks ago, is considered one of Elgar's best compositions and is a firm favourite amongst British Orchestras and audiences alike.

You can hear Elgar's Enigma Variations, conducted by Rory Macdonald, on Friday 7 November in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh and on Saturday 8 November at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Both concerts start at 7.30pm.

If you haven't got your tickets yet, please visit www.rsno.org.uk/whatson

Until the next time...

Cat

Sitting in the balcony with Elgar

Sitting in the balcony with Elgar

Listening to a professional orchestra rehearse is a privilege that not very many people get to experience, but every so often I like to take some time away from my desk in the RSNO's office and nip up to the balcony of the Henry Wood Hall to sit and listen to the Orchestra as they prepare for the coming weekend's concerts.  Having studied music myself, it is an experience that is not wholly unfamiliar, but the way that this band works with Peter Oundjian is simply mesmerising and my trips up to the balcony serve as a perfect reminder of why I do the job I do - spreading the word about the wonderful music that the RSNO produces each week in concert halls across Scotland.

These first couple of weeks of our new Season are ever so slightly different this year as our first couple of soloists are not being flown in from the international touring circuit, instead the spotlight is shining within our own ranks. Last week we had the truly stunning 5-star performances from our Principal Flautist Kathryn Bryan who played to audiences in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow as we opened our 2014:15 Season.

This week is the turn of our Principal Cellist, Aleksei Kiseliov, who joined the Orchestra in September 2011, and he will be playing Elgar's immensely popular Cello Concerto.

I got in touch with the wonderful people at Elgar's Birthplace Museum and Visitor Centre, who were very kind in giving us access to some incredibly interesting information and resources relating to the various works by Elgar that the Orchestra will be performing throughout the Season. On my trip up to the balcony on Wednesday I felt like I'd been joined by a bit of history; whilst Aleksei was playing I had in my hand the facsimile of the piano score of the Cello Concerto, written in Elgar's own hand for his young friend, Alice Stuart Wortley (see below).

I've always loved following scores whilst listening to music, but there really is something about seeing the original handwritten version of a theme... makes the music more real somehow, more alive.

Another quite extraordinary thing is to hear the music whilst looking at photographs of not only of Elgar with the gent who gave the premiere of the Cello Concerto, but also of the very house in which it was composed. That kind of insight into Elgar's surroundings just adds another dimension to the music.

Brinkwells Cottage, in Fittleworth, Sussex, where Elgar wrote his Cello Concerto.

Edward Elgar with Felix Salmond (left) who gave the premiere of his Cello Concerto.

Shortly after the above photo was taken, Elgar wrote to his friend Sidney Colvin (one of the dedicatees of the concerto) to report on how it was coming along:

"Felix Salmond has been down here & we have put the finishing touches to your cello concerto & it will be produced at a London Symph. Orch. Concert before Christmas. Date to be fixed but I will let you hear it the earliest."

I'm also pleased to report that Wednesday's rehearsal with Aleksei and the RSNO went much better than the one the gentlemen above had before the Cello Concerto's premiere.  As Elgar's wife Alice noted in her diary on the 27th October 2019: 

"E. & A. & C. to Queen's Hall for rehearsal at 12.30 or rather before - absolutely inadequate at that - That brute, Coates went on rehearsing 'Waldweben' Secy. remonstrated, no use, at last just before one, he stopped & the men like Angels stayed till 1.30 - A. wanted E. to withdraw, but he did not for Felix S.’s sake - Indifferent performance of course in consequence E. had a tremendous reception & ovation -"

On the subject of tremendous receptions and ovations, I have no doubt that you'll be part of one soon should you be lucky enough to have secured a ticket for one of this weekend's concerts!

If you don't have a ticket yet, there are only a few still available, so hurry! Book online at www.rsno.org.uk/whatson

Until the next time...

Cat

The photos, manuscripts and transcripts included in this blog were kindly provided courtesy of The Elgar Birthplace MuseumThe photos, manuscripts and transcripts included in this blog were kindly provided courtesy of The Elgar Birthplace Museum.