Elgar - Composer of the Month

An exciting discovery in the video section of the library has led to our January composer of the month.

Jacqueline Du Pre and the Elgar Cello Concerto
(Find in a library )

(I believe Netflix has a more recently released DVD of the 1967 documentary – which is in my queue - and it contains another example of DuPre playing Beethoven. I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. Jaqueline DuPre - A Portrait)

In the 1967 documentary, one meets the lovely, talented young celloist Jacqueline du Pre, who only five years after this documentary was forced to retire from performing due to MS. You can’t help but be drawn into her lively personality and love for music. We follow the development of her love for the cello through her own words and interviews with her parents and her teachers.

We learn how her mother (a concert pianist) gently nurtured her daughter’s talents by writing for her four year old daughter little tunes for the cello and illustrating them herself.

All the while meeting this charming woman, one hears the theme from the beautiful Cello Concerto by Elgar culminating with a full performance of the work. This is a wonderful way to introduce a piece of music to children. One become accustomed to the main theme which makes listening to the entire work much easier.

(I think it is the quality of "development" that can make classical music more difficult to listen to at first than pop music. Pop music repeats the same musical idea over and over with different words. Classical music tends to develop and change a musical idea much more.)

All my children were drawn in and wanted to learn more about Jacqueline and the music. (I didn’t know that Du Pre married Daniel Barenboim – who I’ve come to know because I keep taking out the dustiest videos in the library.)

I turned to my collection of ten CD’s the 100 greatest Masterpieces of Classical music, there was only one selection for Elgar – to my surprise, he wrote:

Pomp and Circumstance!

(The children were able to sound out on their violin and on the piano one of the themes in Pomp and Circumstance. We started on G then moved quickly to G#)

To introduce Pomp and Circumstance, I reminded the children of the sad but beautiful music we had heard on the video, just as I was saying sad and beautiful the rousing march of Pomp and Circumstance began. It was a funny moment as the children said,
“I thought you said his music is sad?”

We often listen to the CD“The Most Relaxing Classical Music Ever” especially in the car – it seems to help long trips seem shorter. Well lo and behold one of our family’s favorite tracks is another of Elgar’s works “Nimrod” from the Enigma variations. (Number 9). (I had to look up Nimrod in the dictionary, it means hunter and Elgar's friend's surname in German means hunter.)

"The ninth shows the composer at his best; it is the result of a long summer evening's talk, Elgar tells us, when 'my friend grew eloquent -- as only he could -- on the grandeur of Beethoven and especially of his slow movements."
McKinney, Howard D. and Anderson, W.R.
Discovering Music (New York: American Book Company, 1949), 223.

[This is my lead for next month's study. I think we'll look into the slow movements of Beethoven to see which is most similar to the ninth variation of Elgar's Enigma.]

I think the children will be interested in this work. Each of the 14 variations musically describes a person in the life of Elgar.
Wikepedia explains the people musically presented in the Enigma variations. The first variation is his wife. Wikepedia says "if you use a little imagination you can hear Honey, I'm home."
We're trying to use our imagination...

Elgar’s most important chorale work is “The Dream of Geronitus.” Another exciting element to Elgar’s works: This poem was written by John Henry Cardinal Newman!
Every corner I turn with Elgar has been a wonderful surprise.

The poem begins

Jesu, Maria –I am near to death,
And Thou art calling me; I know it now.
Not by the token of this faltering breath,
This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow, --
(Jesu, have mcrcy! Mary, pray for me!)

From this website, I also learned:
The poem depicts a man's death and the journey of the soul to Purgatory. The priest who married Elgar and Alice Roberts gave the couple a copy of the poem as a wedding gift.

I don't think we'll talk too much about the meaning of this work with my children. It might be too much emphasis on death for their delicate psychology.

Finally, his first popular successful work was Salut d’amour written originally for his wife.

Elgar Museum site