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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
October 21, 2009
It was probably early in 1918 that Sir Edward Elgar was lunching with George Bernard Shaw and the critic Roger Fry. At some point in the conversation Fry, rashly as it transpired, remarked that "after all, there is only one art: all the arts are the same."
At which point, as Shaw related in a letter to Virginia Woolf, "I heard no more. My attention was taken by a growl from the other side of the table. It was Elgar, with his fangs bared and all his hackles bristling, in an appalling rage. 'Music', he sputtered, 'is written on the skies for you to note down. And you compare that to a DAMNED imitation!'"
One of Elgar's most remarkable compositions is his Introduction and Allegro for Strings, music which, at least in part, resulted in his hearing, while walking on the Welsh borders, singing in the distance. Although he could not make out the melody, it nevertheless inspired the "Welsh tune" which is at the heart of the music.
The actual composition resulted from a suggestion by A.E. Jaeger (Nimrod of the Enigma Variations) in October 1904, that Elgar should write something for the string section of the newly-formed London Symphony Orchestra: "why not a brilliant quick String Scherzo...a real bring down the house torrent of a thing such as Bach could write".
It took some time, though, for the Introduction and Allegro's true stature to be acknowledged; after the second performance, on March 19, 1905, the reception was distinctly cool. Elgar remarked to Dora Penny (the Enigma's Dorabella): "that's good stuff. Nothing better for strings has even been done - and they don't like it."
Today Elgar's Op.47 is acknowledged as one of the supreme masterworks of the string orchestra repertoire, a fact which was underlined by the magnificent performance with which Yariv Aloni and the Galiano Ensemble closed Wednesday evening's superb all-English programme.
The evening opened with Three Songs for Strings by Frank Bridge. All three were quite lovely and beautifully played, but it was perhaps the opening piece, "Irish Tune", which impressed most, as Bridge teases his audience by concealing the tune, only allowing fragments to emerge, until the closing pages where it is revealed to be that most famous of all such "tunes", the Londonderry Air, otherwise known as "Danny Boy". This is best-known in its gorgeous arrangement by Percy Grainger. Bridge's version (quite probably deliberately) is as different from Grainger's as one could imagine.
Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony - composed at the age of twenty, but utilising eight themes written between the ages of nine and twelve - followed.
Three of the movements are quick and lighthearted ("boisterous", "playful" and "frolicsome" to quote their titles) but the music is emotionally grounded by the third, the "Sentimental Sarabande."
Aloni's tempos for the quicker music were brisk indeed - and, as any string player will tell you, the music itself is far from "simple" - which allowed the ensemble to display their formidable technique and ensemble.
But it was that slow movement which really tore at the heartstrings, its central outpouring of grief summoning a huge, vibrant tone from the ensemble.
Elgar's Serenade for Strings is arguably his first mature work; certainly it is his earliest music to have achieved a place in the repertoire, although it is probably the shortest work of its designation so to do (Tchaikovsky's and Dvorák's serenades, for example, are notably longer).
In this music we can hear a composer on the verge of greatness - no prodigy, Elgar was 35 when he completed it - and rarely, if ever, have I heard such a perfect performance as I did on Wednesday.
Aloni's tempos were exquisitely judged and he even managed to bring out inner detail which I had never heard before. But it was the slow movement, featuring what Robert Anderson calls "the finest tune Elgar had yet produced", played with such delicacy, such sympathy that it brought a tear to at least one listener's eye - I cannot speak for others.
And what an interesting contrast between the slow movements of the Britten and the Elgar; the one full of youthful tragic passion, the other of a deeper, more experienced sorrow.
Finally came the Introduction and Allegro.
This is, by my reckoning, the third time I have hear Aloni conduct this music and the finest - not least because of the playing of the Galianos.
There were, it is true, one or two minor blemishes; and, no matter how fine the players, an ensemble of eighteen is never going to produce the same "crunch" on the opening chord as we are accustomed to hearing from larger groups.
But these are truly trivial considerations; the performance itself was as fine as one is likely to encounter "in the flesh".
And, in one respect, this performance was highly unusual: the score calls for a solo quartet and this role is usually given either to a "name" quartet, who are not used to playing with the rest of the ensemble, or to the ensemble's principals, who are not used to playing as a quartet.
In this performance, however, the four principals of the Galiano Ensemble are also the four members of the Lafayette Quartet. There was, I felt, a definite gain.
Actually, there was another distinctly unusual aspect to the performance: except for the solo quartet and the cellos, every member of the ensemble played standing (and only for this work). Unusual, certainly, but, given Jaeger's suggestion of a Bachian "torrent", and Elgar's own admission, to Herbert Howells, that he had learnt his string technique from "old Handel", scarcely inappropriate.
Ballot slips were available during the intermission for the audience to vote on the programme of the Galiano's final concert of the season.
I hardly felt it appropriate to vote myself: this concert was all I could possibly have wished for.
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