1 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:09,760 For many of us, the music of Edward Elgar is instantly recognisable, 2 00:00:09,760 --> 00:00:14,160 characteristic of the confident, Edwardian age he lived in 3 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:16,200 and part of the national heritage, 4 00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:17,560 just like the man. 5 00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:23,480 But we are the victims of one of the wiliest image consultants of the last century - 6 00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:25,720 Elgar himself. 7 00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:31,440 He particularly enjoyed bamboozling posterity. 8 00:00:31,440 --> 00:00:34,320 As a contemporary of Puccini and Mahler, 9 00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:38,520 Elgar wrote music that even today challenges our preconceptions. 10 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:46,920 There we go. 11 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:49,480 And it doesn't feel, really, like Elgar's world. 12 00:00:49,480 --> 00:00:52,760 It's visceral and comes right out of the guts of the music. 13 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:59,040 Although his home life seemed a model of decorum, 14 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:02,080 this man of many moods was always falling in love. 15 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:06,760 And unflinching new evidence from one of the women who knew him best 16 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:09,200 reveals what sort of man he was. 17 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:12,280 Gosh! Well, that is quite a letter 18 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:18,680 In his lifetime, he was known for being complex and difficult. 19 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:25,000 His friends realised he deliberately hid himself behind a mask of respectability. 20 00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:28,280 But they have now gone 21 00:01:28,280 --> 00:01:32,960 and as the years have passed, it's the mask that survived. 22 00:01:32,960 --> 00:01:36,640 The real Elgar is only now being recovered. 23 00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:40,480 'His eyes were restlessly moving all the time.' 24 00:01:40,480 --> 00:01:44,680 Up and down, left and right. That restless energy. 25 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:52,080 And, for a moment, I had this uncanny feeling that, at last, I knew him and what he would have been like. 26 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:01,920 APPLAUSE 27 00:02:16,040 --> 00:02:21,920 'Ages ago, when I was a kid, I remember an ad on the TV' 28 00:02:21,920 --> 00:02:25,160 that was for tomato sauce, ketchup. 29 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:27,600 In Venezuela? In Venezuela. 30 00:02:29,640 --> 00:02:33,160 Our headmaster would play records to us, 31 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:37,360 so in three or four-minute chunks, he played us The Dream Of Gerontius 32 00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:39,800 on Saturday mornings, before our cornflakes. 33 00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:42,040 He really clicked with me 34 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:45,480 when, I remember it distinctly, 35 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:49,760 a specific performance of the Enigma Variations in the Albert Hall. 36 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,320 I don't think I had a recording at home 37 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:56,000 but there was a recording at school 38 00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:57,880 conducted by Toscanini. 39 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:01,720 I tremble to think how many times I've heard it. 40 00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:03,160 It's always fresh. 41 00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:11,120 Absolutely remember getting to the climax, the Glimpse of God, 42 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:17,080 and, of course, that is such an unusual moment in music 43 00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:20,680 that it left an indelible mark. 44 00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:30,800 The bottle like that and the sauce coming down, down, down 45 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:34,520 and when it was reaching the food, whatever it was - chips, probably - 46 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:40,720 Pomp And Circumstance March No.1 was sounding. SHE SINGS 47 00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:46,680 That was the heroic thing, finally the ketchup got onto the chip. 48 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:50,880 MUSIC: "Pomp And Circumstance March No.1 49 00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:54,440 It may have become a rousing, patriotic tune 50 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:58,080 but Land Of Hope And Glory began life without any words 51 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:01,840 simply as the middle section of an orchestral march. 52 00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:04,120 Like much of Elgar's music, 53 00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:07,760 if you do what he wanted and imagine you have never heard it before, 54 00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:10,720 it's not quite what it seems. 55 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:13,840 It's not pretentious, it's not pompous, 56 00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:16,880 it's just wonderfully open and sincere. 57 00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:19,240 And that's what, um... 58 00:04:21,280 --> 00:04:25,200 totally embraces me, and I'm not even British at all! 59 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:33,120 He had a knack of expressing a national mood in a very personal way. 60 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:38,400 When you hear Land Of Hope And Glory, you shouldn't think of it as a tub-thumping song 61 00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:41,240 but of the fact that it's really quite a sad tune. 62 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:44,640 It has Elgar's trademark languishing sixth 63 00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:48,760 falling to a fifth. That's to say, this note... 64 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:56,280 That's an interesting harmony Elgar uses a lot 65 00:04:56,280 --> 00:04:57,520 because that... 66 00:04:57,520 --> 00:05:01,400 is an inversion of a minor chord, so think sad, perhaps, 67 00:05:01,400 --> 00:05:03,680 and then that...is a major chord. 68 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:06,240 So that's sad turning to happy. 69 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:09,920 The other thing that Elgar was very good at was this sort of thing, 70 00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:12,520 same technique but the opposite way round... 71 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:14,360 PLAYS SIXTH THEN FIFTH 72 00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:19,640 And there we have a sixth, a sort of an inversion of a major chord... 73 00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:25,480 And again there's this drooping, sort of sad thing. PLAYS FIFTH 74 00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:27,920 So Elgar uses a lot of these drooping sixths 75 00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:33,520 This tune... POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE MARCH No.1 76 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:38,120 ..actually has it and as soon as you've realised that is the key aspect of that tune 77 00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:40,160 it can never be a triumphalist anthem again. 78 00:05:58,840 --> 00:06:02,880 The Pomp And Circumstance Marches are brilliant marches 79 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:08,120 but they're just ringing the doorbell when it comes to learning about what's in the Elgar house. 80 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:23,640 In old age, Elgar cherished the memory of this cottage 81 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:27,760 a few miles outside Worcester, where he was born in 1857. 82 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:34,840 But his parents moved back into the city before he was two. 83 00:06:34,840 --> 00:06:39,320 So this wasn't a real memory but an icon of his infancy 84 00:06:39,320 --> 00:06:44,560 and of the humble origins which made him both proud and ashamed all his life. 85 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:50,800 He brought friends here. 86 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:54,080 Some of them spotted that he was building his own legend, 87 00:06:54,080 --> 00:06:57,640 doing what he could to manipulate the verdict of posterity. 88 00:06:59,840 --> 00:07:02,840 "I know nothing about music," he would say. 89 00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:07,320 True, in one sense, because he never had a composition lesson in his life. 90 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:13,000 Yet he lived and breathed it as he worked in his father's music shop 91 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:19,480 and played the violin professionally, as well as the piano, organ, bassoon and trombone. 92 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:31,880 As a composer, between the success of his Enigma Variations in 1899 93 00:07:31,880 --> 00:07:34,560 and the Cello Concerto 20 years later, 94 00:07:34,560 --> 00:07:38,080 he was the dominant force in British music, 95 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:41,520 the greatest native composer since Purcell. 96 00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:53,160 But with the rise of Stravinsky and Schoenberg 97 00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:55,640 his music went into decline. 98 00:07:58,080 --> 00:08:02,960 He was written off as a relic of empire, jingoistic and out of date. 99 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:10,880 Now free of imperial clutter, 100 00:08:10,880 --> 00:08:15,560 the range and complexity of his music is being rediscovered. 101 00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:24,560 It's the deeply personal voice 102 00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:28,720 of a man wrestling with the contradictions of his own life. 103 00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:34,280 The music seems, to me, to suggest the sort of fractured, 104 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:39,120 troublesome visionary who was up one minute, down the next, 105 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:43,000 found life very, very difficult and was extremely emotional. 106 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:48,200 The appearance he presented to the world was very different. 107 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:52,880 His passport lists his height as 5'10", 108 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:55,120 his eyes, hazel, 109 00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:56,800 his nose large and aquiline, 110 00:08:56,800 --> 00:08:59,960 the right equipment for the gentleman he aspired to be. 111 00:09:01,480 --> 00:09:04,920 His knighthood, at the age of 47, sealed the deal. 112 00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:08,760 But it led both man and music to be misunderstood. 113 00:09:10,120 --> 00:09:13,680 That stiff upper lip had much to answer for. 114 00:09:13,680 --> 00:09:16,280 I think it was probably Elgar's moustache! 115 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:22,200 There are two early pictures, one as a young man, without one, 116 00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:24,400 and he looks sort of incomplete. 117 00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:28,640 It covers almost the whole of the mouth. 118 00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:31,920 Bit macho. 119 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:37,000 A retired colonel or general. 120 00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:41,280 He just looked like a country gentleman. 121 00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:44,720 Very often at the beginning and ends of pieces 122 00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:46,800 we feel this strength of character 123 00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:52,640 but buried in the core of the works, and perhaps more essential to their meaning, 124 00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:54,520 is an entirely clean-shaven 125 00:09:54,520 --> 00:09:59,160 vision, really, of a childlike, 126 00:09:59,160 --> 00:10:03,440 even feminine musical character that's lurking beneath. 127 00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:06,800 Because he looked so robustly English, 128 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:08,800 people think his music is too. 129 00:10:08,800 --> 00:10:14,600 But in his own day, it was regarded as being more emotional than was proper for an Englishman. 130 00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:18,360 I find his music as dramatic and lyric as Puccini 131 00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:21,280 and as interestingly, harmonically, as Strauss. 132 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:25,560 But it's that veneer in his music which... 133 00:10:25,560 --> 00:10:29,280 which I think people take as very English. 134 00:10:29,280 --> 00:10:33,080 I think of him, because they were contemporaries, strangely, 135 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:35,720 as a sort of English Mahler. 136 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:39,200 There could be the outside world and then the deep inside world. 137 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:41,840 People are always talking about irony in Mahler 138 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:45,480 and they don't seem to have seen it in Elgar, but his music is full of irony 139 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:48,920 even when it's moving with terrific rhythmic vigour. 140 00:10:48,920 --> 00:10:52,680 Pomp And Circumstance, we always think, don't we... 141 00:10:52,680 --> 00:10:55,760 That sort of thing. Or we think... 142 00:10:58,880 --> 00:11:02,880 And so on. Marvellous, perky rhythms and strutting things. 143 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:04,720 But, of course, it's also... 144 00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:16,040 Nothing very Pomp And Circumstance about that, that's immensely menacing. 145 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:19,400 Those marches, the actual quick march sections, 146 00:11:19,400 --> 00:11:22,040 are sometimes very uneasy. 147 00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:24,480 The harmony is shifting all over the place 148 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:28,320 and I think people will often see the rumbustious Elgar 149 00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:32,560 as being open and full of vigour and Edwardian swagger 150 00:11:32,560 --> 00:11:35,640 and they've missed the fact that it's actually melancholic, 151 00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:39,440 which is a deep irony which you see throughout his music. 152 00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:43,160 And an ambivalence in his own character. Absolutely so, yes. 153 00:11:43,160 --> 00:11:44,760 It's what makes him a great artist. 154 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:48,440 I think he knew very well 155 00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:50,920 what a complicated being he was. 156 00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:59,800 # Deep in my soul 157 00:11:59,800 --> 00:12:07,520 # That tender secret dwells... 158 00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:17,680 Deep In My Soul, a tender secret dwells. 159 00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:23,160 It seems to suit Elgar's enigmatic character. 160 00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:30,680 # Lonely and lost to light for evermore 161 00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:39,360 # Save when to thine 162 00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:46,840 # My heart responsive swells 163 00:12:46,840 --> 00:12:51,800 # Then trembles 164 00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:56,080 # Into silence 165 00:12:56,080 --> 00:13:03,600 # Into silence as before 166 00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:07,040 # As before... 167 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:13,320 He wanted to be accepted, he wanted to be praised and appreciated, 168 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:16,400 but inside, there was a trembling heart, 169 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:18,000 a nervous disposition. 170 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:25,120 # There, in its centre 171 00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:31,200 # A sepulchral lamp 172 00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:37,720 # Burns the slow flame 173 00:13:37,720 --> 00:13:45,160 # Eternal but unseen... # 174 00:13:45,160 --> 00:13:47,880 So much of his music is quite intensely private. 175 00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:54,160 He's revealing things that he does not reveal in any other way. 176 00:13:54,160 --> 00:14:06,760 # Which not the darkness of Despair can damp 177 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:14,440 # Though vain its ray 178 00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:24,240 # As it had never been 179 00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:30,520 # Through vain its ray as it had never been... 180 00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:34,200 The ambiguity of his musical persona 181 00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:38,840 is at the heart of what makes his music valuable and interesting. 182 00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:45,120 And this ambiguity is actually essential, I think, to understanding both the music and the man. 183 00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:49,800 Elgar was brought up in the shadow of Worcester Cathedral. 184 00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:52,440 But, for years, he was an outsider, 185 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:56,120 more often seen in the new Roman Catholic church of St George's 186 00:14:56,120 --> 00:15:00,400 where his father was organist and his mother a devout worshipper. 187 00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:04,800 As the son of a shopkeeper, and a Catholic too, 188 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:07,480 he never belonged to the musical establishment. 189 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:14,720 He discovered what he was up against when he wrote his masterly setting 190 00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:17,440 of Cardinal Newman's poem the Dream of Gerontius, 191 00:15:17,440 --> 00:15:21,320 which is about a dying man and the journey of his soul after death. 192 00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:30,280 "It stank of incense," someone said, 193 00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:34,920 and Worcester Cathedral censored any mention of the Virgin Mary in performance, 194 00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:39,200 a ban that lasted almost half a century. 195 00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:43,200 They were very dubious, because this was a Catholic work 196 00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:48,560 and all the mariolatory, all the references to the Virgin, 197 00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:51,320 are just replaced with asterisks and dots. 198 00:16:08,280 --> 00:16:12,680 Apparently, the singers were just left to get over it and mumble away as best they could. 199 00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:16,320 Was that with Elgar's agreement? 200 00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:18,600 It was the only way to do it. 201 00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:23,280 Yes, certainly with Elgar's agreement, he conducted it. 202 00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:29,000 Gerontius scarred Elgar. "My heart," he said after the first performance, 203 00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:34,520 "is now shut against every religious feeling and every soft, gentle impulse forever." 204 00:16:34,520 --> 00:16:39,200 It had been a disaster. The choir was under-rehearsed and out of tune. 205 00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:43,520 "I really wish I were dead over and over again," he said, 206 00:16:43,520 --> 00:16:47,840 "but I dare not, for the sake of my relatives, do the job myself." 207 00:16:49,080 --> 00:16:53,120 Never again did he write what could be seen as a Catholic work. 208 00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:56,920 Instead, he turned to the Anglican Church for advice 209 00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,400 and used the Bible for his text. 210 00:16:59,400 --> 00:17:02,440 No-one could object to that. 211 00:17:02,440 --> 00:17:05,120 And no-one did. 212 00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:11,080 It brought him much more into the fold. 213 00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:20,560 As he conjured up the sunrise seen from the Temple roof in Jerusalem, 214 00:17:20,560 --> 00:17:23,880 he worked Jewish music into his score as well. 215 00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:35,960 He wrote a part for the shofar, the ceremonial ram's horn of the synagogue, 216 00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:39,040 a startling choice even a century later. 217 00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:44,640 As a conductor, standing in front of the Dawn scene of the Apostles is one of the great things 218 00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:48,480 because the orchestration is completely bizarre. 219 00:18:49,440 --> 00:18:54,840 The sound of this high tam-tam in the background, shimmering away, 220 00:18:54,840 --> 00:19:00,080 is completely extraordinary, and the shofar on one side, and this huge orchestral crescendo. 221 00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:05,680 It's visceral and comes right out of the guts of the music. 222 00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:58,760 Elgar had come a long way since succeeding his father as organist at St George's church. 223 00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:01,840 At that stage, he had few compositions to his name 224 00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:04,000 and fewer prospects. 225 00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:08,800 But a determined woman in her late 30s had turned up on his doorstep, 226 00:20:08,800 --> 00:20:11,000 the daughter of a major general. 227 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:15,000 Her name was Alice Roberts and she wanted piano lessons. 228 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:18,400 This prompted Elgar to write a new song. 229 00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:23,760 # Is she not passing fair 230 00:20:23,760 --> 00:20:27,000 # She who my love... 231 00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:29,880 There's a marvellous chord progression which I really love 232 00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:35,520 where Elgar is asking himself, "is she not passing fair? Passing fair..." 233 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:42,040 And you can just see the furrowing of the brow as he has these chords. 234 00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:47,200 You have that She...is...passing...fair 235 00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:49,160 Good. And then it goes... 236 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:53,400 Pa...ssing...fair? 237 00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:58,880 # Then she is passing fair 238 00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:04,680 # Pa-assing fair 239 00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:08,440 And that's one of the best expressed question marks in music that I know. 240 00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:12,720 # I love so well. 241 00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:15,000 And I think he wasn't sure. 242 00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:19,280 It took Elgar two years to pop the question. 243 00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:21,880 Frustrating for a woman nudging 40. 244 00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:26,920 But marriage was to bring him companionship, money - though never quite enough - 245 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:28,560 and a daughter, Carice. 246 00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:31,680 And Alice had no doubts. 247 00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:36,680 She came from a completely different - more county, we would say - background. 248 00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:40,560 Her family were shocked that she was marrying so far beneath her. 249 00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:44,600 Perhaps that gave her the energy to want to make a success of him. 250 00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:48,400 Alice Roberts was a published novelist and poet 251 00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:52,080 but after her marriage she gave up her own creative ambitions 252 00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:55,040 and devoted herself to her husband. 253 00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:59,880 For some reason, she believed when she met Mr Elgar 254 00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:02,120 that this man was a genius. 255 00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:05,160 They spoke in a private baby language. 256 00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:09,840 He called her Chicky, she called him Eddoo. 257 00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:14,640 The parlou rmaid and their grand London house some years later, Louise Chapman, 258 00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:17,240 fleshed out the Elgar menage. 259 00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:23,600 Quite a big assortment for breakfast - cold ham, and he used to have kedgeree a lot. 260 00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:25,640 His newspaper used to be pressed, 261 00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:30,720 I used to have to press it, and also his shoelaces. 262 00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:35,360 After breakfast he'd go to his music room 263 00:22:35,360 --> 00:22:39,400 and I could see him sitting at the piano and composing. 264 00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:44,240 Not very smoothly. Very hesitant in a lot of the passages. 265 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:51,000 And Lady Elgar used to do all his scoring for him. 266 00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:55,880 "Try so-and-so," she'd say. "We'll go through so-and-so." 267 00:22:57,120 --> 00:23:01,800 "Eddoo! Eddoo!" she used to go. 268 00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:05,120 He was essentially a lazy man 269 00:23:05,120 --> 00:23:08,840 but Elgar was easily diverted from work. 270 00:23:11,360 --> 00:23:15,800 Alice, his wife, she jolly well kept him to the grindstone, 271 00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:18,840 said, "Go and compose. That's your purpose in life." 272 00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:23,560 "My word, doesn't she keep him at it?" said one Malvern friend. 273 00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:28,800 Another, the young headmistress Rosa Burley, went on holiday with the Elgars to Germany. 274 00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:34,520 In her memoirs, she spoke of the Elgars' facade of married bliss. 275 00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:40,640 Alice, she noted, was not so much a wife as a doting mother of a gifted son. 276 00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:45,920 While Elgar enjoyed embarrassing Alice with his coarse remarks. 277 00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:50,360 He always had a man-size chip on his shoulder about being lower middle-class 278 00:23:50,360 --> 00:23:52,720 and wanting to mix with the slightly smarter set. 279 00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:59,000 I think he wasn't an entirely loveable character. 280 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:04,160 He could be very prickly and rude. Actually rude. 281 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:10,440 Terribly insecure. Reading his correspondence, it's unbelievable. 282 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,520 Very gauche and offensive. 283 00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:20,600 I don't think he was a very sweet man, 284 00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,960 he was probably very angry. 285 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:27,200 Elgar's mercurial portrait of Shakespeare's Falstaff 286 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,160 encompasses his boorishness and his wit, 287 00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:32,800 unstable in both tonality and mood. 288 00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:40,640 Clearly Elgar saw himself in Falstaff. 289 00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:46,360 The opening uses almost all 12 notes of the chromatic scale 290 00:24:46,360 --> 00:24:48,840 and it's hard to say what key it's in. 291 00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:52,160 And he produces different themes, 292 00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,000 which show different aspects of Falstaff - 293 00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,960 his braggadocio, his thrustingness, 294 00:24:57,960 --> 00:24:59,240 his martial prowess. 295 00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:12,960 A man who got on with ladies, but also a boastful man. 296 00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,040 In connection with Falstaff's boasting, 297 00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:18,480 Elgar writes the most extraordinarily discordant piece... 298 00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,120 HE HUMS DISCORDANTLY 299 00:25:21,120 --> 00:25:22,760 ..all over the orchestra. 300 00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,800 So that with these contrapuntal binding togethers 301 00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,920 of these different themes which are aspects of Falstaff's personality, 302 00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:37,120 Elgar is actually binding together different aspects of his own personality. 303 00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:44,080 The more disguises he could wear in his music, the better his music got. 304 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:50,400 The piece that launched his career was supposed to be about his friends pictured within, 305 00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,840 but it was just as much about himself. 306 00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:55,800 The Enigma Variations is perfect. 307 00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,320 I don't think there's a note wrong with it. 308 00:26:02,360 --> 00:26:05,400 It shows you everything about him - the impatience, 309 00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:07,880 the romanticism, the exuberance. 310 00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:12,600 It's all there in tiny little snapshots, wonderfully wrought. 311 00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:21,440 From the first note to the last, there is nothing you can say. 312 00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:22,880 You are in his power. 313 00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:29,760 The best-known Variation is often played today as a solemn memorial - 314 00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:32,680 not at all what was in Elgar's heart. 315 00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:37,160 He wrote it for one of his closest male friends, his publisher August Jaeger... 316 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,720 his Nimrod. 317 00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,200 He did have this long sequence of nicknames for him, 318 00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,440 of which the most famous is Nimrod, the biblical hunter. 319 00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:47,920 Jaeger is German for "hunter" 320 00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:53,720 and that's the name given to the most passionate of all of the Variations, 321 00:26:53,720 --> 00:27:00,440 far surpassing his wife's own Variation in intimacy and ecstasy of expression. 322 00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:03,480 NIMROD PLAYS 323 00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:11,160 I find it one of the most sublime and beautiful gifts 324 00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,760 that someone, a composer, can give to a friend. 325 00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:18,240 "I'm giving myself to you, whoever you are." 326 00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:32,360 And I'm sorry but I feel so happy when I listen to it, I can't cry. 327 00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:42,520 It is very noble, it's very generous, 328 00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:48,600 it's very warm, it's very grand, it's a great arc of melody. 329 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:52,840 Without being... 330 00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:56,480 Without too much pageantry. 331 00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:12,880 Here I am. I'm going to say that for the third time 332 00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:17,200 and look to find this climax. It's very difficult. 333 00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:28,600 I cry but I don't cry for sadness, I cry for emotion. 334 00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,440 NIMROD SWELLS Here - look at that. 335 00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:46,240 The Enigma Variations propelled Elgar into national orbit. 336 00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:51,840 Within five years, the tradesman's son became a knight of the realm 337 00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:56,520 and his wife became Lady Elgar - vindication at last. 338 00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:58,120 She moaned, she complained. 339 00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:02,680 On the day that a tea party was held to celebrate the award of his knighthood, 340 00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:05,840 Carice was reported to say to the guests, 341 00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:11,040 "I'm so glad that Daddy's going to be knighted. It puts Mother back where she should be." 342 00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:16,480 I don't think that even a very precocious child would understand the social niceties that lie behind that 343 00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:19,640 without having been instructed by her mother, maybe over many years, 344 00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,640 that her mother is better than the station her father has landed her in. 345 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,320 These things mattered to her father too. 346 00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,920 On a government form at the start of the First World War, 347 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:33,600 the knight was asked for his occupation. 348 00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,280 Composing didn't seem to count. 349 00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:42,120 He was appointed one of the earliest members of the Order of Merit by the King 350 00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:44,920 and woe betide anyone who forgot it. 351 00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,040 He was invited to the Royal Academy banquet, 352 00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,920 which is one of the great social occasions of the year, 353 00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:56,000 and he was very upset because he didn't like the table he'd been put at 354 00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,200 and on the invitation card, they missed the OM off 355 00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,880 so he left it very early and he wrote to a friend of his 356 00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:06,360 and said, "I went to the Athenaeum Club and had a herring." 357 00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:12,000 He was now marking many of his scores with the instruction "nobilmente", 358 00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,240 his own musical term for the nobility he craved. 359 00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:19,160 It was part of his bamboozling technique. 360 00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:26,160 If a composer could write such undeniably noble music as the opening theme of his First Symphony, 361 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,480 then surely he himself must be noble too. 362 00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,920 Elgar was a man who thought in terms of tunes 363 00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:42,080 and to make a symphony out of a tune is a devil of a difficult thing to do. 364 00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:43,880 And so you've got this... 365 00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,760 PLAYS GENTLY 366 00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:03,040 ..and so on. "This great, beautiful tune," I think his wife called it. 367 00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:07,640 It's the most successful English symphony ever written, 368 00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,600 with 100 performances around the world in its first year alone. 369 00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:17,520 Other musicians - the younger composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, for instance - knew it broke the rules. 370 00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:23,280 As a violinist himself, Elgar would have been aware that his chosen key - A flat - 371 00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:28,440 was awkward for the strings and it's still the only A flat symphony in the repertoire. 372 00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,840 But he wanted a particular sound which he achieved 373 00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:35,080 through his choice of key and his strange orchestration. 374 00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:39,280 The melody is given to fairly heavy woodwind and viola. 375 00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:43,800 The violas, cellos and double basses play the bass detache. 376 00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,360 Two mysterious A flats. 377 00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:59,760 ORCHESTRA CONTINUES 378 00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,880 Just in two parts - the tune and the bass. 379 00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:26,880 The inner harmony is with two soft, muted horns. 380 00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,520 And Elgar puts in that muted horn counterpoint 381 00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,560 so that just for a moment, it's not in two parts. 382 00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,760 But he just wanted a thread of sound. 383 00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:04,880 When I think of a student who'd brought that scoring to any competition tutor, 384 00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:09,480 he would have put his pencil through it and said, "This will not be heard." 385 00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:14,000 To my mind, when I look at it still, it looks all wrong, 386 00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,320 but it sounds all right. 387 00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:21,520 Here indeed we have a mystery and a miracle. 388 00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,200 MUSIC SWELLS 389 00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,520 Fantastic drum crescendo there! 390 00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,320 There can be in his orchestral music a bit of bombast, 391 00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,160 which people feel is just Edwardian and part of a bygone era. 392 00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,720 I don't think it should come across as bombast, 393 00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:02,560 it should come across as very thrillingly, muscular passion. 394 00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:10,080 Everybody's image of him as being associated with the Edwardian period, 395 00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,960 supported by these photographs that he loved having taken. 396 00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:21,480 He was now a celebrity, 397 00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,080 with a keen eye for the opportunities that offered. 398 00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,040 He was always thinking of promoting his image. 399 00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,720 We would say nowadays in that respect, he's very much of our time. 400 00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:56,000 Many of them seem exquisitely planned in the tiniest detail. 401 00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,560 If he's caught, as it were, composing Gerontius, 402 00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,120 the composition of the picture is excellent. 403 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:07,960 He fills the frame and he's leaning to display the Roman nose and the imperial moustache 404 00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:12,440 and effortlessly his pen is gliding across the page as he inscribes the score. 405 00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:17,880 Indeed, he claimed this picture caught him just as he'd written the final notes. 406 00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,400 I think Elgar was very self-aware. 407 00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,960 There are few people who have had themselves photographed on their death bed, 408 00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:26,440 pretending to be dead already. 409 00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:33,280 That is the act of somebody who knows exactly what his appearance is in life. 410 00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:38,600 This is one photograph never published in his lifetime. 411 00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,480 It was taken while he was away from home, 412 00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,320 a telling glimpse of the unvarnished Elgar - 413 00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:48,160 a romantic artist with a touch of the Bohemian. 414 00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:55,880 There were certain things that were a bit flash about him. 415 00:35:55,880 --> 00:36:00,120 I think there was a side to him that adored beautiful women. 416 00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:04,240 I don't think he was a promiscuous man. 417 00:36:04,240 --> 00:36:07,280 He as very attractive to women and he knew it. 418 00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:15,600 That he managed to have all these heroines and still be married to one woman 419 00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:22,520 is, er, sort of a tribute to his finesse, really, isn't it? 420 00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:27,440 One of Elgar's heroines outshone the rest. 421 00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,240 Their relationship, which began in 1910, 422 00:36:30,240 --> 00:36:32,760 remained a tender secret for decades. 423 00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:36,120 It was only uncovered by one of his biographers 424 00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,960 after a tip-off from a friend. 425 00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:41,920 He said, "Remember one name - Alice Stuart-Wortley." 426 00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:46,480 I went down to the birthplace and I said to the curator, 427 00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:50,760 "Have you any letters to and from Alice Stuart-Wortley?" 428 00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:56,440 And he gave me a very old fashioned look and he said, "Well, no-one's asked me that before." 429 00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:59,920 And he wandered off and came back with this pile. 430 00:36:59,920 --> 00:37:03,920 I sat at this table, started reading these letters and it's a treasure trove. 431 00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:06,520 I thought, "Here's the real Elgar." 432 00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:13,000 Alice Stuart-Wortley was the daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais. 433 00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:16,960 She and her husband Charles, a Conservative MP, 434 00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:22,840 were both musical, had been married for more than 20 years and had a daughter, just like the Elgars. 435 00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:27,080 But whereas Alice Elgar was nine years older than Edward, 436 00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,760 Alice Stuart-Wortley was five years younger. 437 00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:35,000 The other Alice was everything she wasn't, in a way. 438 00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:39,280 Perhaps a bit more feminine, a bit more gentle, 439 00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:40,920 a bit more sensual, perhaps. 440 00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:47,760 But it was rather awkward, not to say dangerous, that she had the same name as his wife. 441 00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:51,080 So Elgar gave her the private nickname Windflower 442 00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:54,560 after the delicate wild anemones in his garden, 443 00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,800 which he watched being buffeted by the March wind. 444 00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:03,200 They reminded him of her, particularly of the time she came to tea, 445 00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,080 and inspired him to persevere with his Violin Concerto 446 00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,840 when he was on the point of abandoning it. 447 00:38:13,240 --> 00:38:18,920 It was February 7th 1910, which they kept as an anniversary for the rest of their lives, 448 00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:23,760 because that same evening, Elgar thought up the first of several new themes 449 00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:27,240 which opened the floodgates for the rest of the work. 450 00:38:27,240 --> 00:38:29,880 ORCHESTRA PLAYS 451 00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:38,400 'There is no set way in which you can play the opening of the Violin Concerto.' 452 00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:44,280 The music is so flexible, 453 00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:46,600 so wayward, so stormy... 454 00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:50,040 It's very difficult to cope with it. 455 00:38:54,920 --> 00:39:01,600 The tempo's not settled and tunes are taken up and abandoned and swept away 456 00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:08,320 and we're really longing for the violin to calm things down and say, "Just wait a minute now." 457 00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:11,880 It's a wonderful effect. 458 00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:40,160 From now on, Elgar was in almost daily contact with his Windflower by letter and telephone. 459 00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:45,800 He gave his tender feminine themes the botanical name "anemone nemorosa" 460 00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:50,480 and every spring for the rest of his life, he sent her windflowers. 461 00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:05,960 If he knew his letters would be seen by others, he addressed her as Alice. 462 00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:11,880 But when they were for her eyes only, he always called her Windflower or simply W. 463 00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:15,080 And she seems to have replied in the same way, 464 00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,840 though hardly any of her letters have survived. 465 00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:22,040 I suspect Elgar must have destroyed them when he got them, 466 00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:27,080 but she must have reacted well or he wouldn't have gone on writing as he did to her. 467 00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:31,040 Did he keep many letters that he'd received from other people? Oh yes. 468 00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:35,640 So the fact that hers don't survive... Is interesting. 469 00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:40,480 I think it was a very deep relationship. Whether it was physical or not, I don't know. 470 00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:45,760 This one was written on October 18th, 1910, 471 00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:51,280 and that would be about a month before the first performance of the Violin Concerto 472 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,880 and he starts it with a quotation from the work, 473 00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:56,720 actually the Windflower theme... 474 00:40:56,720 --> 00:40:59,160 HE HUMS 475 00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,440 This is how he wanted it to be done. 476 00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:12,480 And this letter comes from 1926 and is rather precious, 477 00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,840 that's the dried up remains of some windflowers. 478 00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:21,880 And he says, "The little flowers are now appearing so here are two or three for you." 479 00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:28,280 But there they are - 1926, the year I was born - still there. 480 00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:36,800 And this letter was written in the first few months of the First World War, this is 1914. 481 00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:41,800 He says to her in it, "I can not buy you pearls of untold worth. 482 00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:47,440 "Although I wish them and many other lovely things for you, 483 00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:53,600 "no, I can not buy anything for you so I send you a little scrap of my old, old, lonely life 484 00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,760 "in which no-one shared," underlined. 485 00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:59,200 "I had my dreams and I suppose ambitions 486 00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:05,000 "so I send you one of the little schoolbooks which lightened my loneliness," 487 00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:09,080 and what he went on to say after that, we shall never know 488 00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:12,640 because Windflower's daughter cut the rest of the letter away. 489 00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:17,920 It was obviously regarded as too intimate to survive. 490 00:42:20,240 --> 00:42:25,280 At their home in Chelsea, the Stuart-Wortleys sometimes had the Elgars round for dinner. 491 00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:27,960 But Elgar would often drop in by himself. 492 00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:31,360 He and Windflower carved out plenty of time together. 493 00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:38,680 In spring 1910, she went on holiday with her family to Tintagel in Cornwall. 494 00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:47,720 Elgar was soon in hot pursuit. He drove 250 miles and spent two days with her 495 00:42:47,720 --> 00:42:51,280 after her husband had conveniently returned home. 496 00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:55,320 Was that friendship, do you think, entirely innocent? 497 00:42:58,240 --> 00:43:01,040 What do you mean by innocent? 498 00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:07,400 In May, he spent 10 days at the Hut, a friend's house near Maidenhead, 499 00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:09,920 where he worked on the Concerto. 500 00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:12,200 His wife and daughter came to visit 501 00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,760 and as they left, Windflower arrived for a three-day stay. 502 00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,280 It was a regular pattern. 503 00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:22,520 Elgar needed a woman to inspire him. 504 00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,440 And Alice, although she inspired him a bit at first, 505 00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:30,240 I think quickly ceased to be that inspiration 506 00:43:30,240 --> 00:43:32,800 and became instead the person who made everything work, 507 00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:34,560 she was his sort of CEO. 508 00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:39,880 I remember Vaughan Williams telling me he sat next to her at Worcester Cathedral, 509 00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:41,920 listening to the Second Symphony. 510 00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:46,400 She kept nudging him and saying, "Isn't it wonderful?" 511 00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:50,240 He said of course it was but it wasn't her business to keep saying so. 512 00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,800 The Second Symphony was inspired once again by the other Alice. 513 00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:59,640 Elgar confided in Windflower that he'd "worked at fever heat" 514 00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:02,360 and "the thing is tremendous in energy". 515 00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:04,400 ORCHESTRA PLAYS 516 00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,280 Absolutely blown away by this fantastic activity 517 00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:12,920 and continual invention. 518 00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:22,320 The extraordinary energy, the lust for life 519 00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:24,640 those bracing walks on the Malvern Hills. 520 00:44:30,720 --> 00:44:35,080 There is not one bar that isn't of the highest achievement. 521 00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:37,920 It's the work of a naturally great symphonist. 522 00:44:44,240 --> 00:44:46,960 All of a sudden, it subsides, just collapses. 523 00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:51,120 That's the only emotional way I can describe it. 524 00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:56,000 Then the single note repeated quietly over and over. 525 00:44:56,000 --> 00:45:00,240 NOTE REPEATS 526 00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:04,720 It's as if a door or a window 527 00:45:04,720 --> 00:45:07,360 had opened onto a totally different landscape. 528 00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:11,560 Within about ten seconds he's moved right inside himself. 529 00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:14,560 ORCHESTRA PLAYS 530 00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:37,920 How quickly he wrote to her after he finished the First Movement of the symphony. 531 00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:43,120 The next day he said, "I have written last year into the First Movement." What does that mean? 532 00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:50,440 He told Windflower, "I have written the most extraordinary passage 533 00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:53,480 "I have ever heard. A sort of malign influence 534 00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:56,400 "wandering through the summer night in the garden." 535 00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:02,120 The elaborate textures are very, very sensual 536 00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,520 and very opulent and yet dark. 537 00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:06,960 There's something unsettling, 538 00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:11,360 whether it's the low underpinning of the rhythms in the drum 539 00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:15,000 or whether it's this very passionate melody in the cellos 540 00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,000 reaching up to the highest notes. 541 00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:35,680 That even might refer to a moment when they nearly 542 00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:40,960 took their relationship on to another plane, who knows? 543 00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:43,600 I imagine that they both realised... 544 00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,880 how disastrous that could be for four people... 545 00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:48,920 at least four peoples' lives. 546 00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:57,880 Elgar himself described this episode as a nocturnal love scene 547 00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,920 and significantly he wrote Tintagel on the score. 548 00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,480 His visit to Windflower in Cornwall a year before 549 00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,760 was still in his mind. 550 00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:11,000 The passion of this work captivated Latin-American musicians 551 00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,640 when it was recently given its first performance in Venezuela 552 00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:16,840 by the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. 553 00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:18,080 APPLAUSE 554 00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:21,280 I proposed, "Why don't we do Elgar's Second Symphony?" 555 00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:24,640 And they said yes. INTERVIEWER: Did they know what it was? No. 556 00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:32,200 When I arrived to the very first rehearsal, 557 00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:35,360 I had some musicians coming to me saying, 558 00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:41,960 "Can we do some Tchaikovsky 1812? Something easy, there are too many notes." 559 00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:09,040 Then at the break, they all said, "Oh, my God, what a great piece of music it is! Wow!" 560 00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:18,920 For Elgar, writing music was often agony. 561 00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:24,480 He completed a new choral work in the miserable July of 1912. 562 00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:27,000 It should have been a moment of triumph, 563 00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:30,840 but he was in turmoil as he wandered out alone onto Hampstead Heath. 564 00:48:33,240 --> 00:48:36,000 "It was bitterly cold," he told Windflower. 565 00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,360 "I wrapped myself in a thick overcoat 566 00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:42,480 "tears streaming out of my cold eyes and loathed the world." 567 00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:47,720 The work is about the creative process of music. 568 00:48:47,720 --> 00:48:51,200 He represents this by quoting other pieces of his - 569 00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,560 Gerontius, the violin concerto and Enigma in particular, 570 00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:58,200 with Windflower an unspoken presence. 571 00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,360 As he shivered in self-pity on the heath, 572 00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:04,200 he was longing to tear the whole piece up. 573 00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:05,840 "All wasted," he said. 574 00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,880 "This Elgar terrain is not the Malvern Hills 575 00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:11,040 "but Wuthering Heights." 576 00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:14,200 There was a side to Elgar that was restless. 577 00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:18,640 And that, I'm not sure has ever been captured in music 578 00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,640 as brilliantly as the opening of this work. 579 00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:45,440 It is, at bottom, a piece about isolation. 580 00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:46,680 About loneliness. 581 00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:50,840 You go right into the vision of his neuroses. 582 00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:57,600 HE LISTENS TO MUSIC 583 00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:03,120 I must do this piece...soon. 584 00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:54,600 You can't help but be taken 585 00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:56,440 by the beauty of the music 586 00:50:56,440 --> 00:51:00,400 but it's to listen to this extraordinary, emotional underbelly 587 00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:02,840 because in my experience it's always there. 588 00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:27,400 No mistake. 589 00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:29,240 Oh... 590 00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,200 To me, this introduction is like time travelling. 591 00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:42,400 Going back in time and the creative process 592 00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:44,080 into a world of dreams. 593 00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:26,600 The Music Makers is based on a poem by Arthur O'Shaughnessy, 594 00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:30,960 but Elgar told Windflower, "I think of you in the music. 595 00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:33,840 "It's an outpouring of the soul." 596 00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:40,920 When the chorus sing about the need to sing and dream apart, 597 00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,800 there are just four bars where very, very quietly 598 00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:46,680 underneath the chorus the first violins recall 599 00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:48,840 one of the most passionate moments 600 00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,560 in the First Movement of the violin concerto. 601 00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:00,840 Here, they are repeated very quietly. 602 00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:02,920 As if it was from the back of his memory. 603 00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:07,120 MUSIC PLAYS 604 00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:09,720 He stays in the minor key here. 605 00:53:09,720 --> 00:53:11,200 "Oh, man it must ever be 606 00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,480 "That we dwell in our dreaming and singing 607 00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,080 "A little apart from ye..." 608 00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:24,360 SINGING 609 00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:33,960 On the word singing, he changes 610 00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:36,600 to the major chord. 611 00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:48,200 Then he quotes the violin concerto, very quietly. 612 00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:15,960 SINGING CONTINUES 613 00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:23,120 He can't forget the woman who inspired it all. 614 00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:33,240 At the time, he told no-one else about the source of his inspiration. 615 00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:36,840 But Elgar and Windflower were seen together. 616 00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:39,720 This newspaper picture of them going to a concert 617 00:54:39,720 --> 00:54:43,240 was captioned, Sir Edward and Lady Elgar, 618 00:54:43,240 --> 00:54:46,280 which must have been galling for his wife. 619 00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:49,200 I think she knew this woman was good for Elgar. 620 00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:51,600 And she was quite happy to let it go on. 621 00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:58,240 I think she'd have been happy to let it go on for whatever length it went, really. 622 00:54:58,240 --> 00:55:01,440 She knew that Elgar came home to her. 623 00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:06,800 The one-time provincial composer from the Malvern hills 624 00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:09,920 was now a national figure at the height of his powers. 625 00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:13,880 Yet, only four or five years later, 626 00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:16,000 he was virtually a spent force. 627 00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:19,440 After the tumult of the First World War, 628 00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:21,200 he seemed to lose his bearings 629 00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:24,480 with the sense that his musical age had passed. 630 00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:28,840 The piece he'd written shortly before the war 631 00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:30,800 now seems strangely prophetic. 632 00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:37,240 Perhaps, more and more, I think of this extraordinary, almost self-portrait, I would say, 633 00:55:37,240 --> 00:55:42,960 Sospiri, which is one of the most haunting miniatures in all music. 634 00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:48,800 The terrible longing that's expressed in that piece 635 00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:50,680 is something to behold. 636 00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,000 Sospiri, meaning sighing, 637 00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:05,280 was first heard in August 1914, 10 days into the war. 638 00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:09,280 The British were in the grip of patriotic fervour. 639 00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:12,000 It found no echo in Elgar. 640 00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:17,480 Can you imagine anything less appropriate at that time? 641 00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:24,800 I mean, it would be appropriate four years later. 642 00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:35,360 The melody laden with anguish. 643 00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:40,560 With more than sighs. 644 00:56:46,720 --> 00:56:49,280 For once, there is no ambiguity, 645 00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:52,000 no mask, no masculine swagger. 646 00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:54,840 His deepest feelings are exposed. 647 00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:05,240 There's this very English thing of withholding passion, 648 00:57:05,240 --> 00:57:08,760 but in this one piece, it's there, it's just... 649 00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:11,240 You know, it's naked in front of you. 650 00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:19,920 It's extraordinary, reaching out and not quite...getting there. 651 00:57:30,600 --> 00:57:32,920 Elgar almost disowned the piece later on. 652 00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:38,120 It's the shame of self-revelation, isn't it? 653 00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:49,880 At one stage, he called it "Soupir D'amour," Sigh Of Love, 654 00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:52,760 though we have no clue whom he had in mind. 655 00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:57,200 This time he told Windflower nothing about it. 656 00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:14,080 Elgar walks a rhythmic tightrope and the accompaniment does something 657 00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:17,720 and then the violin does something else and they never coincide. 658 00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:22,000 Finally, before the end, they go ah! 659 00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:24,640 And eventually it comes together. 660 00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:38,440 As a creative artist, Elgar knew all about separation and isolation. 661 00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:45,560 His own confused emotional life emphasised this loneliness. 662 00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:53,080 On one draft of this piece, he wrote the word "absence." 663 00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:27,600 At the end you're just left with this section of the first violin, 664 00:59:27,600 --> 00:59:30,280 one character against the rest of the world. 665 00:59:34,920 --> 00:59:38,200 Elgar himself, as a Roman-Catholic son of a shopkeeper, 666 00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:40,560 looked down on by his wife's family, 667 00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:43,240 never lost the feeling of being an outsider. 668 00:59:45,560 --> 00:59:48,000 When writing his oratorio, The Apostles, 669 00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:51,000 it was the human dilemma that motivated him. 670 00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,600 He'd been told as a boy that the apostles were poor young men, 671 00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:57,080 "Perhaps no cleverer than some of you here." 672 00:59:57,080 --> 01:00:01,720 The character he identified with most was the ultimate outsider, 673 01:00:01,720 --> 01:00:03,160 Judas Iscariot, 674 01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:07,280 who drew from him the most dramatic vocal music he ever wrote. 675 01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:12,880 Judas is torn. After betraying Christ, and ingratiating himself 676 01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:16,560 with the Jewish establishment, he is overcome with remorse 677 01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:20,200 and the priests in the chorus mock his weakness. 678 01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:23,320 # A voice of trembling, of fear 679 01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:43,960 # I have sinned 680 01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:52,120 # In that I have betray-ed innocent blood... # 681 01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:57,440 CHORUS SINGS 682 01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:07,520 # I have sinned I have betray-ed 683 01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:09,960 # The... # 684 01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:11,600 CHORUS SINGS 685 01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:13,680 WOMAN SINGS 686 01:01:19,520 --> 01:01:22,040 CHORUS SINGS 687 01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:34,360 It's terrifying, it's like religious fundamentalism, isn't it? 688 01:01:34,360 --> 01:01:36,840 CHORUS SINGS 689 01:01:55,480 --> 01:01:59,120 Judas, with huge faults, nevertheless human, against the institution. 690 01:02:12,320 --> 01:02:18,240 # Shall I go from thy spirit... # 691 01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:21,720 The gospels give Judas no more than a few lines 692 01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:24,240 and Elgar wanted many more. 693 01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:27,280 So he scoured both Old and New Testaments 694 01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:29,240 to find the extra words he needed 695 01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:33,480 to build the character of Judas as the fractured, troublesome visionary 696 01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:36,080 he knew so well, wrestling with despair. 697 01:02:38,120 --> 01:02:40,080 We can see the care which Elgar took 698 01:02:40,080 --> 01:02:42,800 from the biblical references noted in the margin. 699 01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:46,880 The whole Judas scene is an intricate character study. 700 01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:51,680 In the scene where he's at his depths of his soul 701 01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:55,280 and as low as any human being can ever be, 702 01:02:55,280 --> 01:02:57,920 the colouring Elgar gives to the orchestration, 703 01:02:57,920 --> 01:03:02,240 these hints of sunlight in it, the hint of optimism in it, 704 01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:03,920 are quite extraordinary. 705 01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:13,680 # Life is short and tedious... # 706 01:03:13,680 --> 01:03:17,760 "And life is short and tedious". So dark. 707 01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:20,800 # Neither was there any man known 708 01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:27,680 # To have return-ed from the grave 709 01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:31,840 # Though we are born of adventure 710 01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:39,080 # And we shall be here after as though we have never been... # 711 01:03:39,080 --> 01:03:44,080 It's just air and sunlight suddenly. 712 01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:48,360 It's a kind of muted happiness which is absolutely authentic. 713 01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:51,840 # A little spark... # 714 01:03:51,840 --> 01:03:56,120 The man has decided to commit suicide and now, emotionally, 715 01:03:56,120 --> 01:03:57,920 there's a release. 716 01:03:57,920 --> 01:04:02,440 # ..is being extinguish-ed 717 01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:08,600 # My body shall be turn-ed into ashes... # 718 01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:12,360 How ephemeral we are. Maybe that's what lightened his soul. 719 01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:15,160 It doesn't matter, actually, we're nothing. 720 01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:17,120 HE SINGS 721 01:04:29,240 --> 01:04:32,720 Elgar's sympathetic understanding of Judas's state of mind 722 01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:36,480 and impending suicide was rooted in his own experience. 723 01:04:36,480 --> 01:04:39,120 He had, after all, talked about taking his own life 724 01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:41,960 after the early failure of The Dream Of Gerontius. 725 01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:48,680 I played Elgar to the patients at Broadmoor. 726 01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:54,400 And the effect that this music had on them was amazing. 727 01:04:54,400 --> 01:05:01,400 They came to life under the influence of hearing the prelude to Gerontius. 728 01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:04,760 Elgar, of course, is one of those very few composers, 729 01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:06,400 with Brahms being another one, 730 01:05:06,400 --> 01:05:11,120 who knew the inside of an asylum, without being an inmate. 731 01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:15,960 Elgar was employed in the Worcestershire County Asylum at Powick, 732 01:05:15,960 --> 01:05:18,000 as a musician there. 733 01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:23,080 I thought, that day in Broadmoor, that the insight that Elgar got 734 01:05:23,080 --> 01:05:27,560 into the human psyche through seeing the human psyche broken down, 735 01:05:27,560 --> 01:05:32,200 must have been of terrific value to him, once he'd discovered 736 01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:35,240 that he could then take on other persona in his music. 737 01:05:36,680 --> 01:05:38,920 I think if he hadn't been a composer, 738 01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:40,440 he might have been heading for 739 01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:42,600 some kind of breakdown. 740 01:05:42,600 --> 01:05:44,520 I really feel amongst other things, 741 01:05:44,520 --> 01:05:50,400 composing was something of a therapy for him, emotional therapy. 742 01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:54,280 We know that he went through periods of deep depression 743 01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:57,320 and spoke of being suicidal, 744 01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:00,760 and then there would be an absolute explosion of creativity. 745 01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:04,480 There was one occasion at dinner when, under her breath, 746 01:06:04,480 --> 01:06:07,120 Alice Elgar interrupted a fellow guest, 747 01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:10,360 who'd raised the issue of suicide. 748 01:06:10,360 --> 01:06:14,040 So much for Lady Elgar being stiff upper-lip and correct. 749 01:06:14,040 --> 01:06:16,720 She actually said to someone she'd only just met, 750 01:06:16,720 --> 01:06:20,920 "The reason I stopped you saying that was Sir Edward talks about suicide so often 751 01:06:20,920 --> 01:06:23,520 "and I don't want him to be dwelling on it now." 752 01:06:23,520 --> 01:06:25,640 She actually gave that secret away. 753 01:06:25,640 --> 01:06:30,920 Elgar stays with Judas as he moves inexorably towards suicide. 754 01:06:30,920 --> 01:06:33,680 The distant cries of, "Crucify him!" 755 01:06:33,680 --> 01:06:37,000 from the chorus are his only reference to the trial of Jesus 756 01:06:37,000 --> 01:06:38,640 going on at the same time. 757 01:06:38,640 --> 01:06:42,880 Judas is tormented by the realisation that his betrayal 758 01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:45,520 will result in Christ's execution. 759 01:06:45,520 --> 01:06:47,960 THEY SING 760 01:06:49,400 --> 01:06:52,640 All the internal music of that marvellous Judas scene, 761 01:06:52,640 --> 01:06:57,040 it must have come from Elgar's darkest self, you know? 762 01:06:57,040 --> 01:07:03,000 # The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man 763 01:07:03,000 --> 01:07:06,200 # My hope is like dust 764 01:07:06,200 --> 01:07:10,520 # That is blown away with the wind 765 01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:16,600 # It is not possible to escape 766 01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,040 # Thine hand 767 01:07:19,040 --> 01:07:23,520 # A sudden feel... # 768 01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:26,360 People shouting, "Crucify him!" some way away. 769 01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:30,000 Almost in Judas's head you can hear the, "Crucify him!". 770 01:07:33,240 --> 01:07:35,080 # He covered himself together 771 01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:40,360 # And the innocent below... # 772 01:07:44,040 --> 01:07:47,600 CHORUS DROWNS OUT HIS SINGING 773 01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:07,160 # Mine end is come... 774 01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:17,960 # The measure of my covetous life. # 775 01:08:17,960 --> 01:08:20,000 That fantastic high viola line. 776 01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:22,360 Intensely poignant. 777 01:08:22,360 --> 01:08:30,480 HE SINGS 778 01:08:30,480 --> 01:08:35,840 You can hear that string slithering down. 779 01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:39,120 # And in it... 780 01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:43,560 # Of that darkness 781 01:08:48,080 --> 01:08:51,800 # He shall afterward receive me 782 01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:56,360 # Yet am I unto myself 783 01:08:56,360 --> 01:09:02,040 # More grievous, more grievous 784 01:09:02,040 --> 01:09:12,000 # Than...the darkness. # 785 01:09:29,240 --> 01:09:31,280 That bitterness in the horns. 786 01:09:31,280 --> 01:09:33,320 CHORUS SINGS 787 01:09:48,320 --> 01:09:50,360 The institution has the last word. 788 01:09:56,240 --> 01:10:01,000 After this extraordinary 15 minutes of Juda's inner workings, 789 01:10:01,000 --> 01:10:04,000 as a human being, 790 01:10:04,000 --> 01:10:06,520 Elgar gives about six bars to the crucifixion, 791 01:10:06,520 --> 01:10:10,040 where he writes the actual text of Jesus's last words, 792 01:10:10,040 --> 01:10:11,360 in the string parts. 793 01:10:11,360 --> 01:10:13,800 "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" 794 01:10:14,960 --> 01:10:17,440 "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?" 795 01:10:17,440 --> 01:10:19,520 But no-one sings it. 796 01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:39,960 CRESCENDO 797 01:10:50,120 --> 01:10:52,480 Shortly after Elgar scored the Judas scene, 798 01:10:52,480 --> 01:10:55,640 his wife was also writing about betrayal. 799 01:10:55,640 --> 01:11:00,280 It was in a poem which she left among her private papers, 800 01:11:00,280 --> 01:11:03,200 for Elgar to find after her death many years later. 801 01:11:04,240 --> 01:11:06,240 It made sobering reading. 802 01:11:10,640 --> 01:11:13,600 They love doth fade Too like a winter sun 803 01:11:13,600 --> 01:11:15,720 I watch it grow as cold 804 01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:20,960 The summer joy is done although its radiant hours seem scarce begun 805 01:11:20,960 --> 01:11:23,800 Dark night must it enfold 806 01:11:25,680 --> 01:11:26,920 Deceive anew... 807 01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:30,320 She originally wrote "be happy" but changed it. 808 01:11:30,320 --> 01:11:36,280 ..Deceive anew and smile as if no part where thine in my lost life 809 01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:40,040 Leave me my wasted heart 810 01:11:40,040 --> 01:11:43,200 And buy new joys from out the world's gay mart 811 01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:46,920 Leave me the bitter strife. 812 01:11:49,600 --> 01:11:53,880 Alice's death in 1920 after 30 years of marriage 813 01:11:53,880 --> 01:11:58,760 deprived Elgar of his driving force and his most devoted supporter. 814 01:11:58,760 --> 01:12:02,920 Their sharp-eyed friend, Rosa Burley, never saw Alice's poem. 815 01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:07,800 Yet she concluded that Elgar was distraught not by grief, 816 01:12:07,800 --> 01:12:12,960 but by an over-mastering sense of guilt at his disloyalty to his wife. 817 01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:17,360 He lapsed into virtual silence. 818 01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:19,040 # What is that? # 819 01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:22,760 A pray to the darkness always lurking deep in his soul. 820 01:12:22,760 --> 01:12:28,400 # Nothing 821 01:12:29,440 --> 01:12:36,520 # The leaves must fall, and falling, rustle 822 01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:42,600 # That is all They are dead as they fall 823 01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:44,920 # That is all 824 01:12:44,920 --> 01:12:47,720 # They are dead 825 01:12:47,720 --> 01:12:55,920 # At the foot of the tree 826 01:12:55,920 --> 01:13:04,960 # All that can be is said... # 827 01:13:04,960 --> 01:13:08,040 This strange texture, with everything in octaves. 828 01:13:08,040 --> 01:13:11,880 Little flashes of harmony. It's scarcely melodic at all. 829 01:13:13,040 --> 01:13:17,200 # Nothing... # 830 01:13:17,200 --> 01:13:19,600 Haunting. 831 01:13:19,600 --> 01:13:27,280 # What is that? Nothing 832 01:13:28,640 --> 01:13:36,640 # A wild thing hurt what mourns in the night 833 01:13:36,640 --> 01:13:39,920 # And it cries in its dread 834 01:13:39,920 --> 01:13:45,360 # Till it lies dead 835 01:13:45,360 --> 01:13:55,560 # Till it lies dead at the foot of the tree 836 01:13:57,080 --> 01:14:05,920 # All that can be is said... # 837 01:14:05,920 --> 01:14:08,360 The poem is about nothingness. 838 01:14:08,360 --> 01:14:11,400 It's trying to express the idea of nothing. 839 01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:19,920 # Nothing... # 840 01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:23,640 I'm beginning to think I'm the victim of a huge practical joke. 841 01:14:23,640 --> 01:14:25,840 I can't believe this music's by Elgar. 842 01:14:27,440 --> 01:14:34,480 # Ah...ah... # 843 01:14:34,480 --> 01:14:36,160 How bleak. 844 01:14:36,160 --> 01:14:38,400 If you told me it was written 30 years later, 845 01:14:38,400 --> 01:14:39,840 I wouldn't be surprised. 846 01:14:39,840 --> 01:14:46,840 # A marching slow of unseen feet 847 01:14:48,320 --> 01:14:50,520 # That is all 848 01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:57,920 # But a bier, spread with a pall 849 01:14:57,920 --> 01:15:10,480 # And a bier is now at the foot of the tree 850 01:15:12,120 --> 01:15:21,320 # All that could be is said 851 01:15:23,320 --> 01:15:27,520 # Is it? 852 01:15:27,520 --> 01:15:32,440 # What? 853 01:15:32,440 --> 01:15:38,240 # Nothing. # 854 01:15:40,960 --> 01:15:44,000 After Alice's death, Elgar hoped Windflower 855 01:15:44,000 --> 01:15:47,880 would use her political contacts to wangle him a peerage. 856 01:15:47,880 --> 01:15:50,920 He had to make do with an hereditary baronetcy 857 01:15:50,920 --> 01:15:53,320 and a Knighthood of the Victorian Order, 858 01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:56,000 "Which awful thing I must accept", he told her. 859 01:15:57,400 --> 01:16:00,680 Their relationship had now settled into a fond friendship, 860 01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:02,720 but nothing more. 861 01:16:02,720 --> 01:16:06,160 One would have thought even that he might have married her 862 01:16:06,160 --> 01:16:08,160 after 1926 when her husband died. 863 01:16:08,160 --> 01:16:12,040 But perhaps she didn't want...! She'd had enough of Elgar 864 01:16:12,040 --> 01:16:14,240 pouring out his woes in letters 865 01:16:14,240 --> 01:16:17,120 without having it at the breakfast table! 866 01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:21,200 But there was one more woman in Elgar's life. 867 01:16:21,200 --> 01:16:25,040 One more muse to rekindle his creative fire. 868 01:16:26,280 --> 01:16:30,320 She caught his ever-roving eye while he was conducting 869 01:16:30,320 --> 01:16:33,360 The Dream Of Gerontius in Croydon in 1931. 870 01:16:34,400 --> 01:16:37,440 He spotted this lady in the back desks of the violins, 871 01:16:37,440 --> 01:16:41,520 Vera Hockman - I think she was probably about 30 at the time - 872 01:16:41,520 --> 01:16:44,120 and absolutely fell for her. 873 01:16:44,120 --> 01:16:48,760 His skittish behaviour in female company was never better documented 874 01:16:48,760 --> 01:16:50,840 than in the case of Vera Hockman. 875 01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:55,160 He was a goner and started behaving like a young man, 876 01:16:55,160 --> 01:16:58,560 writing flirtatious and deeply felt notes to her 877 01:16:58,560 --> 01:17:00,160 and seeing her often. 878 01:17:00,160 --> 01:17:03,040 At only their second meeting, he said straight out 879 01:17:03,040 --> 01:17:05,880 that he hadn't been able to take his eyes off her. 880 01:17:05,880 --> 01:17:09,120 "You're not to leave me for one moment", he said, 881 01:17:09,120 --> 01:17:10,560 "or I shall scream." 882 01:17:10,560 --> 01:17:13,440 Some people just thought, oh, it was a little flutter 883 01:17:13,440 --> 01:17:14,760 at the end of his life. 884 01:17:14,760 --> 01:17:19,400 But I don't think she quite saw it like that. 885 01:17:19,400 --> 01:17:23,560 Vera kept mementos of her friendship with Elgar. 886 01:17:23,560 --> 01:17:26,840 At the time, she was married with two young children, 887 01:17:26,840 --> 01:17:28,920 but she and her husband were separated. 888 01:17:30,720 --> 01:17:35,040 This is a photograph of my mother with a friend, 889 01:17:35,040 --> 01:17:38,960 and in the background you can see George Bernard Shaw, 890 01:17:38,960 --> 01:17:43,200 and Elgar is sitting in a chair with his hat on 891 01:17:43,200 --> 01:17:45,080 just behind my mother. 892 01:17:47,720 --> 01:17:50,960 And this one of Elgar in a boat. 893 01:17:53,120 --> 01:17:56,880 Ha! He looks a bit, sort of, dishevelled, 894 01:17:56,880 --> 01:17:58,680 with his foot up in the air! 895 01:18:00,520 --> 01:18:04,320 The details of their friendship come from Vera's own memoir. 896 01:18:04,320 --> 01:18:08,400 "The Story Of November 7th, 1931", she called it. 897 01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:10,560 The day they met. 898 01:18:10,560 --> 01:18:13,040 The kept the seventh of every month 899 01:18:13,040 --> 01:18:16,160 as what Elgar called their mensiversary. 900 01:18:16,160 --> 01:18:18,000 At 74, he said he was too old 901 01:18:18,000 --> 01:18:20,840 to wait for anniversaries to come round. 902 01:18:20,840 --> 01:18:25,520 He took her to lunch somewhere and ordered two Manhattan cocktails 903 01:18:25,520 --> 01:18:29,000 and she just couldn't believe it. She didn't think he was 904 01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:33,240 the sort of person who would order newfangled American-type drinks. 905 01:18:33,240 --> 01:18:37,880 For years, the woman behind him in this short film clip 906 01:18:37,880 --> 01:18:39,920 was unidentified. 907 01:18:39,920 --> 01:18:42,360 But now it's clear it's Vera Hockman, 908 01:18:42,360 --> 01:18:45,000 followed by Elgar's daughter, Clarice. 909 01:18:46,400 --> 01:18:51,920 She was very warm, very cultured. She loved music, art, 910 01:18:51,920 --> 01:18:55,680 literature - she just loved poetry. 911 01:18:55,680 --> 01:18:58,600 She never walked, she always ran. 912 01:18:58,600 --> 01:19:01,440 Vera even kept this telephone message, 913 01:19:01,440 --> 01:19:05,920 in which he used a romantic but discreet codename, Hyperion, 914 01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:07,960 after Longfellow's novel. 915 01:19:07,960 --> 01:19:10,960 Indeed, he gave her his treasured copy of the book, 916 01:19:10,960 --> 01:19:13,440 which had belonged to his mother. 917 01:19:13,440 --> 01:19:15,040 "I want you to have it," he said, 918 01:19:15,040 --> 01:19:19,520 "because now you are my mother, my child, my lover and my friend." 919 01:19:21,560 --> 01:19:25,400 They met at her aunt's house in St John's Wood in northern London. 920 01:19:25,400 --> 01:19:28,840 Elgar had to pace up and down and round the block 921 01:19:28,840 --> 01:19:30,760 until her aunt had gone out. 922 01:19:31,840 --> 01:19:36,800 "What music I would write," he said, "If I could have you near to me always." 923 01:19:39,000 --> 01:19:44,480 As the sun rose in his Indian summer, Elgar embarked on his third symphony. 924 01:19:44,480 --> 01:19:47,560 He never finished it, but did leave numerous sketches, 925 01:19:47,560 --> 01:19:51,280 which Anthony Payne recently elaborated into a complete work. 926 01:19:51,280 --> 01:19:56,080 Elgar's restless spirit had not faded with the passing years. 927 01:19:56,080 --> 01:19:58,040 MUSIC: Elgar/Payne Symphony No 3 928 01:19:58,040 --> 01:20:03,960 This, of course, is all Elgar but the first 10, 12 bars are fully scored. 929 01:20:03,960 --> 01:20:05,960 MUSIC CONTINUES 930 01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:25,160 It's about this point that I had to start to work because the instruments drop out from the score. 931 01:20:25,160 --> 01:20:28,640 Some of it's kept going. He was obviously writing one of the parts 932 01:20:28,640 --> 01:20:32,480 and not filling the other ones in yet, as he went along. 933 01:20:34,520 --> 01:20:39,360 Then we get to this lovely second tune, which he called Vera's Own Tune on one sketch. 934 01:20:39,360 --> 01:20:42,280 MUSIC: Elgar/Payne Symphony No 3 935 01:20:50,720 --> 01:20:55,320 At this point, there's practically no instruments in the formal score, just the top line. 936 01:20:55,320 --> 01:21:00,160 And you realise that that's the point where he stopped writing and went off to the nursing home, 937 01:21:00,160 --> 01:21:03,160 where he learnt the awful truth about his cancer. 938 01:21:14,120 --> 01:21:19,400 It so speaks to you. I remember at the first run-through with the BBC Symphony Orchestra 939 01:21:19,400 --> 01:21:24,440 when they got to this moment, the string section all began to smile. It was wonderful. 940 01:21:28,720 --> 01:21:33,400 I think we owe the energy with which he attacked the task to Vera Hockman 941 01:21:33,400 --> 01:21:38,120 and if he'd only lived another six months, he would have completed it. 942 01:21:47,000 --> 01:21:51,680 In the nursing home, he supervised an orchestral recording by telephone 943 01:21:51,680 --> 01:21:57,160 and only a week before he died, he listened to a test pressing of his last completed piece, 944 01:21:57,160 --> 01:22:00,000 a portrait of his Cairn terrier, Mina. 945 01:22:00,000 --> 01:22:03,360 "The middle section is too fast," he said. 946 01:22:03,360 --> 01:22:05,880 And dogs were all important to him, 947 01:22:05,880 --> 01:22:07,320 as Vera well knew. 948 01:22:08,360 --> 01:22:13,240 The first time she went to see him, he said, "You can't sit there, that's Marco's chair." 949 01:22:13,240 --> 01:22:18,600 And then she tried to sit somewhere else and he said, "You can't sit there, that's Mina's chair." 950 01:22:18,600 --> 01:22:21,720 And she stood in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do. 951 01:22:30,280 --> 01:22:31,880 I would've loved to have met him. 952 01:22:34,360 --> 01:22:36,960 I always wonder, "Would I have liked him or not?" 953 01:22:38,000 --> 01:22:41,840 He would probably have been a bit too clubbish for me. 954 01:22:41,840 --> 01:22:43,480 But I would've loved to meet him. 955 01:22:48,120 --> 01:22:52,040 Clarice said to me, he'd have liked me, cos I'd have petted the dogs. 956 01:22:52,040 --> 01:22:57,680 She said if you'd seen Marco, the spaniel, made a fuss of it, then you'd be in for life. 957 01:23:08,720 --> 01:23:11,480 What, in a nutshell, does Elgar mean to you? 958 01:23:13,440 --> 01:23:14,880 Oh. 959 01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:18,880 A lifetime obsession. 960 01:23:20,960 --> 01:23:25,440 And many hours of wonderful pleasure, listening to the music 961 01:23:25,440 --> 01:23:27,560 and puzzling over its creator 962 01:23:27,560 --> 01:23:32,000 and imagining him laughing at us all as we puzzle over it. 963 01:23:34,600 --> 01:23:37,800 What do you expect to find in Elgar? 964 01:23:37,800 --> 01:23:42,720 Turbulence, idealism, conflicts of all kind. 965 01:23:44,000 --> 01:23:47,040 Naivete, simplicity. Everything. 966 01:23:47,040 --> 01:23:52,120 Everything. Every human quality you can think of is there in his music. 967 01:23:56,240 --> 01:24:00,640 People who have had a great bereavement get a comfort from Elgar 968 01:24:00,640 --> 01:24:04,160 you mightn't get from Mozart or Beethoven, or any of those composers 969 01:24:04,160 --> 01:24:10,560 and I think it's because there's sense in it of a kind of hurt that he's sharing with them. 970 01:24:10,560 --> 01:24:13,840 And Elgar is one of those who gave us so much 971 01:24:13,840 --> 01:24:16,880 and so substantial and so real 972 01:24:16,880 --> 01:24:22,200 and if you can't hear it, you are deaf and you have no feeling. 973 01:24:26,040 --> 01:24:29,720 Shortly before Elgar died, in February 1934, 974 01:24:29,720 --> 01:24:33,960 his favourite sister Polly wrote to warn Windflower. 975 01:24:33,960 --> 01:24:37,680 "I know you loved him," she said. 976 01:24:37,680 --> 01:24:42,280 In her turn, Alice Stuart-Wortley sent his daughter a letter of sympathy. 977 01:24:44,320 --> 01:24:47,400 "He is our Shakespeare of music," she said, 978 01:24:47,400 --> 01:24:51,480 "Born and died on the soil in the heart and soul of England, 979 01:24:51,480 --> 01:24:57,120 "with the love of his country, its music and its meaning in his own heart and soul." 980 01:25:03,400 --> 01:25:08,520 Whether there was any contact with Vera Hockman during his last illness, we don't know. 981 01:25:08,520 --> 01:25:14,560 But three months after his death, on what would have been his 77th birthday, she wrote him a letter, 982 01:25:14,560 --> 01:25:17,160 which has remained hidden until now. 983 01:25:18,200 --> 01:25:24,280 It offers Elgar experts fresh incite into her feelings for the man behind the mask. 984 01:25:25,360 --> 01:25:27,400 "My wondrous being," she addresses it. 985 01:25:27,400 --> 01:25:33,120 "Written at Robin Hill on June 2nd, 1934. Your birthday." 986 01:25:33,120 --> 01:25:37,560 "It would seem strange and unnatural that I, who have loved you best of all, 987 01:25:37,560 --> 01:25:41,200 "have been silent for all these tragic months. 988 01:25:41,200 --> 01:25:44,040 "The thoughts and memories I treasure of you 989 01:25:44,040 --> 01:25:47,480 "are far too intimate, too inexpressibly dear to me 990 01:25:47,480 --> 01:25:50,560 "to be told to any but our nearest and dearest. 991 01:25:50,560 --> 01:25:55,360 I'd not seen it before and it's very, very poignant, 992 01:25:55,360 --> 01:25:59,280 because she seems to have absolutely gauged his character. 993 01:25:59,280 --> 01:26:02,320 She recalled Elgar's visit a year before, 994 01:26:02,320 --> 01:26:05,320 the last time her Hyperion ever-glorious 995 01:26:05,320 --> 01:26:09,320 had stayed the night at Robin Hill, her home in Croydon. 996 01:26:09,320 --> 01:26:13,800 If someone asked her what made him so unique, she said, she would reply that, 997 01:26:13,800 --> 01:26:20,400 "He was the only person I have known who was absolutely natural in all his actions," 998 01:26:20,400 --> 01:26:23,840 "spontaneous and grand and glorious, in his..." 999 01:26:23,840 --> 01:26:26,600 "..Supreme egoism. 1000 01:26:26,600 --> 01:26:30,200 "You were the most self-engrossed, self-enamoured person imaginable 1001 01:26:30,200 --> 01:26:34,800 "and yet you loved yourself in such a loveable way that instead of turning others away from you, 1002 01:26:34,800 --> 01:26:36,840 "your love of yourself was contagious. 1003 01:26:36,840 --> 01:26:41,360 "I was never afraid or over-awed of your greatness," she went on, 1004 01:26:41,360 --> 01:26:45,400 "Because I was destined to know, understand and love you. 1005 01:26:45,400 --> 01:26:50,280 "The 7th of November, foreshadowed through the numerous leaping 7ths in your melodies, 1006 01:26:50,280 --> 01:26:56,200 "was that moment when two souls, after long ages of drifting towards each other, 1007 01:26:56,200 --> 01:27:01,680 "meet and merge and melt into a vaster being, never again to be separated." 1008 01:27:01,680 --> 01:27:04,640 Gosh! Well, that is quite a letter. 1009 01:27:04,640 --> 01:27:08,120 We all have to rewrite our biographies now. 1010 01:27:08,120 --> 01:27:10,160 Extraordinary letter. 1011 01:27:10,160 --> 01:27:12,800 What do you feel in reading that? 1012 01:27:16,120 --> 01:27:19,920 That the relationship was obviously very profound, 1013 01:27:19,920 --> 01:27:23,360 very important for both of them, very meaningful, 1014 01:27:23,360 --> 01:27:26,640 despite the enormous number of years that separated them. 1015 01:27:26,640 --> 01:27:32,440 And that it implies to me that he felt able to be wholly himself with her. 1016 01:27:33,440 --> 01:27:35,960 That any pretence had fallen away. 1017 01:27:35,960 --> 01:27:40,840 Well, they must have been very close indeed, I should think. 1018 01:27:40,840 --> 01:27:44,120 We don't know whether these were physical or not, do we? 1019 01:27:44,120 --> 01:27:48,960 It's a very beautiful letter, because it's very surprising. 1020 01:27:49,960 --> 01:27:52,400 How nice that they met. 1021 01:27:53,960 --> 01:27:58,720 # Till a tempest came to wake Till a tempest came to wake 1022 01:27:58,720 --> 01:28:05,040 # All its roaring, seething billows That upon earth's ramparts break 1023 01:28:05,040 --> 01:28:10,760 # All its roaring, seething billows 1024 01:28:10,760 --> 01:28:17,040 # That upon earth's ramparts break 1025 01:28:17,040 --> 01:28:20,600 # That upon earth's ramparts break 1026 01:28:20,600 --> 01:28:31,200 # That upon earth's ramparts break 1027 01:28:34,600 --> 01:28:47,800 # Quiet 1028 01:28:47,800 --> 01:28:53,560 # Was my heart 1029 01:28:53,560 --> 01:29:00,680 # Within me 1030 01:29:01,680 --> 01:29:08,000 # Till your image 1031 01:29:08,000 --> 01:29:13,440 # Till your image suddenly 1032 01:29:13,440 --> 01:29:16,160 # Rising there 1033 01:29:16,160 --> 01:29:22,720 # Awoke a tumult Wilder than the storm 1034 01:29:22,720 --> 01:29:27,880 # Awoke a tumult Wilder than the storm at sea 1035 01:29:27,880 --> 01:29:36,000 # Wilder than the Wilder than the storm at sea 1036 01:29:36,000 --> 01:29:39,400 # Awoke a tumult 1037 01:29:39,400 --> 01:29:41,280 # Wilder 1038 01:29:41,280 --> 01:29:46,760 # Wilder than the storm Wilder than the storm at sea 1039 01:29:46,760 --> 01:29:54,040 # Wilder than the storm at sea. #