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North West BranchNewsletterAugust 2018

This is now the fourth year in which I have produced a branch newsletter which provides a retrospective look at our activities throughout the season which has now ended. I wish to thank each of those members who have contributed reports about our branch meetings (they are credited at the end of their articles) and also to thank Darren Niman who has provided many of the photographs taken at meetings - which evoke visual memories for those of us who attended meetings and provides additional interest for those who were not able to attend for whatever reason. The newsletter also serves to provide a permanent record of our season’s activities.

A printed copy of the newsletter will be sent out to all branch members and paper copies will also be available for non-members at each of our branch meetings in the coming season. In addition, a digital (pdf file) copy of the newsletter will be made available for downloading and viewing on the North West Branch webpage of the Elgar Society’s website at elgar.org

I would also like to thank our programme secretary, Geoff Scargill, for planning the season’s programme of monthly meetings, contacting and engaging speakers, arranging the venues, etc. Without all his invaluable planning and input, none of the season’s meetings would have been possible. Thanks also to other members of the branch committee who have given their support.

The newsletter also provides a written record of our activities for the archives - so important in this digital age when so much of our communication is done by email and other digital means. On that score, I would also like to mention that all of our branch meetings this season have been recorded (in digital sound only) by modern recording techniques - directly onto computer disc.Because of copyright issues (particulary with commercially recorded music included) it is not possible to make copies of the recordings for distribution. However, a single copy will be kept for archive purposes and for our internal use only.

The progranme for our forthcoming North West Branch season (October 2018 to May 2019) will begin on Saturday, 6th October 2018. Full details will be circulated to all members by post along with this newsletter. Copies will also be available for non-members at branch meetings and are downloadable from our North West Branch webpage (see page 16 for further details.)

I send out regular communications by group email to all those who have supplied me (or the parent Society) with an email address. If you are not receiving my group email at intervals, it means that I do not have a current email address from you. The solution is in your hands!

David L Jones (editor)

Elgar and Me :Donald Hunt & Tom Hunt, Saturday, 7 October 2017

”Elgar has been for me an inspiration, a pleasure and a comfort in difficult times.” That was the summing up of a distinguished life in music by Donald Hunt, choir master, organist, festival organiser, conductor and Leeds United supporter, who held an audience of members with his fascinating reminiscences and his choice of music. Donald is a favourite of the North West Branch. Inspiration was a word that occurred more than once in Donald’s presentation, chiefly with reference to Herbert Sumsion, organist of Gloucester Cathedral and a personal friend of Elgar. Once when Sumsion had been delayed Donald, one of the choristers, took the choir practice. When Sumsion arrived he waited outside and listened. Next morning he went to see Donald’s parents and told them that their son had to make music his career. It was clear from his frequent references what an influence Herbert Sumsion had throughout his long life on Donald, both as a mentor and a friend.

Asked what first made Elgar his hero, Donald said that in 1946 he was ‘blown away by the orchestral colouring’ when he heard for the first time the Prelude to The Kingdom at a Three Choirs Festival. Another special Elgar memory was another occasion when he went to sit in the transept of Gloucester Cathedral to hear a performance of a work that was rarely played in those days, the Cello Concerto. There was only one other person in the transept, “a pretty girl”. He went to sit next to her (!). She became Mrs Hunt.

Donald spoke passionately about his seventeen years as organist and choirmaster at Leeds Parish Church. It was at the Leeds Festival that he showed his flair for organisation, which stood him in good stead in the eight Three Choirs Festivals where he acted as director and conductor.

Donald Hunt

tells us about

his relationship

with

Elgar’s music

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Elgar and Me (continued) : Donald Hunt & Tom Hunt, Saturday, 7 October 2017

His move to become Master of Choristers and Organist in Elgar’s Worcester Cathedral was for him a dream come true and the culmination of his career. When he took up his post there, to his surprise he discovered that very little of Elgar’s music was being performed in his native city. He remedied that by giving over 40 performances in the next few years.

He also told some great stories. When Elgar went to his club in London, members would hide behind their newspapers to avoid him because he had a tendency to go on about the state of his digestion. When he conducted Gerontius in Cape Town, Archbishop Tutu couldn’t stop jumping up and down during the Demon’s Chorus. After a performance of Verdi’s Requiem in Leeds, conducted by an energetic young Italian, he heard one lady in the choir say to another: “He could put his boots under my bed any night.”One unusual theme that Donald returned to was the resistance in his early career by the Church of England to Latin. As a chorister, he was taught Elgar’s Ave verum in a ‘ghastly English translation’, Jesu, Word of God. As late as 1975 though, he was warned by someone in Yorkshire that he should not be concentrating so much on Elgar’s music. Elgar, he was told, was vulgar and furthermore he was a Roman Catholic.

In addition to playing extracts from his own orchestral, organ and choir performances and illustrating his points on the piano, Donald accompanied his son, Tom, in several songs, beautifully performed..Asked finally which were the most satisfying of Elgar’s works that he conducted, Donald chose a performance of King Olaf in Stoke-on-Trent and (perhaps, because of his emotion)the First Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic at his final Three Choirs Festival in 1996.That recording ended a memorable afternoon. Geoff Scargill

Donald Hunt accompanies his son, Tom Hunt (baritone), in one of Elgar’s songs

Elgar: His Contemporaries and The Music of The Great War :Amanda Crawley & Josephine Peach, Liverpool, 4th November 2017

The works by Elgar which were included were: Like to the Damask Rose (1907), The Shepherd’s Song (1892), Queen Mary’s Song (1892), Introduction (Vesper Voluntaries, 1890), Adieu (1932), Dream Children – No. 2 (1902), Arabian Serenade (1914), Submarines (1918), Sea Slumber-Song (Sea Pictures, 1899) and In Haven (Sea Pictures, 1899). Our new branch treasurer, Geoff Hill (also an accomplished musician) provided his services as an expert page-turner for the pianist. Michael Derbyshire proposed an excellent vote of thanks ….. Now, if I may be allowed a small personal indulgence here: I was greatly surprised when, just before the interval break, our chairman, John Knowles, began to talk most mysteriously about the events of the Great War in 1917 and then continued with a comment about an ‘important event’ (as he put it!) which took place just 20 years later, on 4th November 1937 and exactly 80 years to the date before this branch meeting. It was at this point that I suddenly realised that he was referring to my ‘special’ birthday and I was even more surprised when, after a short piano roll, our pianist and soprano soloist and the entire audience broke into a rendering of Happy Birthday to You! Cake was then added to the usual interval tea/coffee and biscuits (without charge) Yummy! David L Jones

Our November meeting was held at the Quaker Meeting House in Liverpool – an excellent venue! Our performing guest artistes were Amanda Crawley (soprano) and Josephine Peach (piano) who are professional musicians based in York and they provided an excellent and varied programme of music which was interspersed with comments that were both informative and, at times, quite amusing. The music which they presented was written, as their title suggests, by Elgar and his contemporaries and some of it was written during the period of the Great War but, in fact, the dates of the original compositions ranged from 1872 to 1932. Many of the items which they performed were written by British composers and included works by Butterworth, Elgar, Goossens, Hough, MacDowell, Moeran, Quilter, Scott, Stanford and Vaughan Williams. To provide contrast, they also included works by Casella, Debussy, Fauré, Schullhof, Vierne, and Villa-Lobos. The items in both halves of the programme were arranged in groups which were introduced by the artistes – some contained songs with piano accompaniment and others consisted of solo piano pieces. The works performed were very diverse in character and sentiment which made an interesting programme and held our interest throughout.

Happy Birthday - and four cakes! Amanda (sop) and Josephine (pno) Geoff Hill (page turner)

Elgar as remembered in Radio Interviews by those who knew him : Chris Wiltshire, Saturday, 2nd December 2017

Chris, who is a member of the East Anglia branch of the Elgar Society, informed us from the start that he was not a musician but a medical doctor. However, he has a passion for Elgar’s music and all things connected to the great man!

Chris started recording material relating to Elgar and people who knew him from the early 1960s onwards and his talk was interspersed with some of these recording. The first extract played was a conversation between Mary Grafton and Carice Elgar about Plas Gwyn. Elgar was very close to the Grafton family and the three sisters cared for him after Alice’s death in 1920. “Alice was very small but indomitable! She was a great help and encourager to Elgar”.Norah Crowe stated in a recording made c.1979 – 80 that she met Elgar in 1892 when she was about 12 years of age. She reflected that Elgar was very shy, always rang the doorbell at the exact time he was expected. She spoke about seeing him at Worcester Races and he was always studying the race card and wore “washed, leather gloves”. She also saw him at the Three Choirs Festival with Ivor Atkins and Willy Reed.

Adrian Boult and Elgar came across each other in 1908 but they fell out with each other in 1924 after a performance of Gerontius conducted by Boult with the Birmingham Orchestra. However their friendship was rekindled in the late 1920s. Chris played us a recording of Boult talking about Elgar and his love of Chemistry.

Astra Desmond (1893 – 1973) was a contralto who took up teaching later in her career (becoming Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music). She made a few commercial recordings including the first recording of Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music (under the baton of Boult). She also sang under the baton of Elgar. She stated that Elgar always took a keen interest in what his artistes were wearing! She reflected that Elgar had a “jerky beat”! His conducting was “full of energy, with many tempo changes – and no smoothness!”.Stewart Wilson (1889 – 1966) was a Tenor who performed Gerontius many times and in 1927 recorded extracts from Gerontius with Astra Desmond as the Angel and conducted by Elgar himself. Wilson was recorded as saying that Elgar often said “That’s a good tune”. He went on to say that Elgar never conducted pieces the same way twice! “He was a very complex character – not easy to understand”.

Agnes Nichols (married to Hamilton Harty) stated that “Elgar was very self deprecating”. She reminisced about a performance of The Kingdom in Birmingham in 1907. “The performance went wonderfully. At the rehearsal Elgar said nothing but tears ran down his cheeks”.Harriet Cohen (d. 1967) was a pianist who was very close to Ralph Vaughan Williams, Bax and Moeren. She was a friend of Roosevelt and Ramsey McDonald and in a recording spoke about the plight of the Jews. Chris Wiltshire had a recording of her playing the piano in Elgar’s Piano Quintet. In interview she stated that the slow movement of that work was played to Elgar when he was near to death.

Elgar as remembered in Radio Interviews by those who knew him : Chris Wiltshire, Saturday, 2nd December 2017 (continued)

Chris played very brief extracts of what other people thought of Elgar. Compton Mackenzie (founder of The Gramophone who also wrote a book about tobacco!) stated that “Elgar looked like a colonel” and Edith Evans (actress) “he was a darling man”.

Ivor Newton (accompanist) stated that “Elgar looked like a an English squire and noted that he had a military presence. He and Menuhin (aged 15) became great friends very quickly”.Edward Elgar had two dogs named Marco and Mina, and Hubert Leicester’s daughter-in-law stated that “Elgar thought his dogs were better than Hubert’s!” She also stated that “Elgar used the word ‘nooky’ a lot!” and that he loved his garden.

Nurse Kathleen Harrison, who at the age of 96 recorded an interview with Radio Wyvern, said that she “went to help out and nurse Elgar. Didn’t know he was a famous man! He had an operation then spent three months at South Bank Nursing Home before going to Marl Bank where I nursed him till he died. I talked to him a lot”.

Elgar effectively became an atheist during WW1. He wanted his ashes to be scattered at the Severn and Team confluence but (thankfully) he was buried with Alice at Little Malvern. Sadly, no recording has survived of Edward Elgar in conversation or interview. But one gem of a quote was given by Chris Wiltshire to conclude his amazing talk to the Society:“If ever you hear this little tune being whistled (from the Cello Concerto) while walking on the hills, don’t be frightened, it will only be me!” Geoff Hill

Chris Wiltshire delivers his talk - illustrated with numerous sound-bites and images

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Defusing The Red Light (continued) :Andrew Keener, Saturday, 20 January 2018

With a fascinating selection of the CDs that he has produced, Andrew illustrated some of the challenges faced by the record producer. St Augustine’s, Kilburn has an excellent acoustic, but a corner site at the junction of two busy bus routes can create problems as can other extraneous sounds such as grunts, groans and sniffs from soloists. These require careful and tactful handling. Whereas live recordings used to be just that, nowadays they tend to be an amalgam of a series of concerts and ‘patch sessions’, requiring skilful handling of the conductor (knowing what to say and when) and, especially in the USA, negotiations with the intricate rules of the Musicians Union. Inside information about bringing all this to a successful final product was illustrated with extracts from Steven Hough’s recordings of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concertos and Daniel Barenboim’s accounts of the Elgar symphonies.

Andrew has produced two recordings of Gerontius, both in the North West - Vernon Handley in Liverpool and Mark Elder in Manchester. Recording the Nursery Suite with the RCM Junior Orchestra had its moments with conductor (Mark Elder) and producer alternately playing good cop/bad cop to get the very best from the young players. [The same combination has just recorded the Nursery Suite with the Hallé – the first time any conductor has recorded the piece twice, and not only that but with the same producer!] The producer may not be an engineer but hearing the results of how Hereford Cathedral’s organ could become part of the finale of the Enigma Variations emanating from a session in Glasgow was interesting to say the least. All in all, a fascinating afternoon, delivered with warmth, humour and panache. It was a privilege to welcome Andrew Keener to the branch. John Knowles

Andrew Keener

is talking to us

about his

interpretation

of

‘Defusing the

Red Light’

Defusing The Red Light :Andrew Keener, Saturday, 20 January 2018

John Knowles, Branch Chairman, and North West branch members are seen here at the AGM which preceeded the afternoon’s presentation

Whilst some artists might perhaps feel overawed or even threatened when the red light goes on in the recording studio, Andrew Keener, with over 30 years’ experience as an independent record producer, views it much more as an indicator to the musicians that risks can be taken. After all, there is always the possibility of another take!

It was a real privilege to be given a first-hand account of what goes on in the recording studio and so appreciate much more what the man whose name we have all seen on so many CD booklets actually has to do to make sure that the final product is as good as it possibly can be. A ‘musical midwife’ is one description. The producer has to be reassuring but also challenging; neither overawed by, nor sycophantic towards the famous but rather, realistic, honest and at times very firm. He is not an engineer: he is there to plan the sessions, to listen avidly with the score in front of him, looking out for things that the conductor may have missed because he has so many things to concentrate on whilst at work.

Andrew Keener’s first orchestral recording was Nigel Kennedy’s first recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto made with Vernon Handley in Watford Town Hall in 1984. An auspicious start as it was very well received when it was first released and has received many accolades and awards over the years.

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Cravendale

Annual North West Branch Luncheon :Alma Lodge Hotel, Sunday, 25 February 2018

Our Annual Luncheon was held at the Alma Lodge Hotel, Stockport, on Sunday, 25th February 2018, when 39 members and guests attended what turned out to be a memorable occasion. Several other people who had previously booked were, unfortunately, unable to join us because of recent illness. We were in the well-appointed Congress Suite at the front of the hotel which was bathed in winter sunshine through its large windows and we had set up two large, colourful and informative displays which outlined the long history of the branch as well as our recent activities over the past year. There were ample choices for each of the three courses for lunch and everyone I spoke to after we had eaten was well pleased with the delicious food and excellent service – though a few thought it was, perhaps, a little slow. However, the convivial conversation more than compensated for that.

After we had eaten, Geoff Scargill gave an excellent short talk about certain aspects of three of the musical subjects (Bernstein, Barbirolli and Elgar) which he portrayed in his frequent and varied talks to raise funds for the Christie Cancer Hospital here in South Manchester. It was a beautifully crafted talk in which he intertwined amusing anecdotes with elements of pathos and this was reflected also in the three short musical extracts which he used to illustrate his talk: Some other Time (Bernstein); Frank Gillard, in a BBC broadcast, describing the evocative and emotional scene at a Barbirolli-Hallé wartime concert in Eindhoven in 1944 - after which everyone joined in the singing of Auld Lang Syne (Barbirolli); and a rare recording of Kathleen Ferrier singing Land of Hope and Glory with Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra and Choir in November 1951 - when the Free Trade Hall was re-opened after wartime destruction in Dec. 1940 by incendiary bombs (Elgar, with Ferrier and Barbirolli as a bonus!) David L Jones

Fae Jones is seen talking to Marie Conwayin the hotel dining room on arrival.

No photographs were actually takenduring or after the lunch on this occasion.

(photos courtesy of David Jones)

A view of some of the tables already set for our luncheon

which was held in the comfortableCongress Suite at the

Alma Lodge Hotel, Stockport

A German Enthusiast’s Love of Elgar :Wolfgang-Armin Rittmeier, Saturday, 24 March 2018

The Society’s engagement with and encouragement of the reception of Elgar and his music in Germany in recent years has owed much to the efforts of our former chairman Geoff Scargill and the contacts which he has been able to build up in Germany. These have borne fruit in a number of highly successful trips to hear Elgar performed in the concert halls of Berlin, Cologne, Bamberg, Munich, etc. and have forged links with enthusiasts for his music. Not least among these has been Wolfgang and so it was a particular pleasure to welcome him to the Branch meeting at the RNCM in March.

His talk which he claimed to be the first he’d given in English for twenty years was so clear and precise that he was able to convey his enthusiasm with an authentic English touch. He followed a ‘Desert Islands Discs’ approach by interweaving eight pieces of music into his life story and interrogating himself and German culture in order to try and understand the power of Elgar’s music and its place in the musical landscape. His own starting point was the lack of accessible information on Elgar and his music in German, the received view being the familiar one of the ‘jingoistic composer of empire’ and ‘second rank drawing room music’. The fact that he was able to perceive this as based on ignorance and prejudice he put down to his early love of English chivalric culture inherited from his mother, in particular with such films as ‘Ivanhoe’. Hence his first musical extract from ‘The Knights of the Round Table’ film score by Miklos Rosza. He was born at Hildesheim near Hanover and had been a chorister at St Michael’s Abbey church and therefore had received a sound training in the repertoire from Handel to Mendelssohn. His first visit to England had followed at the age of 16 when his choir had sung at Canterbury.

Wolfgang is seen here with his laptop - giving his PowerPoint presentation

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Elgar and Walton : Relf Clark, Saturday, 28 April 2018

Dr. Clark’s fascinating talk on these two towering figures of British music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries revealed both the similarities and the contrasts between their characters and their careers throughout their lives.

Both men rose from humble beginnings to achieve distinction and honours as the country’s major composers. As we know, Elgar’s father was a jobbing musician, organist and shopkeeper; somewhat similarly, Walton’s father was a singer, music teacher and organist. Elgar grew up in Worcester and remained there for over 30 years. Walton’s childhood was spent in Oldham; both far from the bright lights of London. Elgar, after a basic education, became steeped in music through working with his father; Walton’s father, nearly 50 years later, successfully entered his son for admission to Christ Church Oxford as a chorister. So, both were professional musicians from their teenage years, but in very different ways. Walton from the age of ten was educated in Oxford at the heart of the musical establishment; Elgar was entirely self-taught.

Walton, however, was no intellectual; he failed his Oxford examinations and left without a degree at the age of 18. Without prospects, he became a houseguest of the Sitwells, - and stayed for 15 years. There he became an enthusiastic member of the sophisticated artistic demi monde of London. As a natural gambler and risk-taker, it was an environment that suited him and in which he flourished. By the time he was 33 many of his most successful works had been written and performed, - including Façade, Portsmouth Point, Sinfonia Concertante, Viola Concerto, Belshazzar’s Feast, and first Symphony.

Elgar by contrast was chronically risk-averse. Until the age of 22 he lived with his parents, and then he moved in with his sisters until, at 31, he met and married Alice Roberts. By the age of 33 his only significant composition was the Froissart overture, not performed for another ten years. He was still a jobbing musician, teacher and conductor, and his setting was the county of Worcester. As a Catholic and the son of a tradesman he felt himself, and remained, despite all his later fame, an outsider. Elgar and Walton both married on impulse to women who made fundamental but differing contributions to their husbands’ careers. Alice Roberts, daughter of an Indian Army Major-General, lived with her widowed mother near Malvern, where Elgar, eight years her junior, gave her piano lessons. Despite the class divide between them, their mutual admiration led to marriage in 1889, when Alice was forty. For the next thirty years she devoted herself in every possible way to supporting Elgar and promoting his music, transforming him from a provincial music teacher to a national musical celebrity.

Walton first saw his future wife Susana at a British Council reception in her native Argentina; he immediately confided to a friend his intention to marry her. After their marriage in 1948 she supported Walton’s determined wish to leave London and settle on the Italian island of Ischia. There she devoted herself to the creation of a secluded retreat where Walton could compose in peace while she developed the grounds into an amazing sub-tropical garden.

A German Enthusiast’s Love of Elgar (continued) : Wolfgang-Armin Rittmeier, Saturday, 24 March 2018

At this point we heard the larghetto from the ‘Serenade for Strings’. He had gone on to study German and English at Braunschweig University, then moved to the south of England as a language teacher based at Christchurch. This proved a critical move as it brought his moment of Elgarian epiphany with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the Winter Gardens, though he selected the recording of the Symphony No 2 by the BBC Philharmonic and Edward Downes here. However, he was to find it difficult to build up his CD collection in pre-internet days, while Elgar was ‘terra incognita’ to the small music department at the University of Braunschweig. This led him to start writing his own programme notes and reviews leading to the establishment of a German website on Elgar (www.edwardelgar.de) to enable greater access to and understanding of Elgar’s music. His choice before the tea interval was the opening nobilmente theme from the Symphony No 1 in the recording by the Dresden Staatskapelle and Colin Davis, His website led to further contacts being made, most fruitfully with an invitation from Meinhard Saremba [currently editor of the Elgar Journal] to Mainz for a meeting with the German Sullivan Society. This led to the featuring of Elgar at the Bamberg Festival of English Music in 2015 when he was awarded the Society’s Certificate of Merit for his role in establishing the ‘Elgar Freundeskreis Deutschland’ as an affiliate of the Elgar Society with its newsletter ‘Mr Phoebus’.After an extract from ‘The Music Makers’ (BBCSO and Andrew Davis) he explained that his main desire was to encourage live performances all over Germany, especially in the former GDR where the English language was less familiar, and to this end he was able to put groups and ensembles in touch with the Elgar in Performance arm of the Society. Most recently, as some of us could testify, there had been an outstanding performance of ‘The Kingdom’ in Cologne last June. His sixth choice reflected another example, the Angel’s Farewell (Catherine Wyn Rogers) from the recording of ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ by the Staatskapelle Berlin and Daniel Barenboim.

In his final section, Wolfgang came to consider just what it was about Elgar’s music that intrigued him and why. Inevitably such reactions are personal and individual, but he highlighted Elgar’s multi-dimensional personality, his many moods and different masks, in contrast to the more self-confident Richard Strauss (and possibly the more boring) and then the paradox of Elgar the product of the Victorian age but the enthusiast for the latest thing, not least in the recording of his own music. Here we heard the composer conducting his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4. He went on to consider the age-old question of: What does Englishness sound like in music beyond the fact that we just know a piece was composed by an Englishman? He wasn’t wholly convinced by the folk song argument (little evident in Elgar’s music) but thought that the structure and tone of music was more influenced by the spoken language. Therefore he closed with a part song (‘How calm the evening’) in the Finzi Singers recording

Wolfgang’s enthusiasm for Elgar and his music was both deeply felt and engagingly communicated to his audience who appreciated his knowledge and his sure touch with English humour. Everyone was impressed by the way in which he blended his personal story with a critical assessment of the man and the music. Richard Hall

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Elgar and Walton (continued) : Relf Clark, Saturday, 28 April 2018

Both men found recognition and fame, Walton in his thirties, Elgar not until his forties, but they reacted quite differently. Both were knighted and granted the Order of Merit. Elgar’s outward image was that of the archetypal Edwardian, - moustachioed, convivial, literary, fashionably dressed, friend of princes and kings; but privately always uneasy, prone to depression, and haunted by financial insecurity. Walton, who effectively left home at the age of ten, was formed neither by Oldham nor Oxford but by the Sitwell clan, and reflected the brittle gaiety of the inter-war years. However, following his marriage in his mid-forties to the formidable and exotic Susana, the Waltons withdrew to their island retreat, where he was based for the rest of this life.

Dr. Clark’s presentation was relaxed, conversational and engaging, - the clear product of extensive research and detailed preparation. His easy command of dates was particularly impressive in facilitating the comparison of two careers separated by nearly half a century. The provision of an informative handout also contributed to a particularly engrossing afternoon. Trevor Davies

Dr Relf Clark delivering his talk on Elgar and Walton (photo courtesy of David Jones)

Elgar and Brinkwells :Geoff Hill, Saturday, 12 May 2018

Geoff first visited Brinkwells as a music undergraduate at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, his alma mater being accorded its full title throughout this fascinating talk. This was no mere pedantry on Geoff’s part, but a preference for acknowledging the importance of the Tyne to the character of this corner of north-east England. So it is no surprise that Geoff sees in Brinkwells the pull of place and geography on Elgar. The story is familiar: Elgar sought solace in this remote part of Sussex from the carnage of war and the increasing social, financial and above all, creative pressures which had come to haunt him. Alice acquiesced, and as so often in her life, sublimated her own needs to those of Elgar.

The remoteness of the place, Alice’s failing health and Elgar’s recognition that the world was undergoing cataclysmic change metamorphosed in an outpouring of music which is frequently characterised as autumnal, highly personal and “magical”. It is said that Elgar was influenced by a group of withered trees in Flexham Park near Brinkwells; local legend has it that Spanish monks were struck by lightning and turned into trees as a punishment for practising black magic. Geoff focused in particular on the Quartet and Quintet, highlighting the structural elements which reveal Elgar as a master of form, but above all, the sheer poetry of the music. Brinkwells provided Elgar with a retreat from the world and left us with music of extraordinary emotional power. Valedictory maybe, even magical, but as so often with Elgar, music of such intensity and beauty that we almost feel we glimpse his soul. Michael Derbyshire

Geoff Hill talking about his visit to Brinkwells as a music undergraduate (photo by David Jones)

Elgar Society - North West Branch Programme (2018-2019)

Officers of the North West Branch

Patron: Dr. Joyce Kennedy

Chairman: Revd John Knowles 15 Clare Avenue, Handforth, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 3EQ john.knowles92@btinternet.com Tel: 01625 526 531 Hon. Secretary & Vice Chairman: David L Jones Willowbrook House, Spath Lane East, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire SK8 7NL DavidLJones@saqnet.co.uk (SAQ in lower case) Tel: 0161 439 7176

Treasurer: Geoff Hill 28 Queen Anne Court, Macclesfield Rd, Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 1BY grh49@btinternet.com Tel: 01625 522 629

Please send copy items: articles, photos, etc., to:-Newsletter Editor: David L. Jones

Email: DavidLJones@saqnet.co.uk (SAQ) Telephone: 0161 439 7176Willowbrook House Spath Lane East, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire SK8 7NL

Our next season of NW branch meetings will begin on Saturday, 6th October, at 2.30 p.m., at the Royal Northern College of Music, in Manchester. Full details of the programme of events will be circulated to all branch members in printed form as a full colour A4 trifold leaflet. Copies will also be available for non-members at all branch meetings and the full branch programme will also be available for download and viewing on the webpage of the North West Branch of the Elgar Society at elgar.org.

A Summer Event at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House :Elgar’s Piano Quintet, Saturday, 7 July 2018

Our NWB programme of events for the 2017-2018 season ended with a ‘summer special’ on 7th July, when over 50 people attended an afternoon event at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House in Plymouth Grove, Manchester. The main attraction was a performance of Elgar’s Piano Quintet which was given in the elegant Drawing Room by members of the Pleyel Ensemble. In addition, those attending were given the opportunity to look round other areas of this historically important house and were given a fascinating glimpse into the life and times of Elizabeth Gaskell and her family (including their time here, in Plymouth Grove) by three volunteers from EGH and the Gaskell Society. We heard that Alice and Edward Elgar visited the Gaskells here on one occasion and there were other connections between the two families and their circle of friends. Sir Charles Hallé gave piano lessons here to one of Elizabeth Gaskell’s daughters.

As space in the Drawing Room was limited, two performances of Elgar’s Piano Quintet were given during the afternoon whilst the other half of the ‘audience’ were shown around the house and they also had an opportunity to partake of light refreshments in the lovely tea room. The Piano Quintet was superbly performed by the five members of the Pleyel Ensemble – who are skilled professional musicians of the highest standard, and we were all entranced by their playing. Thankfully, the five musicians also certainly appeared to be enjoying themselves. It was a fitting end to a very successful North West Branch season of events. David L Jones

Members of the Pleyel Ensemble performing Elgar’s Piano Quintet in the Drawing Room

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