RSNO: Elgar’s Enigma Variations
Usher Hall - 25/02/22
It was a pleasure to see Sir Andrew Davis back at the podium in the Usher Hall in this excellent concert of English music. This was his first concert for two years, and, although looking noticeably frail, he guided us through a fascinating programme of familiar and unfamiliar music.
The programme was explained in a delightful and humorous introduction by the Principal Horn, Christopher Gough, hitting all the right notes, especially his statement of solidarity with Ukraine.
We started with a new piece by the young composer, Jasper Dommett, ‘Dreams of Isolation’. Despite some rather unhelpful programme notes in the shape of a series of random questions about er ‘dreams and isolation’, this turned out to be an interesting work, exploring rich orchestral sonorities, from shimmering strings, through muted brass, to varied percussion instruments. Mr Dommett was born in 1997, with a background in baritone horn and brass bands, and I found this an appealing composition, suggesting a decent talent. Apparently with a remit of a work lasting about 8 minutes, this proved to be a good opening work, although as with all the recent new compositions at the RSNO concerts there is not much you can do with such a short space of time. There is little chance of development or complexity of themes, and one is inevitably left asking to hear more. At least we can be grateful that these modern young composers have chosen to write in a musical language that the average listener can comprehend, and which has more than a passing acquaintance with tonality!
From a new composition, we moved on to a beloved masterwork with which we are all familiar, Edward Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’. As a friend pointed out at the interval, the thing about well-known and hackneyed pieces is that they are well-known because they are good, and I was reminded that the Enigma Variations is a very good work indeed. At school many decades ago, we had a music teacher who was a great devotee of Elgar, and consequently, I never wanted to hear another note of this quintessentially English composer again. This view was compounded when at music college I found myself singing the Angel of the Agony in Elgar’s setting of Cardinal Newman’s poem, ‘The Dream of Gerontius’, in which a pious soul is led from his deathbed to judgement before God and eventual settlement in Purgatory. Although acknowledged as perhaps Elgar’s masterpiece, I have never been able to cope with its text or its music, and for many years I closed my ears to all his music. A chance contract to sing Judas in his oratorio, ‘The Apostles’, in Canterbury Cathedral revealed to me an aspect of Elgar’s writing I had been unaware of, magnificent almost Wagnerian harmonies, lush orchestration and a fine sense of writing for voice. From that point on I was able to reacquaint myself with the wonders of this very fine composer, and now I find myself a devotee, like my old music master!
This preamble is designed to reveal why I enjoyed this performance even more than expected, and the artistry of Andrew Davis and the RSNO delivered a superb rendition of this great score. Premiered in London in 1899, the year before Gerontius, the Enigma Variations consist of a theme followed by 14 variations, apparently created when, during a spot of pianistic doodling after a long day teaching, Elgar was prompted by his wife Alice to develop a tune which she had enjoyed amidst the tinkling. The variations developed into representations in music of various friends and colleagues, some whimsical, some deeply moving, and Elgar hinted at some deeper profundity, and also at another hidden theme, hence the name, ‘The Enigma Variations’. For me, the mystery is much less interesting than the actual music, which is sublime.
Variation IX, ‘Nimrod’, is justly famous. The title is a clever allusion to Elgar’s friend and editor, August Jaeger, whose name means “hunter” in German. Nimrod was the “Mighty Hunter” in Genesis, the first book of the bible, and this magnificent slow movement, dedicated to Elgar’s close companion, reveals the depth of their friendship. Andrew Davis moulded this variation with enormous skill, and the RSNO played it superbly.
I was particularly taken with Variation VI, dedicated to Isobel Fitton, an amateur viola player, and the viola part was beautifully played. I very much like the orchestral arrangement which has the violas on the right of the conductor at the front. It really helps us hear this section clearly, when often it is obscured. There was some lovely cello playing in the Twelfth Variation, and the work was brought to a triumphant conclusion with Variation XIV, E.D.U., the title referring to Alice’s pet name for Edward, and featuring a recurrence of the themes associated with Alice and August Jaeger, the composer’s two dearest friends.
After the interval, we were treated to a performance of Vaughan Williams’ rarely heard Seventh Symphony, Sinfonia Antartica. In 1947, Vaughan Williams was invited to write a score for the film, ‘Scott of the Antarctic’, about the tragic expedition to reach the South Pole undertaken by Captain Robert Falcon Scott (no relation!) in 1910-12. The composer found he had much more music than for a film score, and in 1953 his 7th Symphony was premiered in Manchester on 14th January, with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir John Barbirolli, entitled Sinfonia Antartica (the middle ‘c’ was removed to preserve consistent Italian spelling). Using a vast orchestra, with liberal percussion, including gong, vibraphone, xylophone, bells and wind machine, as well as celeste and organ, Vaughan Williams created a symphonic representation of the utterly bleak landscape of the Antarctic, in which weird animals and birds somehow manage to live, and in which Scott and his party perished. By adding a wordless solo soprano and three part female chorus, the composer added yet another layer to his musical palette, these forces combining most effectively with the wind machine in the first and last movements. As a singer myself, I have often been confronted with the anomaly of a composer adding a solo voice to symphonic works (Nielsen’s 3rd Symphony comes to mind), where the solo is smaller both in length and significance than many orchestral solos, but gets solo billing, with a name in the programme, a biography and the chance to wear a nice suit or a glamorous frock. This is in no way meant to denigrate Katie Coventry, the Scottish mezzo who sang the soprano solo in this performance. On the contrary, I found her voice very appealing, and it was clever to have a mezzo singing the part, as her darker timbre perfectly matched the grim reality of the frozen continent. In fact, we are enormously lucky in Scotland at the moment, to have several international quality mezzo sopranos in Karen Cargill, Catriona Morison, Beth Taylor, Cath Backhouse and Katie Coventry. Let’s see them consistently singing here in Scotland!
The chorus was sung by a group from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, well trained by Michael Bawtree, who also played the organ splendidly, some of its low notes shaking the Usher Hall to its very foundations. There was a superb solo from Henry Clay on Cor Anglais; in fact, as usual, all the orchestral solos were magnificent, and this has been a feature of the RSNO over the two years I have been reviewing them. Long may it continue.
By its very nature, the Sinfonia Antartica is a somewhat monochrome piece, despite the wealth of instrumentation, and its bleak nature, like the continent and the story it evokes, can never exactly lift the spirit, but this was a fine account of an unusual work, perfectly paced by Sir Andrew Davis, one of the quiet heroes of British music.
A final word for the percussion player who got to wind up the Wind Machine. It can’t be easy to stand there, turning a handle to create a whooshing, swirling noise, and not become a comedy figure. To his great credit, there was no hint of a giggle in the audience, and his bleak, terrifying sound was very effective.
