I don't think either of us is under any illusion as to what's playing out between us in this thread, Elgarian. We're each arguing for the side in which we most believe, but neither of us would be stupid enough to claim that we're 100% right in our assessments.

My work in advertising has taught me that one can spin anything, any way. If I so chose, I could mount a robust defence against my own 'attacks' on Elgar; and in much the same way, you could do something similar with your defence case to date. Though I'm sure such would break your heart.

Beyond points of technicality or incontrovertible, historically established facts, there's no right or wrong in art. However, if we merely accepted this, our exchanges would amount to little more than:

'I like Elgar. His music is so moving.'

'Yes, I like him, too. Especially that Nimrod bit.'

'But I think Bartok sucks.'

'Yeah, his music's really ugly'

... etc, etc.

Obviously, I'm over-simplifying here, but you take my point. Just as in every stageplay, film or novel there has to be conflict to create tension and drama (and therefore, interest), so in discussions about art there must be opposing views. Otherwise, everything's either 'great' or 'rubbish'.

FK

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My classical music reviews blog: An everyman for himself

That, Is a very good analogy sir. I accept it.

Yes indeed ... and yet, there is rightness in our experiences of art. The person who is transported, changed, elevated, moved to tears, by music that I can't bear, is having a 'great' aesthetic experience, even if I believe the music to be dreadful, myself. (My negative response would seem incomprehensible, to him, at such a moment). It's to make possible such moments of deep engagement and communication that the art exists in the first place. You and I know that RVW, say, is a great composer - not because someone has argued a case for it, but because we've experienced its greatness for ourselves. There was a sense of rightness in that experience that lies beyond all rational discourse.

Incidentally, it's for this reason that I feel far more secure in trusting positive assessments of art, than negative ones. If someone says he can't bear RVW's Sea symphony, then he's the last person to talk to if I'm trying to get to grips with that symphony myself. If I'm looking for help in that area, I need someone who's tasted its greatness; someone who knows it, in the deepest sense of knowing. Someone wanting to get into Finzi or Delius needs to talk to you; I'd be useless to them.

Finzi I know reasonably well, but Delius is another British composer with whom I have 'issues'. You'd probably like the latter's music a good deal.

FK

Ah, I thought I remembered him as being among your list of favourite composers much earlier in this thread, but now I've checked, I see that I was wrong. I should have said Bax, instead, perhaps, to make my point.

Alas, given the choice between Delius's music and silence, I'd choose silence every time. But that's a statement about me - not a comment on the stature of Delius's music.

Its comments like that, that make me want to tear my hair out in clumps.

Yes, there's something aimless and meandering about Delius' music that I've never quite grasped. Those better versed than I in his work tell me he's well worth getting to know. Frankly, I'm happy to take them at their word but leave them to it for now.

FK

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My classical music reviews blog: An everyman for himself

But surely it's only one among many expressions of difference between us all, isn't it? Remember, I wasn't passing judgement on Delius (one only has to read the obviously heartfelt comments by others about him to recognise that he's a fine composer) - I'm merely remarking that I'm not temperamentally inclined towards that kind of music. That fact in itself renders me incapable of making any meaningful comment about how good his music is. Indeed, this is really at the heart of almost all that I've been saying in this thread.

The loss is mine. No need for you to tug at your hair.

It is quite interesting that Delius gets singled out for this treatment amongst all the English composers of the period. I think Delius just couldn't find himself in his flitting to and fro across the various bodies of water that surround Britain. There is something French and yet american in his music and I don't mean Copland but rather Duke Ellington! His overtly rich harmonic language does not go out a kind of extended diatonic area enough to really be considered impressionistic. His harmony is 'third' based with upper extentions more resembling jazz chords than the fourth and second based experiments of Debussy and Ravel. I personally find his works cold and rather empty.
He tried to run an Orange farm in Florida but went bust! Probably the most exciting fact about the man. Eric Fenby's contribution to his output is always in question as is the prosthesis of any amunensis. (that sounds painful).

I just realised that my previous post has nothing to do with Elgar. So how about this: Finzi (the pupil of a pupil of Elgar) sucsessfully managed an Apple farm! So the 'fruit' concection to Delius stands up then?
FC

As soon as Barber's Violin Concerto has stopped playing into my ears through my headphones, I shall dig out some Delius and try to hear some meaning in his music.

Wish me luck ...

FK

I do. You're just the man we need to start a 'Delius' thread .... (clearly we need one).

Hate to say this, but after initially warming to the opening of Delius' Paris: The Song of a Great City, I found the music started to get on my nerves. I appreciate the piece was written as a musical portrait of the diverse French capital with which he was very familiar (he made Paris his home for many years), but it rubbed me up the wrong way. That said, I wasn't in a British music frame of mind last night. I'll try again soon ...

FK

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My classical music reviews blog: An everyman for himself

Dragging this thread back on topic ....

I was reminded of this discussion yesterday during a conversation in which someone remarked that one of the signs of Shakespeare's greatness was his ability to 'connect public and private' worlds so successfully, and I was thinking about this rather difficult but very interesting piece of insight when I realised that it was possible to say the same thing about much of Elgar's music. Moreover, that it expressed, far better than I had done, some of the ideas I've been trying to talk about in this thread.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the violin concerto, where there is a whole spectrum of musical discourse ranging from the public, at one end (Elgar's 'nobilmente' is one aspect of it) to the intensely, intimately private (the second windflower theme), at the other. I am wondering, now, whether the entire concerto can't be seen as an exploration of this connection between the public and the private. There is the face of Elgar the public man - the one that he presents to the world; the one that stands for his country and his time. And there is the inner heart of Elgar; the insecure, deeply troubled, aching, longing individual mind. Of course we all have our own versions of these components, but what Elgar did - and here lies one of the reasons for his greatness - was to express them so completely. That's why the violin concerto tears us to pieces.

The first movement is full of expressions of such public/private moments, but nowhere does this come through more clearly than in the last movement, where he's so obviously winding up to a conclusion after about 10 minutes - preparing to return us to the public arena, if you like - when the music falters, the private intervenes, and as that closing cadenza begins we realise the depths of uncertainy within that private world, despite all the surface confidence that's been hinted at. The two windflower themes seem to repeatedly lose each other, then find each other (fleetingly), then lose each other again. There are times when the music falters and almost dies, as if all momentum, all reason for continuing, has been lost. Surely this is one of the most deeply introspective pieces of music ever composed? Elgar is exposing normally hidden aspects of his longing for the feminine, expressed through his love-but-not-quite-love for Alice Stuart-Wortley.

And then, after ten minutes of this intense working out of these innermost, heartfelt themes, this dark but beautiful struggle, he somehow finds some resolution; I don't understand whether some musical resolution is found - but a personal one certainly is. The struggle (that is, the long cadenza) is brought to an end; the window on Elgar's soul is closed, within just a few bars; and we're left once more with the public, optimistic face, with a curious feeling of uneasy acceptance of the insecurities to which we've just been made privy.

That violin concerto is not just one of the greatest pieces of music I know. It's one of the greatest works of art - of any art - that I know. We are all in there - our struggle between the need to perform publicly in the world, in the face of private turmoil. I'd never quite understood (though I'd felt it, obviously) the source of its universality until now.

Elgar's Violin Concerto is one of those works of which I have more than one version, but with which I've never truly connected. Which performance would you suggest I hear, Elgarian, in order to get the most from this work?

FK