I don't worry about status

My photo shows Sir Colin Davis conducting the Chamber Orchestra Anglia in Elgar's First Symphony in an open work shop yesterday afternoon at the Norwich Festival.

We talked to the 80 year old Sir Colin after he had topped two full length rehearsals with a full-on play through of the three last movements of the symphony. I commented to him that there weren't too many conductors of his status who would give up a day to rehearse a student orchestra. Back in a flash came his reply -'Oh you see, I don't worry about status'.

The student musicians really played their heart's out for Sir Colin. But, as my photo below shows, they do seem to have picked up some of the bad habits of their professional colleagues. (Why is it always the brass players?)


More on Sir Colin and Elgar 1 here.
Photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The composer conducts - badly?

In the summer of 1919 John Barbirolli was a member of the orchestra for Diaghilev's second post-war season of the Russian ballet ... His particular memory of this season, apart from the pleasure of playing in Stravinsky's Firebird and Petrushka, was of Diaghilev's insistence that Manuel de Falla should conduct his own ballet, Tricorne. Despite the composer's protestations that he was not competent to do it, Diaghilev almost dragged him to the pit at rehearsal. After a few bars they reached some cross-rhythms. Falla stopped beating so the orchestra stopped. 'No, no,' he cried, 'you go on.' He was totally unable to conduct the rhythms he had devised - from Barbirolli the authorised biography by Michael Kennedy.

No, my header photo is not Manuel de Falla; it's Michael Tippett conducting in St Louis in 1968. On March 2 I am playing a recording of Tippett conducting his Second Symphony on my Future Radio programme. Composers have rather a chequered history of conducting their own music, and Elgar, Stravinsky and Copland all received varying reviews for performances of their own works. In his autobiography Those Twentieth Century Blues Tippett confesses "But I don't have the real conductor's technical proficiency ... the main hazard I find is that I begin to listen to the playing as a composer and not as a conductor - which means I can lose my objective control of the performance: and I have to train myself not to go that way".

Tippett's Second Symphony is a notoriously difficult work to perform and the first performance in 1958 under Sir Adrian Boult actually broke down when the BBC Symphony Orchestra's string section lost its way in the complex first movement. But despite the difficulties and his own reservations about his conducting technique Tippett's own version, which was made with a somewhat more secure BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1993, has the Beethovenian energy that is manifestly lacking in Richard Hickox's later, and acclaimed, interpretation on Chandos. But, although Tippett's own recording is very fine, it wouldn't be my first choice; that accolade would go to Colin Davis' electrifying 1968 performance which still sounds fantastic on my Philips LP pressing. The timings of the two versions says it all, Tippett 36' 54", Davis 33' 29"

But judge for yourself how the composer conducts at 5.00pm Sunday March 2 UK time on Future Radio, with a transatlantic friendly repeat at 12.50am Monday March 3. The coupling with Tippett's Second Symphony is Arcangelo Corelli Concerto No 8 in G Minor 'Christmas Concerto'. Check the right-hand side-bar for the audio feed.

YouTube offers Tippett conducting The Midsummer Marriage, Stravinsky conducting The Firebird and best of all Elgar conducting the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Listen on Future Radio at 5.00pm every Sunday and 12.50am every Monday UK time in real time here (convert to local time zones here). Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Hallé birthday to you

Youth is certainly a state of mind in Manchester where the Hallé Orchestra is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding. Last night there was a celebratory concert presented by Dame Janet Baker (age 75) which included Ralph Vaughan William's Towards the Unknown Region and Edward Elgar's In the South (Alassio) as well as a 1996 Hallé comission, Thomas Adès' These Premises are Alarmed. Well done the Hallé for defying current music fashion and recognising that Elgar and Vaughan Williams did more than linger "lovingly over musical depictions of pastoral hills and fields, implicitly resisting the march of progress."

Hans Richter, Sir John Barbirolli and Mark Elder are the conductors usually associated with the Hallé. But my header photo shows Benjamin Britten rehearsing his Spring Symphony with them in Leeds in 1950. More on the Spring Symphony here.
Image credit Leeds classical music. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Then a wail for their sins

It's probably just me, but if I'm told that a piece of music is "uplifting" or "touches the core of what it is to be human", I run as fast as I can from it - comments Henry Holland on The composer without a shadow? Henry was writing in praise of Richard Strauss, and I wonder what he makes of the music of a contemporary and friend of Strauss', Edward Elgar?

This morning I attended a performance of Elgar's Piano Quintet led by pianist Ashley Wass, and, sorry Henry, but this is a work that is both uplifting and deeply human. Given the over-exposure of the Cello Concerto it is difficult to understand why Elgar's String Quartet and Piano Quintet aren't better known as all three works are from the same period.

They were written when the composer was living in a cottage called Brinkwells at Fittleworth in Sussex between 1917 and 1919. Near Elgar's cottage was a clump of dead trees that had been struck by lightning. Their branches were distorted into strange and almost human forms. Local legend said that impious Spanish monks had held black masses there, and as punishment had been struck down by lightning and turned into the withered trees. The ghostly shapes provided inspiration for both Elgar's Piano Quintet and String Quartet, and also his Violin Sonata. Elgar's wife Alice wrote of the Quintet in her diary:

'Wonderful weird beginning ... evidently reminiscent of sinister trees ... sad 'dispossesed' trees and their fate - or rather curse - which brought it on ... then a wail for their sins - wonderful.'

My header image of the trees at Fittleworth comes from the EMI recording of Elgar's chamber music by the Vellinger Quartet and Piers Lane. If you love the Cello Concerto but don't know these works you have a gap in your CD collection that needs filling.

In today's concert the Elgar was coupled with Frank Bridge's Piano Trio No. 2 from 1929. It is unfortunate that today Bridge is remembered mainly as Benjamin Britten's teacher. This late Piano Trio is a a tough, sinewy work that hovers tantalisingly between tonality and the chromaticism of Schoenberg. Forget the baggage associated with Bridge, this is one of several great works by him that should be recognised for their own merits.

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, and Elgar's music from his Brinkwells period is a painfull reminder of the carnage of war, as is Strauss' Metamorphosen. But some victims of the Holocaust are still forgotten, read about them here.
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Swollen orchestral manner and poor taste

'A lengthy, pompous, bourgeois sort of thing; it reflects the complacency and stodginess of the era of the antimacassar and pork-pie bonnets; it is affected by the poor taste and the swollen orchestral manner of the post-romantics' - Olin Downes reviews John Barbirolli's performance of Elgar's Second Symphony with the New York Philharmonic on 23rd March, 1939.

Music critics will always differ. George Bernard Shaw thought Elgar was carrying on Beethoven's business, and leading musicians had some interesting opinions about Elgar's music.
Sorry about the sleeve. This is one of the first CD releases of Boult's last recording of Elgar's masterly E flat symphony. EMI simply took the original LP artwork and ruined it with that logo. James the joiner is prancing around in Italy so the LP sleeve didn't get scanned in. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Happy birthday Sir Colin

Sir Colin Davis is 80 years old today. The following post, which I first ran last October, says it all.

Difficult to find the superlatives to describe last night's concert at Snape Maltings with Sir Colin Davis (left) conducting The Combined Orchestra of The Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. This brought together the top players from two of London's (and the world's) leading music conservatoires in a vast orchestra (14 cellos and 12 basses!) that filled the Maltings capacious stage and scarcely left Sir Colin room to make his way to the rostrum. Sir Colin revels in working with young players (his 2005 Prom with an orchestra drawn from the Royal Academy and Juilliard Schools was a highlight of the season) and he has worked regularly at both the Royal Academy and Guildhall.

The programme was Berloz's Overture Béatrice et Bénédict (a Davis speciality), Tchaikovsky's Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet, and in the second half Elgar's magnificent Symphony No 1 in A flat major. The 79 year old Sir Colin's Elgar is passionate and red-blooded, in fact close your eyes and you would have thought the conductor was the same age as the players. The intonation and attack of the orchestra belied the large number of players. And the sound, oh the sound ... We are so privileged to have Snape as our 'village hall'; it is brick, the auditorium only holds 700, there are no balconies, and even the seating eschews upholstery to preserve the warmth of the sound. The bottom registers in the packed hall last night were extraordinary, full bodied with real slam, but warm and glowing and never dry.

But above all it was the playing. It would be wrong to say that the quality matched that of the many big-name orchestras I heard at the Proms this year - this student orchestra knocked everyone of them, including the Berlin Philharmonic, into a cocked-hat. It really highlighted the folly of the 'London today, Edinburgh tomorrow' lifestyle of our professional orchestras. In Snape Maltings we heard spontaneity, commitment, enthusiasm and above all risk taking.

Last night rammed home that there is only one form of music, and that is live music. MP3s, CDs, iPods, YouTube and our other technology baubles are just pale shadows of the real thing. And the concert also rammed home that the future of live music making is safe in the hands of the young players of the Guildhall School, Royal Academy and all the other music colleges around the world. As we made our way out of the Maltings car park after the concert the young players passed us laughing, joking and buzzing with adrenalin as they boarded the fleet of buses to take them on the foggy late night 100 mile drive back from Suffolk to London. Elgar denied that there was any programme to his A flat major symphony, but told friends it expressed "a wide experience of human life with great love and massive hope for the future". Amen to that.

* Notable students of the Royal Academy of Music: Sir Harrison Birtwistle, John Dankworth, Lesley Garrett, Evelyn Glennie, Sir Elton John, Dame Felicity Lott, Joanna MacGregor, Michael Nyman and Sir Simon Rattle.

* Notable students of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama - Susan Chilcott, Dido, Sir James Galway, Dave Holland, Paul Lewis, Tasmin Little, Sir George Martin, Anne Sophie von Otter, Jacqueline du Pré, Bryn Terfel and Janice Watson.

* Sir Colin's live (Barbican) recording of Elgar 1 with a professional orchestra on LSO Live is highly recommended, available from Prelude Records and other good record stores.

Now read about the delight of the classical music industry.
Image credit: Lower photo is of Royal Academy players, but Royal Academy Aarhus, Denmark which by sheer coincidence takes us down another Overgrown Path. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Elgar - as much or as little as you require

The Dream of Gerontius and the two symphonies are Edward Elgar's masterpieces. But in this his 150th anniversary year, these works are missing completely from the BBC Proms, the self-styled 'world's greatest classical music festival'. Yet the same festival finds space for even more 'third pressing Mahler' (not my words) after last year's abundant crop.

But over in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, the Bard Music Festival (photo above) manages to include both The Dream of Gerontius and the E flat Symphony to huge acclaim, as part of a visionary celebration of Elgar's music.

Elgar once said "There is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require." Clearly upstate New Yorkers require more of it than London concert goers.

Now read about Elgar carrying on Beethoven's business.
Header photo shows the stunning Frank Gehry designed Fisher Centre for the Performing Arts at Bard College, NY. Photo credit Bard.edu. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The BBC - making great music available to all

Last week Nicholas Kenyon accused the BBC Trust of "undermining the BBC’s historic commitment to use every enlightened means to make great music available to all." This prompted a reader to email saying it would be an enlightened step to restore minimum levels of professionalism within Radio 3. Supporting this are a many examples of sloppy radio, one of which occured on April 3 2007, and has already entered into broadcasting folklore.

The lunchtime concert on that day was listed as a Mozart quartet followed by a Haydn quartet. That was the order that presenter Louise Fryer introduced the quartets, but the trouble was that the recordings was reversed. The on-air announcement introducing the Mozart quartet was followed by a performance of the Haydn quartet, and vice versa, and even the back announcements referred to the wrong item. No-one in the studio spotted the errors, and the recording of the concert available on Radio Player perpetuated the error. An apology was broadcast later in the afternoon, presumably after listener phone calls.

A comment on the BBC Radio 3 messageboard says it all - 'I recall it happening more often on Classic FM, where a broadcast of 'Beethoven's Emperor Concerto' consisted of the finale of a Mozart piano concerto followed by the first two movements of the Beethoven, with no sign afterwards that the presenter or producer had noticed the error. '

Fixed programme lengths are also causing very sloppy radio. A central concept of the original Third Programme was that the schedule should be the servant of the music, rather than vice versa. This concept has been abandoned in recent years, and I have already written here about the bizarre concert programmes resulting from attempts to fix Promenade Concerts to a ninety minute length plus interval.

The weekday evening concert on Radio 3 is now pre-recorded and fixed at a one hundred and five minute duration. This policy has truly made the music the servant of the schedule. On June 5 the Philharmonia's Elgar anniversary concert was shorn of its opening item to fit the time slot. The broadcast launched straight into the Violin Concerto, and the Serenade for Strings which opened the concert was broadcast separately eight hours before. On June 13 the stupidity ran the other way. The encore of Ravel's Bolero from the recorded Royal Festival Hall re-opening concert was broadcast two hours after the rest of the programme.

The general feeling of despair is echoed in this email from another reader ~ Hi, I've just come across your blog while looking for comments on the recent changes in Radio 3 and noticed that you have links to various radio stations. The main cultural and classical radio station in Poland is called Dwojka (Two) or Radio 2 and is really good. It somehow managed not to give in to any commercial pressures and serves well so-called high culture. You can also listen to it through internet. It is depressing to see how things have changed. About 6 years ago when I came to Britain the Polish station was about to be closed down (lack of funds) and I started listening to Radio 3. Now Radio 3 has transformed itself into something I simply cannot accept, while the Polish one is thriving. The link is: www.radio.com.pl/dwojka/ . Regards, Dorota

Emails like this, and the huge interest in my postings about the Radeo internet player, are clear evidence that Radio 3 listeners are voting with their feet. Thankfully there does seem to be an awareness of this at a senior level within the BBC. Here is the very qualified comment about the network made by the BBC Trust in the BBC Annual Report 2006/7 published this week: Radio 3 has seen a decline in reach over the last few years although share remains stable ... In early 2007 a number of schedule changes were made and we await with interest the impact of these on the network’s overall performance.

The problem with Radio 3 is not high culture versus dumbing-down. The problem is that to serious listeners it is now a popular station pretending to be serious. For less serious listeners it is a serious station pretending to be popular. And both audiences have spotted the lie. Radio 3 has irreversibly lost the serious music high ground. This has been taken by internet stations using the very technology that the BBC so arrogantly tried, and still tries, to claim its own. But giving in to commercial pressures and relinquishing the high ground has resulted in no audience gains against Classic FM. So the impact on the network's overall performance so eagerly awaited by the BBC Trust can only be negative.

Radio 3 today is like a wounded animal, and the BBC Trust needs to put it out of its agony. Sadly, the damage has been done, and the only way to end the agony is to complete the work of making the network a lavishly funded clone of Classic FM. The BBC can then stop pretending that the evening broadcasts are concerts, start hiring disc jockeys instead of knowledgeable presenters, present more commercial records as BBC recordings, make Petroc Trelawney network controller, give Norman Lebrecht free rein, and have Michael Ball singing Die schöne Müllerin at the BBC Proms. For the rest of us there is always internet radio.

Now read about a truly great BBC Radio 3 presenter.
The Popular Wireless cover is from December 1922. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Now try some delicious Thomas Ades

Thomas Adès' opera The Tempest is being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 from Covent Garden at 18.30 BST on Saturday 23rd June, follow this link for the webcast. Staying with Adès, if you find Elgar too romantic and pastoral try Adès' first string quartet Arcadiana. It was commissioned for the Cambridge Elgar Festival in 1994, and has a sublime tribute to Sir Edward in the form of seventeen bars in E flat, the key of 'Nimrod'. Not what you would expect from Adès, and quite delicious.

Thomas Adès' Arcadiana is on the EMI CD of his music Living Toys, available at budget price. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Whitewashing the history of music

'The 150th anniversary celebrations give the impression that the whole of Elgar’s reputation is based on the Cello Concerto: the Classic FM view of Elgar' writes David Derrick over on The Toynbee convector.

That's a view I totally agree with. On Friday Radio 3 started its Elgar celebration with a concert of his overture In The South, the Cello Concerto and the First Symphony, a typically unimaginative piece of BBC programming that made no attempt to place the composer in a wider context. Elgar was composing on the cusp between late-Romanticism and the twentieth-century. The anniversary programmes would have done him far more justice by juxtaposing his music with contemporaneous works such as Stravinsky's Fireworks, Webern's Passacaglia, Bloch's Suite for Viola and Orchestra, and the rarely played Symphonic Fantasia from Richard Strauss' opera Die Frau ohne Schatten.

Elgar's wonderful String Quartet and Piano Quintet were another missed opportunity. They deserve to be programmed, and could have been framed by music from those strange years of transition after the First World War, Bloch's Violin Sonata No. 1, Shostakovich's Five Preludes for Piano, and Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 2 . Sadly David Derrick's description 'The Classic FM view of Elgar' says it all.

Meanwhile another reader raises concerns about BBC Radio 4's new six week series The Making of Music which starts tomorrow with James Naughtie as presenter. The trailer for the first programme sets the Western, white and Christian agenda: 'It was in the churches and monasteries of the Christian world, from Constantinople in the East to Iona in Scotland, the building blocks of classical music were formed. These places were the crucibles of cultural and intellectual life - and, as we'll discover, classical music has always been bound up with the centres of power.'

The description of the next Making of Music programme then perpetuates another common error: 'As Notre Dame was being built, two men were writing the music that would fill it. They are the first named composers to come out of history, and their music still survives. Their names are Perotin and his pupil Leonin.' In fact Notre Dame was not consecrated until 1163, and Hildegard of Bingen, who lived in Germany from 1089-1179, is recognised as the first composer whose history and music are known.

Hardly acceptable at Classic FM, definitely not acceptable at the BBC. But, if you want the Western, Christian, white, male and inaccurate view listen to the first webcast of Radio 4's Making of Music at 3.45pm BST tomorrow June 3.

Meanwhile inclusiveness is also taking a hammering over at London's newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall. If you want to make a telephone booking for a concert you have to use a premium rate 0871 phone line, and you also get whacked for a £2 'transaction charge'. But that's not all. The top price for the Philharmonia's Mahler 3 on June 12 is £50, plus a £1.50 booking fee. And we wonder why audiences are down for classical music.

Now read more about music history rewritten.
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Elgar - carrying on Beethoven's business

Edward Elgar, the figurehead of music in England, is a composer whose rank it is neither prudent nor indeed possible to determine. Either it is one so high that only time and posterity can confer it, or else he is one of the Seven Humbugs of Christendom. Contemporary judgements are sound enough on Second Bests; but when it comes to Bests, they acclaim ephemerals as immortals, and simultaneously denounce immortals as pestilent charlatans.

Elgar has not left us any room to hedge. From the beginning, quite naturally and as a matter of course, he has played the great game and professed the Best. He has taken up the work of a great man so spontaneously that it is impossible to believe that he ever gave any consideration to the enormity of the assumption, or was even conscious of it. But there it is, unmistakeable. To the north countryman who, on hearing of Wordsworth's death, said 'I suppose his son will carry on the business' it would be plain today that Elgar is carrying on Beethoven's business. The names are up on the shop front for everyone to read. ELGAR late BEETHOVEN & CO, Classics and Italian Warehousemen. Symphonies, Overtures, Chamber Music, Oratorios, Bagatelles.

This. it will be seen, is a very different challenge from that of, say, Debussy and Stravinsky. You can rave about Stravinsky without the slightest risk of being classed as a lunatic by the next generation. Without really compromising yourself, you can declare the Aprés Midi d'un Faune the most delightful and enchanting orchestral piece ever written. But if you say that Elgar's Cockaigne overture combines every classic quality of the concert to Die Meistersinger you are either uttering a platitude as safe as a compliment to Handel on the majesty of the Hallelujah Chorus or else damning yourself to all critical posterity by a gaffe that will make your grandson blush for you.

Personally, I am prepared to take the risk. What do I care about my grandson? give me Cockaigne. But my recklessness cannot settle the question. It would be much easier if Cockaigne were genre music, with the Westminster chimes, snatches of Yip-i-addy, and a march of the costermongers to Covent Garden. Then we should know where we are: the case would be as simple as Gilbert and Sullivan. But there is nothing of the kind: the material of the overture is purely classical. You may hear all sorts of footsteps in it; and it may tell you all sorts of stories; but it is classical music as Beethoven's Les Adieux sonata is classical music: it tells you no story external to itself and yourself. Therefore who knows whether it appeals to the temporal or the eternal in us? in other words, whether it will be alive or dead in the twenty-first century?

George Bernard Shaw on Elgar in Music & Letters in 1920. Well the good news is that Sir Edward Elgar is very much alive in the twenty-first century, and we wish him a very happy one-hundred-and-fiftieth birthday today, June 2nd 2007.

Now read about Elgar - the first of the new
If the portrait of Elgar looks unfamiliar it is. It is by an unknown artist, the original hangs on my study wall and it has never been published before, copyright On An Overgrown Path. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Elgar - the first of the new

Elgar was the first of the new. Since Purcell, England had not produced a composer for the European common market. Against -much against- the background of academicians who were destined to remain dilettanti, there emerged a self-taught amateur destined to become a master.

At the time of Elgar's birth Brahms was 24, Dvorák was 16, and Wagner 44. When he died, Vaughan Williams was 62, Walton was 32, Britten was 20 and Schoenberg 60. Elgar's musical fathers were far away; many, almost all of them were of the Austo-German tradition, with Brahms, rather than Wagner, as the most powerful influence; and none of them English.

In a penetrating article in the current issue of Music and Letters Donald Mitchell goes so far as to submit 'that to find Elgar today specifically English in flavour is to expose oneself as the victim of a type of collective hallucination.' Elgar's early success on the Continent, and with Continentals, was indeed striking. It needed a Continental - Hans Richter - to introduce the Enigma Variations, The Dream of Gerontius and the first Symphony (dedicated to him) to English audiences, and Düsseldorf heard Gerontius before London.

Hans Keller writes in Music and Musicians in June 1957, and contradicts the currently fashionable view that Elgar was not appreciated outside England.

Now playing ...

The Dream of Gerontius conducted by Benjamin Britten. The decision of the 'East Anglican' Britten (left) to record Elgar's Gerontius, with its hardline Catholic text by Cardinal Newman, was a surprising one. As a young music student Britten recorded in his diary in February 1931 that he listened on the radio to '1 minute of Elgar Symphony 2 but can stand no more,' and a few months later he condemned the Enigma Variations for their 'sonorous orchestration' which 'cloys very soon'. But in his sleeve note for the original LP release the composer William Alwyn described Newman's text as a 'Passion Play', and this may have appealed to Britten the composer of church parables.

Britten conducted an Aldeburgh Festival performance of Gerontius on June 9 1971, and the recording was made in the same month in Snape Maltings. William Mann described the concert performance as 'urgent, unsentimental and totally lacking in bombast', and Alan Blyth described the original LP release as 'a searing re-creation of the drama that I find at all times involving and convincing...Britten removes the veneer of sentimentality, even sanctimoniousness, that has for long come between us and Elgar's compulsive vision.'

The 1971 recording made by Decca, with the 'dream' cast including Peter Pears (left) and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, is one of the classics of the gramophone. In the section that leads up to the life affirming chorus Praise to the Holiest in the height Britten shows his masterly control of the large forces, and the pre-digital sound is outstanding both for the lower registers and the three dimensional sound-stage captured by the Decca recording team. Elgar was a master composer, and Britten a master musician, this Dream of Gerontius is now back in the catalogue, buy it before it is again deleted.

Inclusiveness is out of fashion in classical music today, which means if contemporary music is your scene late-romantics like Elgar are the musical equivalent of dead meat. Next month we will be at Yoshi Oida's new production of Death in Venice in Snape Maltings. We should all remember that Britten recorded Elgar's great late-romantic masterpiece, Gerontius, in July 1971 in Snape Maltings while he was composing one of the great twentieth-century operas, Death in Venice, for performance in the same venue.

I started by quoting Hans Keller's view that Elgar was 'the first of the new'. We should also remember that Keller (left) championed Britten's music from the 1940s when it was still viewed as 'new' by the establishment. He was joint author of a Britten symposium in 1952, and the composer's 1975 String Quartet No. 3, with its last movement quote from Death in Venice, is inscribed to him. Britten died on December 7 1976, and his String Quartet No. 3 was given its first performance by the Amadeus Quartet two weeks later in Snape Maltings.

Benjamin Britten and Hans Keller recognised the greatness of Elgar's music. They also recognised the importance of inclusiveness, and embraced composers from Purcell to their twentieth-century contemporaries. Two very important messages as the 150th of Elgar's birth on Saturday June 2 approaches.

The music of Britain, and Britten ...

Hans Keller's headline, the first of the new, is a wordplay on the title of a patriotic 1942 film that Elgar would have approved of. The First of the Few was a biography of R.J. Mitchell (left), the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire (the film was renamed Spitfire for US release). The title comes from Winston Churchill who used these words to describe the Battle of Britain aircrews: "Never in the face of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few." And this overgrown path leads us to another great twentieth-century English composer; the soundtrack of The First of the Few, including the famous Spitfire Prelude and Fugue, was written by William Walton.

Contemporary music was as bitchy in the early twentieth-century as it is today. Elgar was not a fan of Walton's music, and said about Walton's Viola Concerto that the composer had murdered the poor unfortunate instrument. Elgar and Walton only met once, according to Lady Walton it was in the lavatory at a Worcester Three Choirs Festival concert. After the Second World War Walton fell out with Britten and Pears, and supposedly said that the all-male Billy Budd should be retitled The Bugger’s Opera or Twilight of the Sods (original production shot above).

Another late-twentieth-century composer who was a surprising champion of Elgar was Michael Tippett whose overseas concerts often included Elgar's music. In his autobiography (Hutchinson ISBN 009175307) Tippett describes a "stunning" Enigma Variations in Brussels with him conducting his beloved Leicester School Symphony Orchestra, and tells how 'afterwards a Belgian composer came to me and said, "What an extraordinary work - more interesting than Brahms' St Anthony Variations!"', and Tippett describes another Enigma played by the Saint Louis Symphony in 1968 under his baton as "one of the best performances (of the work) in the USA I guess". Tippett (left) was inclusiveness personified and embraced everything from Tallis (he made the first-ever recording of Spem in alium in 1948) through Elgar to the blues. But he also shared some of Walton's reservations about Billy Budd. Tippett stayed at Britten's house in Aldeburgh while the opera was being composed and told the story of 'a marvellous remark in the libretto - I think it got changed - when they were going to clear the decks in order to let off the gun, and the wonderful order, given by Claggart or somebody, "Clear the decks of seamen" I roared with laughter!'

Walton may have been irreverent about Billy Budd, but when the chips were down he came to Britten's aid. In 1942, the same year as The First of the Few was made, Walton appeared as a supporting witness at Britten's successful appeal for registration as a Conscientous Objectors. Britten's pacifism, like Tippett's, was controversial, but if his appeal had failed Britten could well have joined young composers such as Ivor Gurney and George Butterworth whose careers had been cut short by the previous World War, and who were lamented in the elegiac 1919 Cello Concerto of Edward Elgar. Which is where this path started.

For more on Elgar read the excruciating boredom of pure fact.
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My reputation is safe in your hands

Today's Lebrecht-style attack by Sakari Oramo - or was it his orchestra's spin-doctor? - on Sir Adrian Boult cannot pass unremarked. In the Guardian Oramo writes about the 'stoic stodginess' of Boult's Elgar. This is a surprising comment from the current principal conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as Sir Adrian Boult was both chief conductor of the orchestra from 1924 to 1930 and an acclaimed interpreter of Elgar's music. After a 1920 performance of the Second Symphony conducted by Boult the composer wrote to him saying: 'I feel that my reputation in the future is safe in your hands. It was a wonderful series of sounds. Bless you!'

I have not had the pleasure of hearing Sakari Oramo's performances of Elgar, but I am sure they are very fine. But I can assure him that I heard many live performances of Elgar conducted by Boult and 'stoic stodginess' are the last words I would use to describe them. But then I don't think Oramo would know about his live performances. The last time Sir Adrian conducted in the concert hall was on October 12 1977, when Oramo was 12.

After his last concert appearance in London Sir Adrian conducted several more ballet performances of Elgar's music (The Sanguine Fan and Enigma Variations). He also continued to record, and on December 20 1978 completed the sessions at EMI's Abbey Road Studios for an LP of Sir Hubert Parry's Symphonic Variations, Fifth Symphony and Lament for Brahms. We knew this was to be the last ever recording session for the 89 year-old conductor, and he kindly signed and dated my copy of his autobiography, seen above, after the session on that historic day.

Sir Adrian Boult was both a wonderful musican and one of the greatest-ever interpreters of Elgar's music. He was a conductor who built his reputation in the concert hall and on record, not by making silly comments in newspaper articles.

Now read an exclusive on the mystery of Elgar's Violin Concerto.
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Let's hear it for the advertorial

It's goodbye great music journalism and hallo 'advertorial'. For confirmation look no further than today's Guardian film and music supplement which devotes its front page and a full inside page to two Elgar stories. The main article is a reheating of the familiar story about Elgar not being appreciated outside England spiced-up with a few snide comments about authoritative Elgar interpreters.

The byline of this page 3 lead story is Sakari Oramo, principal conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). But the copy, which plugs CBSO performances of the Dream of Gerontius and makes the case for a biennial Elgar festival (hosted by the CBSO perhaps?) is all too obviously written by the orchestra's PR department. At least the 'advertorial' source is transparent, the piece ends with the footer - The CBSO plays The Dream of Gerontius at Symphony Hall, Birmingham (0121-780 3333) on June 1.

Below the CBSO puff is yet another Elgar 'reappraisal', this time by David Pownall, which reheats the critical rejection of the composer's Second Symphony. Again the advertorial source is obvious from the footer - David Pownall's Elgar Rondo is broadcast on Radio 3 on June 3 at 8.30pm. Details of Radio 3's Elgar programming are at bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/elgar.

It's a pity that Guardian Arts Editor Charlotte Higgins didn't spend the money saved from journalists fees on copy checkers. The previous day's Guardian story about the newly published photos of Hitler at Bayreuth said: The photographer was hosted by the chairman of the Bayreuth chamber of commerce, who was a member of Hitler's inner circle - as was British-born Winifred Wagner, the composer's widow. Readers of my recent article Phantom of the Opera will know, of course, that Winifred was not Richard Wagner's widow, she was the wife of the composer's son Siegfried.

Elsewhere in today's Guardian Andrew Clements shows that music journalism can be more than toothless advertorials. In his review of ECM's new recording of Valentin Silvestrov's Sixth Symphony Clements writes -

Though the ECM catalogue embraces a huge range of contemporary composers, from Lachenmann and Kurtag to Steve Reich and Meredith Monk, it has a weakness for the composers of the post-Shostakovich generation from the former Soviet Union. One of those is the Ukraine-born (in 1937) Valentin Silvestrov, who in the 1970s seems to have flirted with compositional techniques imported from the western European avant garde before settling upon the limply anecdotal style of his later works. One of those is the achingly empty Sixth Symphony, completed in 1995, which takes up this disc. It's built in an arch form, with linked pairs of movements flanking the central 25-minute one that begins with a reminiscence of the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony. Unfortunately, Silvestrov lacks Mahler's gifts as a melodist or as a musical architect, and like the other movements this lapses into posturing gestures. The over-heated essays in the CD booklet do Silvestrov few favours either.

Great music journalism from Andrew Clements, but the over-heated essays elsewhere in the Guardian do Elgar few favours either. Why not let the music critics write the features and the orchestras play the concerts?

Now read more about Guardian advertorials
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Variations on an original theme

"Elgar is not a major figure in music history and we make a mockery of ourselves as a nation if we pretend that he is," said Mr Lebrecht - in today's Telegraph.

"Lebrecht is not a major figure in music journalism and we make a mockery of ourselves as a nation if we pretend that he is," said Mr Pliable - in today's On An Overgrown Path.

Now read, quite appropriately, about the excruciating boredom of pure fact.
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Classical music flowers in springtime Britain

Academy of Ancient Music, Chief Executive - £na
The Conservatoire, Director of Music - £32k
Scottish Ballet, Head of Development - £32 - 38k
Music at Oxford, General Manager - £na
London Symphony Orchestra, Head of LSO Discovery - £38 - 43k
Britten Sinfonia, Marketing Director - £na
London Sinfonietta, Development & Marketing Managers - £na

It's a beautiful spring day here, and the header photo was taken five minutes ago in our garden. On BBC Radio 3 this afternoon was a stunning performance by Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra of that British masterpiece, Elgar's Symphony No 2 in E flat major. Today's Media Guardian lists the music vacancies above. Last Saturday we heard the Pergolesi Stabat Mater and Rachmaninov Vespers in Norwich Cathedral. On Friday it's Prokofiev and Stravinsky at Snape, and on Saturday Schütz and Pärt in Blythburgh Church.

But it's all a mirage. Read here about the death of live classical music, and here about the death of the recording industry.
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