Editing Edward Elgar (section)

===Reputation===
[[File:Edward Elgar, by Percival Hedley, 1905.jpg|upright|alt=Black bust of white man with large moustache|thumb|Elgar, by Percival Hedley, 1905]]
Views of Elgar's stature have varied in the decades since his music came to prominence at the beginning of the twentieth century. Richard Strauss, as noted, hailed Elgar as a progressive composer; even the hostile reviewer in ''The Observer'', unimpressed by the thematic material of the First Symphony in 1908, called the orchestration "magnificently modern".<ref>"Music – The Elgar Symphony", ''[[The Observer]]'', 13 December 1908, p. 9</ref> Hans Richter rated Elgar as "the greatest modern composer" in any country, and Richter's colleague Arthur Nikisch considered the First Symphony "a masterpiece of the first order" to be "justly ranked with the great symphonic models – Beethoven and Brahms."<ref name=mt322/> By contrast, the critic [[Walter J. Turner|W. J. Turner]], in the mid-twentieth century, wrote of Elgar's "[[Salvation Army]] symphonies,"<ref name=cox>Cox, pp. 15–16</ref> and [[Herbert von Karajan]] called the ''Enigma Variations'' "second-hand Brahms".<ref>Kennedy, Michael, "Holst", ''Gramophone'', December 1990, p. 82</ref> Elgar's immense popularity was not long-lived. After the success of his First Symphony and Violin Concerto, his Second Symphony and Cello Concerto were politely received but without the earlier wild enthusiasm. His music was identified in the public mind with the [[Edwardian era]], and after the First World War he no longer seemed a progressive or modern composer. In the early 1920s, even the First Symphony had only one London performance in more than three years.<ref name=dnb/> Wood and younger conductors such as Boult, Sargent and Barbirolli championed Elgar's music, but in the recording catalogues and the concert programmes of the middle of the century his works were not well represented.<ref name=grove/><ref name=esw>Sackville-West, pp. 253–57</ref>

In 1924, the music scholar [[Edward Joseph Dent|Edward J. Dent]] wrote an article for a German music journal in which he identified four features of Elgar's style that gave offence to a section of English opinion (namely, Dent indicated, the academic and snobbish section): "too emotional", "not quite free from vulgarity", "pompous", and "too deliberately noble in expression".<ref name=howes>Howes, pp. 165–67</ref> This article was reprinted in 1930 and caused controversy.<ref>Hale, Alfred M., "The Elgar Protest", ''The Musical Times'', April 1931, p. 350; King, C. W. and Kaikhosru Sorabji, "The Elgar Protest", ''The Musical Times'', May 1931, pp. 443–44; Lorenz, Robert, John Levy and John F. Porte, "The Elgar Protest", ''The Musical Times'', June 1931, pp. 542–43; Veritas, "Mr. Maine and Elgar", ''The Musical Times'', March 1932, p. 259; Maine, Basil, "Mr. Maine and Elgar", ''The Musical Times'', April 1932, p. 354; and Veritas, "Mr. Maine and Elgar", ''The Musical Times'', May 1932, p. 450</ref> In the later years of the century there was, in Britain at least, a revival of interest in Elgar's music. The features that had offended austere taste in the inter-war years were seen from a different perspective. In 1955, the reference book ''[[The Record Guide]]'' wrote of the Edwardian background during the height of Elgar's career:
{{Blockquote|Boastful self-confidence, emotional vulgarity, material extravagance, a ruthless philistinism expressed in tasteless architecture and every kind of expensive yet hideous accessory: such features of a late phase of Imperial England are faithfully reflected in Elgar's larger works and are apt to prove indigestible today. But if it is difficult to overlook the bombastic, the sentimental, and the trivial elements in his music, the effort to do so should nevertheless be made, for the sake of the many inspired pages, the power and eloquence and lofty pathos, of Elgar's best work.&nbsp;... Anyone who doubts the fact of Elgar's genius should take the first opportunity of hearing ''The Dream of Gerontius'', which remains his masterpiece, as it is his largest and perhaps most deeply felt work; the symphonic study, ''Falstaff''; the Introduction and Allegro for Strings; the ''Enigma Variations''; and the Violoncello Concerto.<ref name=esw/>}}

By the 1960s, a less severe view was being taken of the Edwardian era. In 1966 the critic [[Frank Howes]] wrote that Elgar reflected the last blaze of opulence, expansiveness and full-blooded life, before World War I swept so much away. In Howes's view, there was a touch of vulgarity in both the era and Elgar's music, but "a composer is entitled to be judged by posterity for his best work.&nbsp;... Elgar is historically important for giving to English music a sense of the orchestra, for expressing what it felt like to be alive in the Edwardian age, for conferring on the world at least four unqualified masterpieces, and for thereby restoring England to the comity of musical nations."<ref name=howes/>

[[File:Sibelius-strauss-RVW-stravinsky.jpg|thumb|right|Composers who admired Elgar included (top) [[Jean Sibelius|Sibelius]] (l) and [[Richard Strauss]] and (below) [[Ralph Vaughan Williams|Vaughan Williams]] (l) and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]]|alt=head and shoulders portraits of four men. One is bald; one is balding and luxuriantly moustached; one is a drawing of a young man in full face, with a full head of hair, in collar and tie; the fourth shows a young man, balding and bespectacled looking towards the camera]]
In 1967 the critic and analyst [[David Cox (composer)|David Cox]] considered the question of the supposed Englishness of Elgar's music. Cox noted that Elgar disliked folk-songs and never used them in his works, opting for an idiom that was essentially German, leavened by a lightness derived from French composers including Berlioz and Gounod. How then, asked Cox, could Elgar be "the most English of composers"? Cox found the answer in Elgar's own personality, which "could use the alien idioms in such a way as to make of them a vital form of expression that was his and his alone. And the personality that comes through in the music is English."<ref name=cox/> This point about Elgar's transmuting his influences had been touched on before. In 1930 ''The Times'' wrote, "When Elgar's first symphony came out, someone attempted to prove that its main tune on which all depends was like the Grail theme in Parsifal.&nbsp;... but the attempt fell flat because everyone else, including those who disliked the tune, had instantly recognized it as typically 'Elgarian', while the Grail theme is as typically Wagnerian."<ref>"Pre-war Symphonies", ''The Times'', 1 February 1930, p. 10</ref> As for Elgar's "Englishness", his fellow-composers recognised it: Richard Strauss and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] made particular reference to it,<ref name=mt322/> and [[Jean Sibelius|Sibelius]] called him "the personification of the true English character in music&nbsp;... a noble personality and a born aristocrat".<ref name=mt322>Sibelius, Jean, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss and Arthur Nikisch, "Tribute and Commentary", ''The Musical Times'', April 1934, p. 322</ref>
Among Elgar's admirers there is disagreement about which of his works are to be regarded as masterpieces. The ''Enigma Variations'' are generally counted among them.<ref>Reed, p. 180; Kennedy (ODNB), McVeagh (Grove), Sackville-West, p. 254; and in a centenary symposium in 1957 a variety of composers, scholars and performers, include ''Enigma'' among their favourite Elgar works. See Vaughan Williams, Ralph, [[John Ireland (composer)|John Ireland]], [[Julius Harrison]], [[Arthur Bliss]], [[Herbert Howells]], [[Gordon Jacob]], [[Jack Westrup]], [[Edmund Rubbra]], [[Steuart Wilson]], [[Patrick Hadley]], [[Herbert Sumsion]], Frank Howes, [[Eric Blom]], [[George Dyson (composer)|George Dyson]], [[Thomas Armstrong (conductor)|Thomas Armstrong]], W. Greenhouse Allt, [[Edric Cundell]], [[Ernest Bullock]], R. J. F. Howgill, Maurice Johnstone and Eric Warr, "Elgar Today", ''The Musical Times'', June 1957, pp. 302–06.</ref> ''The Dream of Gerontius'' has also been given high praise by Elgarians,<ref name=dg>Sackville-West, Mc Veagh (Grove), Kennedy (ODNB), Reed ("perhaps the greatest work of its kind in English music", p. 61), and Vaughan Williams, Ralph, and others, "Elgar Today", ''The Musical Times'', June 1957, pp. 302–06.</ref> and the Cello Concerto is similarly rated.<ref name=dg/> Many rate the Violin Concerto equally highly, but some do not. Sackville-West omitted it from the list of Elgar masterpieces in ''The Record Guide'',<ref>Sackville West, p. 254</ref> and in a long analytical article in ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'', [[Daniel Gregory Mason]] criticised the first movement of the concerto for a "kind of sing-songiness&nbsp;... as fatal to noble rhythm in music as it is in poetry."<ref name=mason>Mason, Daniel Gregory, "A Study of Elgar", ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'', April 1917, pp. 288–303</ref> ''Falstaff'' also divides opinion. It has never been a great popular favourite,<ref>"Elgar", ''Music and Letters'', April 1934, p. 109</ref> and Kennedy and Reed identify shortcomings in it.<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 35; and Reed, p. 151</ref> In a ''Musical Times'' 1957 centenary symposium on Elgar led by Vaughan Williams, by contrast, several contributors share [[Eric Blom]]'s view that ''Falstaff'' is the greatest of all Elgar's works.<ref name=sympo>Vaughan Williams, Ralph, and others, "Elgar Today",''The Musical Times'', June 1957, pp. 302–06</ref>

The two symphonies divide opinion even more sharply. Mason rates the Second poorly for its "over-obvious rhythmic scheme", but calls the First "Elgar's masterpiece.&nbsp;... It is hard to see how any candid student can deny the greatness of this symphony."<ref name=mason/> However, in the 1957 centenary symposium, several leading admirers of Elgar express reservations about one or both symphonies.<ref name=sympo/> In the same year, [[Roger Fiske]] wrote in ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|The Gramophone]]'', "For some reason few people seem to like the two Elgar symphonies equally; each has its champions and often they are more than a little bored by the rival work."<ref>Fiske, Roger, "Elgar, Symphony No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 63", ''Gramophone'', July 1957, p. 9</ref> The critic [[John Warrack]] wrote, "There are no sadder pages in symphonic literature than the close of the First Symphony's Adagio, as horn and trombones twice softly intone a phrase of utter grief",<ref>Warrack, John, "Three English Masters", ''Gramophone'', March 1984, p. 21</ref> whereas to Michael Kennedy, the movement is notable for its lack of anguished yearning and ''angst'' and is marked instead by a "benevolent tranquillity."<ref>Kennedy (1970), p. 56</ref>

Despite the fluctuating critical assessment of the various works over the years, Elgar's major works taken as a whole have in the twenty-first century recovered strongly from their neglect in the 1950s. ''The Record Guide'' in 1955 could list only one currently available recording of the First Symphony, none of the Second, one of the Violin Concerto, two of the Cello Concerto, two of the ''Enigma Variations'', one of ''Falstaff'', and none of ''The Dream of Gerontius''. Since then there have been multiple recordings of all the major works. More than thirty recordings have been made of the First Symphony since 1955, for example, and more than a dozen of ''The Dream of Gerontius''.<ref>Farach-Colton, Andrew, "Vision of the Hereafter," ''Gramophone'', February 2003, p. 39</ref> Similarly, in the concert hall, Elgar's works, after a period of neglect, are once again frequently programmed. The [[Elgar Society]]'s website, in its diary of forthcoming performances, lists performances of Elgar's works by orchestras, soloists and conductors across Europe, North America and Australasia.<ref>[http://www.elgar.org/4welcome.htm "An Elgar Musical Diary"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706015905/http://www.elgar.org/4welcome.htm |date=6 July 2011 }}, The Elgar Society. Retrieved 5 June 2010.</ref>