Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:17,480
RAPID MUSIC FOR STRINGS
2
00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:23,320
When Elgar was a boy, he spent hours on his own,
3
00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:26,920
riding on his father's pony along the ridges of the Malvern Hills.
4
00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:10,520
Elgar was born in 1857,
5
00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:15,560
in the shadow of the hills which were to have such an influence on his music all through his life.
6
00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:18,080
There was little enough in his circumstances
7
00:02:18,080 --> 00:02:21,560
to suggest the future Sir Edward Elgar, Master of the King's Music.
8
00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:24,640
He grew up in Worcester, a stuffy enough place in those days,
9
00:02:24,640 --> 00:02:28,680
a place for the rich and the well-to-do and the Elgars were neither.
10
00:02:28,680 --> 00:02:30,680
Their social status was clear.
11
00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:32,920
They were a lower middle-class family.
12
00:02:32,920 --> 00:02:36,160
Elgar's father kept a little music shop in the high street.
13
00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:38,400
By trade he was a piano tuner.
14
00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:42,000
Elgar was almost entirely self-taught.
15
00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,280
HE PLAYS TRUMPET
16
00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:49,320
His teachers were the books and instruments lying about in the shop.
17
00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:51,360
HE PLAYS THE FLUTE
18
00:02:54,560 --> 00:02:59,000
He was apparently one of those people to whom playing an instrument came naturally.
19
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,440
HE PLAYS THE VIOLIN
20
00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:09,480
He said later that his knowledge of orchestration was founded
21
00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:11,520
on these childhood experiences.
22
00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:13,880
BELL RINGS
23
00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:18,800
PIANO PLAYS
24
00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:21,240
The family lived above the shop.
25
00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:24,080
Father, mother and five children - all musical.
26
00:03:24,080 --> 00:03:26,360
They had musical evenings twice a week.
27
00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:32,120
Elgar's first-known composition was a song he wrote for his sister Lucy to sing on her 21st birthday.
28
00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:33,760
He was 15.
29
00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:38,400
He wrote the words as well as the music and it was called The Language Of Flowers.
30
00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:43,720
# The rose is a sign of joy and love
31
00:03:43,720 --> 00:03:49,120
# Young blushing love in its earliest dawn
32
00:03:49,120 --> 00:03:55,160
# And the mildness that suits the gentle dove
33
00:03:55,160 --> 00:04:00,160
# From the myrtle snowy flower is drawn
34
00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:08,480
# And the mildness that suits the gentle dove
35
00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:17,560
# From the myrtle snowy flower is dra-awn. #
36
00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:21,760
He wrote music for everybody in the household, including a two-part fugue
37
00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:26,960
which he wrote for a lodger who played the violin and for his brother Frank who played the oboe.
38
00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:29,000
THEY PLAY VIOLIN AND OBOE DUET
39
00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:36,920
This was an academic exercise.
40
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:40,560
But there was no question of his going to any academy or university.
41
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:44,000
And at 15 or 16 he started to serve behind the counter
42
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:45,640
at his father's shop.
43
00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:50,520
He became a high-spirited and very boisterous young man, much given to what he called japes -
44
00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:54,920
dressing up and jumping out of trees on to the backs of his friends and so on.
45
00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:56,960
CHORAL AND ORGAN MUSIC
46
00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:01,840
On Sundays he played the organ at the Catholic church.
47
00:05:01,840 --> 00:05:04,080
He was born and bred a Roman Catholic
48
00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:08,440
and it was no accident that the motets and anthems he wrote for this church
49
00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:14,280
are the first works which reveal the note of an independent musical mind in the making.
50
00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:07,280
THEY PLAY ORCHESTRAL PIECE
51
00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:16,920
He also took up small-time conducting.
52
00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:23,320
His first official conducting appointment
53
00:06:23,320 --> 00:06:26,440
was with the band of the local Powick Lunatic Asylum
54
00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:28,360
for whom he also wrote the music.
55
00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:32,600
TRUMPET SOLO
56
00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:57,120
ORCHESTRA PLAYS
57
00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:31,360
Elgar walked the three miles to the asylum
58
00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:33,200
twice a week for seven years.
59
00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:36,480
For every quadrille and polka he was paid five shillings.
60
00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:41,160
For accompaniments to the black and white minstrel songs, then in fashion, he got 1/6.
61
00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:43,800
Serious composing was still a dream.
62
00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:46,840
By now he was becoming much in demand as a music teacher.
63
00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:49,400
And what with that and his bold good looks,
64
00:07:49,400 --> 00:07:51,440
he cut quite a dashing figure.
65
00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:54,480
With four friends he formed a serenading group.
66
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:57,440
Elgar wrote the music and played the bassoon
67
00:07:57,440 --> 00:08:02,600
and they played, either for their own amusement, or in a mildly flirtatious way to young women
68
00:08:02,600 --> 00:08:04,440
of their acquaintance.
69
00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:07,360
WOODWIND QUINTET PLAYS
70
00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:25,480
MUSIC PLAYS
71
00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:43,680
In 1886 when he was 29
72
00:08:43,680 --> 00:08:46,800
Elgar met the woman who was to transform his life.
73
00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:51,040
For 10 years his horizon had been firmly bounded by the Malvern Hills.
74
00:08:51,040 --> 00:08:53,280
He was full of music and full of ambition
75
00:08:53,280 --> 00:08:56,320
but somehow lacked the drive to cut himself loose.
76
00:08:56,320 --> 00:08:58,600
Miss Roberts was to change all this.
77
00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:02,440
Caroline Alice was her name and she was a Major-General's daughter.
78
00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:06,280
Eight years older than Elgar, she'd taken lessons on the piano from him
79
00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:09,920
and like many pupils before her she fell in love with him.
80
00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:13,720
She'd been brought up in a family dedicated to the ideal of service
81
00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:17,160
but hitherto her life, though earnest, had seemed purposeless.
82
00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:20,200
Now she'd found a cause and a worthy one at that.
83
00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:24,280
She would marry Elgar and make him a great composer.
84
00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:27,120
MUSIC: "Salut d'Amour"
85
00:09:47,840 --> 00:09:50,840
Her influence on Elgar's music was immediate.
86
00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:56,040
This piece, Salut d'Amour, was written by Elgar as an engagement present for her.
87
00:09:56,040 --> 00:09:59,080
MUSIC: "Salut d'Amour" - orchestral version
88
00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:32,800
"We rode up to the beacon on donkeys," Elgar wrote on a postcard. "Never have I been so happy."
89
00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:37,600
"I must tell you," he wrote to another friend, "what a dear, loving companion I have,
90
00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:43,160
"and how sweet everything seems and how understandable existence seems to have grown."
91
00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:05,320
It was a long and difficult courtship.
92
00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:08,240
Alice had the hostility of her family to contend with.
93
00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:11,680
They disapproved violently of her marrying this music teacher
94
00:11:11,680 --> 00:11:14,520
with his boisterous ways and his dubious prospects.
95
00:11:14,520 --> 00:11:18,200
Who was, moreover, a tradesman's son and a Roman Catholic.
96
00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:38,280
MUSIC: "Salut d'Amour"
97
00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:17,120
Against all opposition, they were finally married in 1889.
98
00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:19,400
He was 32 and she was 40
99
00:12:19,400 --> 00:12:22,600
and she was immediately disinherited by her family.
100
00:12:22,600 --> 00:12:26,440
They spent their honeymoon placidly at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight.
101
00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:32,480
Elgar gave up all his teaching jobs in Worcestershire
102
00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:35,560
and full of hopes for the future they set out for London.
103
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:42,240
Their plan, Mrs Elgar's plan,
104
00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:46,080
was to finish with music teaching and concentrate on composing.
105
00:12:46,080 --> 00:12:49,520
But London in 1890 was not impressed by Mr Elgar from Worcester.
106
00:12:49,520 --> 00:12:54,360
At his wife's suggestion, he brought with him a whole portfolio of compositions -
107
00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:56,920
solemn music mostly like Salut d'Amour -
108
00:12:56,920 --> 00:13:00,200
and these he sent off to a dozen different publishers.
109
00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:03,040
There was little he could do except sit back and wait.
110
00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:08,800
And as the manuscripts were returned with a deadening regularity, their optimism slowly drained away.
111
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:10,880
It was an anxious time.
112
00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:14,680
There was no income coming in and they couldn't afford their lease.
113
00:13:14,680 --> 00:13:20,200
Mrs Elgar was now pregnant and couldn't conceal her anxiety and depression from her diary.
114
00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:22,440
All her plans were coming to nothing.
115
00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:32,640
At long last a chance came his way.
116
00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:37,320
Elgar was invited to rehearse one of his pieces with a big London orchestra.
117
00:13:37,320 --> 00:13:42,840
If it was liked, it would be performed at one of the promenade concerts held at Covent Garden.
118
00:13:42,840 --> 00:13:44,240
It was a turning point.
119
00:13:53,440 --> 00:13:55,680
Elgar arrived at the opera house
120
00:13:55,680 --> 00:14:00,120
and had to wait till the orchestra finished its routine rehearsal.
121
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:03,560
He'd already been waiting some time when an official spoke to him.
122
00:14:03,560 --> 00:14:07,120
The great Sir Arthur Sullivan had arrived unexpectedly
123
00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:10,280
and wanted to run through things with the orchestra,
124
00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:15,920
so there was not question of Mr Elgar's music being tried out. He was so very sorry.
125
00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:24,480
He became ill as well as depressed.
126
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:28,200
He suffered a good deal from a septic wisdom tooth
127
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:33,040
and his eyes began to trouble him which would last all his life. He went to as many concerts as he could,
128
00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:38,960
and practised the violin for many hours a day, but recognition as a composer did not come.
129
00:14:38,960 --> 00:14:42,160
Desperate for work, he advertised in the London press
130
00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:45,600
offering himself as a teacher of violin and orchestration.
131
00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:48,120
He didn't get a single reply.
132
00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:53,800
Mrs Elgar was no happier
133
00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:58,040
and she was forced to sell some of her own pieces of personal jewellery.
134
00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:03,560
It was a sacrifice and it wasn't enough to keep them warm. "The winter has been truly awful," wrote Elgar.
135
00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:08,000
"The fogs are terrifying and make us very ill. Yesterday all day
136
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,760
"and today until two we've been in a sort of yellow darkness."
137
00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:14,200
Mrs Elgar noted in her diary,
138
00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:19,560
"This was the coldest day I have ever felt. It was the last day of 1890.
139
00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:21,600
"I could have died with the cold."
140
00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:27,320
There was only one thing to do and that was to cut their losses.
141
00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:30,760
The "house to let" sign went up in their home in West Kensington
142
00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:36,120
and the Elgars, disillusioned and despondent, went back to Worcestershire.
143
00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:47,400
There was no pony any more, but Elgar bought himself a bike
144
00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:51,600
and despite all setbacks, almost certainly felt an enormous relief.
145
00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:42,880
Elgar's head was still full of great orchestral themes,
146
00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:46,240
not one of which he'd so far ever heard played.
147
00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:50,360
"My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around me,"
148
00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:56,040
he once said. "I do all my composing in the open. At home, all I have to do is write it down."
149
00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:50,720
They re-established themselves in Malvern
150
00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:55,520
and Elgar went back to teaching. The long climb to recognition began once more.
151
00:17:55,520 --> 00:17:58,360
Life was dull, provincial and frustrating
152
00:17:58,360 --> 00:18:03,680
teaching schoolgirls to play the violin and conducting amateurs in poky choirs and orchestras.
153
00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:07,280
After the birth of their daughter, his wife was always by his side.
154
00:18:07,280 --> 00:18:10,600
She played the piano at his music lessons, kept the accounts
155
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:13,800
and neglected no occasion to push her husband forward.
156
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:16,760
She was absolutely determined that he should be a success.
157
00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:20,640
Elgar himself was full of doubt about his chances of getting a hearing,
158
00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:24,080
but she remained quietly and relentlessly persistent.
159
00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:29,000
She wrote to music publishers, corrected the proofs of such little pieces that he got accepted
160
00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:32,080
and even ruled out the music staves on plain paper
161
00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:35,120
because they couldn't afford the proper manuscript.
162
00:18:35,120 --> 00:18:38,200
She forced him to work when it would have been easy to give up.
163
00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:41,480
The music began to flow and in A Serenade For Strings
164
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:44,520
written to celebrate their third wedding anniversary,
165
00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:48,040
it was a new and richer stream of melody than ever before.
166
00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:21,760
In the year that he composed the Serenade For Strings,
167
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:25,320
Elgar took a job as a violinist at the Three Choirs Festival
168
00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:31,120
because, as he wrote in his diary, "I could obtain no recognition as a composer."
169
00:20:40,520 --> 00:20:44,320
Four years later, and he was 39 by now,
170
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:46,400
public recognition still hadn't come.
171
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:51,000
His background, his lack of connections and his religion were all against him.
172
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:54,640
Perhaps it was his wife who suggested a new line of attack, who knows?
173
00:20:54,640 --> 00:21:00,600
But in the spring of 1897, working in a bell tent that had belonged to the Major General, his father-in-law,
174
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:05,640
he composed an Imperial March in honour of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
175
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:33,600
For some reason, this march, now virtually forgotten,
176
00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:37,160
immediately caught the public imagination in that Jubilee year.
177
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:41,960
It was played everywhere and reflected the buoyant spirits and appetite for imperial glory
178
00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:45,360
that were very much part of Elgar's complicated make up.
179
00:21:45,360 --> 00:21:48,640
It was frankly popular music and it matched the mood of the day.
180
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:51,520
IMPERIAL MARCH PLAYS
181
00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:14,120
The Imperial March was a success.
182
00:22:14,120 --> 00:22:17,680
It brought passing glory but nothing in the way of hard cash.
183
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:21,160
Nevertheless, money or no money, he went on composing.
184
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:24,440
He rented a little cottage which looked out onto the Malvern Hills
185
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:27,600
and this was to be his powerhouse for the next ten years.
186
00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:30,280
Here he wrote Caractacus, the Enigma Variations
187
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:32,840
and in 1900, The Dream of Gerontius.
188
00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:36,400
They went without fires for 12 months while he was composing it.
189
00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:41,320
The text was a poem by Cardinal Newman which Elgar had been given on his wedding day.
190
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:43,680
It tells of the death of Gerontius
191
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:47,040
and the experiences of his spirit on its way to his god.
192
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:52,520
Elgar was moved by it to compose as never before. "This is what I hear all day," he wrote,
193
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:56,360
"The trees are singing my music or have I sung theirs?"
194
00:22:56,360 --> 00:23:01,800
He worked fast, always composing in the open air, writing it down at night, turning from public pomp
195
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:06,560
towards the private agony and ecstasy of a worldly soul in purgatory and beyond.
196
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:10,920
It was an intensely visionary and an intensely Catholic work
197
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:13,760
and Elgar was in no doubt about its stature.
198
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:18,440
"This is the best of me," he wrote, quoting Ruskin at the end of the score.
199
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:21,840
"For the rest, I ate, I drank, I slept, I loved, I hated as another.
200
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:27,040
"My life is a vapour and is not. This is what I saw and know.
201
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:31,960
"This, if anything of mine, is worth your memory."
202
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:39,000
# Sanctus fortis
203
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:44,840
# Sanctus Deus
204
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:49,120
# De profundis
205
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:54,160
# Oro te
206
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:57,000
# Miserere
207
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:00,200
# Judex meus
208
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:01,840
# Mortis
209
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:14,880
# Mortis in discrimine... #
210
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:55,640
"This, if anything, is worth your memory," he'd said.
211
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:58,800
But the first performance of Gerontius was a disaster.
212
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:00,880
"I have worked hard for 40 years,
213
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:04,960
"and at the last, Providence denies me a decent hearing of my work."
214
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:11,920
It was left to Germany and the Germans to confirm what Mrs Elgar had been saying for 12 years -
215
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:14,120
England had a great composer.
216
00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:18,960
Elgar's music was suddenly discovered by the famous German composer Hans Richter.
217
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:23,760
Gerontius was performed at Dusseldorf in the presence of the composer and his wife.
218
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:29,360
A terrific German enthusiasm flared up, culminating in a speech by Richard Strauss the composer
219
00:25:29,360 --> 00:25:33,800
who hailed Elgar as the first modern genius of English music.
220
00:25:35,120 --> 00:25:40,280
The Elgars were inveterate postcard writers and their postcards to their daughter at home
221
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,200
told of triumph after triumph.
222
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:46,160
"Most splendid evening. Beautiful performance received with rapture.
223
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,680
"Father shouted for again and again.
224
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,600
"So glad to have your letter. Weather dreadful.
225
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:54,720
"A great supper during the festival this evening.
226
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:58,320
"At rehearsal they cheered and cheered,
227
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,840
"wish you were here. Much love."
228
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:04,960
"Delighted to tell you performance glorious.
229
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,640
"Last evening, audience so astounded. We are so thankful.
230
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:12,120
"We had a delightful supper party. Not back until 1.30."
231
00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:17,320
At last, Elgar had arrived and with a bang. But only in Germany.
232
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,240
Back home with his daughter, Elgar took up kite flying
233
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,600
and as usual, went headlong into a new hobby.
234
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,640
His friends were worried about his career
235
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,560
but he was to confound them by using their very doubts and worries,
236
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:40,520
their personal characters, as material for a set of variations on an original theme.
237
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:44,760
It was these Enigma Variations that finally got him recognised in England.
238
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:49,360
The character of Caroline Alice his wife, inspired the first of the variations.
239
00:26:53,120 --> 00:26:55,480
Richard Arnold, son of Matthew Arnold,
240
00:26:55,480 --> 00:27:00,000
solemn and witty by turns provided another, as did Basil Nevinson
241
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,840
cello player and devoted friend of the composer.
242
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:08,040
A bulldog belonging to the organist of Hereford Cathedral was the subject of a fourth.
243
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:09,880
There were 13 all told
244
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,800
but the character that emerged most strongly, the key to the Enigma,
245
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:18,440
was Edward Elgar himself - confident and masterful.
246
00:28:26,120 --> 00:28:30,400
What had happened so sensationally in Germany was now happening in England.
247
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:35,640
Almost overnight, the unknown Mr Elgar became the great Sir Edward Elgar.
248
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:40,040
Within three years, he was firmly established as a major international figure.
249
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,960
His portrait was hung in Windsor Castle, he hobnobbed with kings.
250
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:49,280
The great roll call of honours started. He was honoured by universities and states worldwide.
251
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,480
"He deserves all these honours," wrote Sir Hubert Parry.
252
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,240
"In his music, he has reached to the hearts of the people."
253
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:14,800
"The triumph is yours as well as his," Elgar's nearest friend told Lady Elgar.
254
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:18,200
On the face of it, she now had all she wanted -
255
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:23,280
a big new house in Hereford - Elgar could live the life of a country gentleman.
256
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,360
But success having come, Elgar was not happy.
257
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:29,720
Behind the facade of new prosperity, there were constant money worries.
258
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,800
The house was bigger than they could afford.
259
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:37,200
His illnesses became chronic and his inspiration came only in fits and starts.
260
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,360
"I see nothing in the future," he wrote, "except a black stone wall
261
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,440
"against which I am longing to dash my head."
262
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:45,600
To his wife he talked sometimes of suicide.
263
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,360
By turns boisterous and lugubrious, impulsive and reserved
264
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,720
he drew apart from the world.
265
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:54,720
One extraordinary method of withdrawal this time
266
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,040
was into a new hobby - a sort of DIY chemistry.
267
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:01,960
He tried to make a new kind of soap and actually did invent and patent
268
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,760
a thing called the Elgar Sulphurated Hydrogen Apparatus.
269
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,560
EXPLOSION
270
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:18,240
Yet these were the years of Elgar's finest works -
271
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,320
the symphonies, the Violin Concerto, Falstaff and the rest.
272
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:25,480
Side by side with these schoolboy pranks and these black despairs
273
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:27,800
there was a deep faith in humanity.
274
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:32,520
"There is no programme in my music," he said, "beyond a wide experience of human life
275
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:36,560
"with a great charity and love and a massive hope in the future."
276
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:40,040
Three years later in 1910, he was much less hopeful.
277
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,160
The period was opulent but he'd become anxious and uneasy.
278
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:45,640
These times are cruel and gloomy.
279
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:49,680
He'd come to see himself increasingly as a kind of Poet Laureate of music
280
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:54,160
and in his Second Symphony he'd originally set out to celebrate the idea of monarchy
281
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:58,440
but with the death of Edward VII and his own mounting feelings of anxiety
282
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:03,880
it became an elegy, charged with what WB Yeats called Elgar's heroic melancholy -
283
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,400
an elegy for the passing of an age and a warning.
284
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,440
It was as if he sensed disaster in the air.
285
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:13,160
"We walk," he said, "like ghosts."
286
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,520
SYMPHONY NUMBER 2 PLAYS
287
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,560
ELGAR'S SYMPHONY NUMBER 2 CONTINUES
288
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:16,840
In 1914, the tensions were released
289
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:21,400
and a song which Elgar had written in one of his exuberant moods in 1901
290
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,200
at the time of the Boer War became a rallying call to a nation.
291
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:29,080
Elgar was delighted. "I look on the composer's job," he once said,
292
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,880
"as the old Troubadours did. In those days it was no disgrace
293
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:38,080
"for a man to be turned on to step in front of an army and inspire them with a song.
294
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:44,040
"For my part, I know there are a lot of people who like to celebrate events with music.
295
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:47,040
"To these people, I have given tunes."
296
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:50,280
MARCH NUMBER 1 PLAYS: "Land of Hope And Glory"
297
00:36:05,720 --> 00:36:09,480
"A tune like this only comes once in a lifetime," he once said.
298
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:15,240
He was proud of his marches. The words were not his and he disapproved of them as too jingoistic.
299
00:36:15,240 --> 00:36:21,320
There would come a time when Elgar could no longer bear what would become a second national anthem.
300
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:27,720
There was a terrible irony in having a march written in the dashing, glinting days of 1900
301
00:36:27,720 --> 00:36:31,040
used as a battle hymn against the nation he loved so much,
302
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:36,280
used almost as an accompaniment to the growing horror of World War I.
303
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,200
ELGAR'S MARCH NUMBER 1 PLAYS: "Land of Hope And Glory"
304
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,240
As the gates of Armageddon opened in France,
305
00:38:06,240 --> 00:38:11,760
Elgar, too old to serve, left London for Sussex and turned from chamber music to sonatas and quintets.
306
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:17,440
Nothing, however, could sever the public's association of Elgar with his Boer War marching song.
307
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:24,000
And the irony to a man who had sensed the disaster to come and felt its impact became abominable.
308
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,800
ELGAR'S MARCH NUMBER 1 CONTINUES
309
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,320
CROWD CHEER
310
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,600
The relief of the armistice was not shared by Elgar.
311
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,080
During the early fighting he'd written various patriotic pieces
312
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:52,760
but fewer and fewer as the war dragged on.
313
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:56,200
Now in 1918, he was invited to write an anthem for peace.
314
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:58,480
He refused point blank.
315
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,240
Official music had become an abomination.
316
00:40:01,240 --> 00:40:05,000
He had rented a cottage in the middle of a wood and in 1919
317
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:10,960
he put all his sadness and desolation into a cello concerto, his last great work.
318
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,680
MUSIC: "Cello Concerto in E Minor" by Elgar
319
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:24,400
In 1920 came the deepest grief of all,
320
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,640
the death, quite suddenly, of his wife Alice.
321
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:03,800
He put their London home in shrouds and lived in a corner of the house.
322
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,160
He buried all his honours in his wife's coffin
323
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:12,720
and composed nothing, his only musical activity was to arrange a Bach organ work for full orchestra.
324
00:43:12,720 --> 00:43:16,080
He turned now not to chemistry but to biology,
325
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,400
kept three microscopes on an unused billiards table
326
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:24,680
and got some kind of solace from the cold and abstract patterns of life thus revealed.
327
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:27,680
# Land of hope and glory
328
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:33,280
# Mother of the free... #
329
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:39,680
In 1924, he was called on to conduct his music at the Royal opening of the Wembley Empire Exhibition.
330
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,680
CROWDS CHEER
331
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:51,640
Elgar had planned to perform some new music, "But the king," he wrote, "insists on Land of Hope.
332
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:54,120
"Music is dying fast in this country.
333
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:58,880
"Everything seems so hopelessly and irredeemably vulgar in court."
334
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:20,760
The whole clatter and bang of Wembley he found intolerable.
335
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:43,520
He described his feelings during the royal parade. "I was in the middle of the enormous stadium,
336
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:49,240
"surrounded by all the ridiculous court programme, aeroplanes circling, loudspeakers, amplifiers
337
00:45:49,240 --> 00:45:54,440
"all mechanical and horrible. No soul, no romance and no imagination."
338
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:57,720
MUSIC: "Land Of Hope And Glory"
339
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:23,000
# Lord who made thee mighty
340
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:31,120
# Make thee mighty again. #
341
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:37,280
CHILDREN SING: # Lord who made thee mighty
342
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:42,560
# Make thee mighty... #
343
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:48,440
TENOR SINGS: # Lord who made thee mighty
344
00:46:48,440 --> 00:47:01,800
# Make thee mighty again! #
345
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:41,120
Elgar could stand it no more, and this time he left London for good,
346
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:45,320
driving back to the Malvern Hills alone except for his dogs.
347
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:50,400
He had loved dogs all his life. His wife had hated them and wouldn't allow one in the house.
348
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,520
Now he was never without them - his only companions.
349
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:31,000
Elgar had gone back to his roots, to Worcester.
350
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:34,560
There he lived out his life as a country gentleman.
351
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:39,080
Further honours came his way, he'd become a member of the Order of Merit
352
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:42,880
and had been honoured by a dozen universities. Now he was a baronet
353
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:45,080
and a master of the King's music.
354
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:48,600
But the cold wind of indifference blew over his public reputation.
355
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:52,920
When he went occasionally to London to conduct a concert of his music,
356
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:54,840
it was, wrote Constance Lambert,
357
00:49:54,840 --> 00:50:00,080
"as if one of the classical composers had appeared to conduct a work of another age."
358
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:04,360
The times were out of sympathy with a full-blooded romantic
359
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:07,920
and the drum-beating patriot and the religious visionary
360
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,160
and Elgar had been all three.
361
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:12,320
In the year he wrote his first symphony
362
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:17,520
it had been played 82 times all over the world, from St Petersburg to Pennsylvania.
363
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:22,040
He probably was the last great composer to be in touch with the people,
364
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,120
but now the rare Elgar concerts were half-empty.
365
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:28,280
In the early '30s, when he was rising 75,
366
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:32,920
Elgar took on a brief new lease of life - a lively friendship with Bernard Shaw
367
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:37,960
and the excitement of working once more on his violin concerto with a young Yehudi Menuhin
368
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:41,040
and sketches for a new symphony and an opera.
369
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:44,680
But it was too late. The illnesses which had haunted him all his life
370
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:49,000
took their final grip and he was forced to take to his bed.
371
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:54,480
He arranged it so that through the window he could see Worcester Cathedral
372
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:59,040
and the Malvern hills beyond. There, he lay for hour after hour
373
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:03,200
listening to recordings of his music and according to his own account
374
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:07,000
drifting through his memories in search of those moments
375
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:12,600
and people and places that had brought him happiness and fulfilment.
376
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:14,640
MUSIC: "Enigma Variations" by Elgar
377
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:22,600
STATIC FROM NEEDLE
378
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:10,360
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2007
379
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,880
E-mail: subtitling@bbc.co.uk
34452
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.