Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Concerto in B minor for Violin & Orchestra, op.61 (1909)

Scored for: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, three bassoons including contrabassoon, four French horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, strings, and solo violin

Performance time: 48 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance

British composer Edward Elgar had a penchant for puzzles and ciphers and understood their power in drumming up publicity for his compositions. The most famous example is Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, popularly known as the Enigma Variations. Each of the fourteen movements presents a musical sketch of a person in his life. These figures are not explicitly stated, but scholars have decoded the hidden muses. For instance, the most famous movement, “Nimrod,” is a nod to Elgar’s publisher Augustus Jaeger (“Jaeger” being the German word for “hunter” and “Nimrod” being a hunter in the Bible). In addition to these musical characterizations, Elgar claims to have hidden an “Enigma” deep within the piece—that another famous piece of music is a musical counterpoint to the work’s theme. Numerous solutions have been proposed, but we will likely never know the definite answer, if there even is one.

In a similar vein, Elgar deliberately created an air of mystery around his Violin Concerto in B Minor by inscribing it with the words, “Aquí está encerrada el alma de…..” (“Herein is enshrined the soul of…..”). These five dots have spurred as much discussion as the music itself. One theory posits that it references his friend Alice Stuart-Wortley, whom he called “Windflower” to avoid confusion with his wife, also named Alice. Alice knew her husband’s “friendships” with younger women and may have even encouraged them to fuel his creativity. He wrote to Windflower throughout the agonizing compositional process and even peppered the score with so-called “Windflower themes,” namely, the gentle second subject of the first movement. Regardless of the dedicatee(s), there are multiple musical allusions throughout the concerto that only Elgar and a select few understood.

The Violin Concerto in B Minor opens with a long orchestral exposition. Bursts of short musical ideas churn as Elgar avoids defining the key. The second theme, full of pathos, builds in anticipation of the violin soloist’s entrance. The soloist restates the opening melody, finally ushering in some harmonic resolution. What ensues is contemplative but still restless. The transformation and recombination of the previous themes bring the movement to a powerful conclusion.

After the gentle opening of the Andante, the soloist introduces a plaintive melody in the violin’s middle register. The movement is generally more static than the opening Allegro movement but still traverses various harmonic realms. If you listen carefully, you might spot one of Elgar’s musical allusions: the distinctive “Tristan chord” that opens Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. After a virtuosic leaping phrase, the violin lands on the soft bed of the Tristan chord in the low brass, which recurs a few moments later under the violin’s ascending chromatic scale.

In the finale, the suppressed tension of the Andante bubbles to the surface. The soloist proceeds with even greater virtuosity as themes whiz past. But this is all in preparation for the emotional center of the concerto: the cadenza. The extensive accompanied cadenza recalls themes from the previous movements. The soloist then completes the orchestra’s restatement of the opening bars, bringing the piece full circle. 

Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

The Cloud Messenger

Scored for: three flutes including piccolo, three oboes including English Horn, three clarinets including bass clarinet, three bassoons including contrabassoon, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, organ, strings, chorus, and solo contralto

Performance time: 43 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance

Before Gustav Holst looked to astrology for his most famous work, The Planets, he had another source of inspiration: Sanskrit literature. From 1895 to 1910, Holst composed many works derived from Indian mythology and subject matter, including two operas (Sita and Sāvitri), a symphonic poem (Indra), numerous settings of Vedic Sanskrit hymns, and the cantata The Cloud Messenger. His fascination paralleled the West’s increasing awareness of Indian art, literature, and philosophy, driven in part by world’s fairs. Published in 1895 to coincide with the Empire of India Exhibition in London, R. W. Frazer’s Silent Gods and Sun-Steeped Lands spurred Holst’s interest in India. In the book, Frazer argues that the fusion of Western and Eastern philosophies would lead to moral and intellectual advancement for all humanity. It also introduced Holst to the lyric poem Meghadūta (The Cloud Messenger) by the fifth-century poet Kālidāsa.

With a few Sanskrit lessons under his belt, Holst began translating the poem and composing music for it in 1903. The process took seven years, plus two years of revisions, before the belated 1913 premiere. Holst based his translation on the story presented in Frazer’s book and made some edits for British sensibilities, excising some of the more overt eroticism. In the story, a yaksha, or nature spirit, has been banished by his master, Kubera, the god of wealth, for neglecting his duties. He sees a cloud floating northward toward home and asks it to convey a message of love and comfort to his wife, saying they will soon be reunited.

The long orchestral prologue introduces the leitmotifs of the yaksha, his wife, and the passing cloud. Holst’s use of leitmotifs and chromaticism point to Wagner’s profound influence on his early works. However, in this piece, Holst starts to find his unique voice, showing glimmers of what is to come in The Planets. Exploring a foreign culture emboldened him to pursue new musical ideas. For instance, Holst’s direct and homophonic choral writing is miles away from the denser textures of 19th-century British choral music and allows the words to be understood. He also turns away from traditional symphonic development of musical ideas, instead juxtaposing them as if in a mosaic.

Holst considered The Cloud Messenger his most important work to date, making the shambles that was the premiere even harder to bear. Through some massive oversight, organizers neglected to hire the semi-chorus in time for rehearsals, forcing the singers sight-read the last eight minutes. The performance was a disaster. After this shoddy first outing, the score to The Cloud Messenger fell out of circulation, and the piece languished for decades. After The Cloud Messenger fiasco, Holst lost interest in composing music based on Indian themes.

Program Notes by Katherine Buzard