Elgar, Nielsen and Britten

Our October program features early works by Edward Elgar, Carl Nielsen and Benjamin Britten. 7pm at Australia Hall, 150 Elizabeth Street, Sydney.

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Composed in March of 1892, the Serenade for Strings is one of the earliest works of Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934). It may have been a reworking of a previously written suite. It is the music of spring, filled with youthful vitality and charm. The work was first given in a private performance in 1892 by the Worcester Ladies' Orchestral Class, with the composer conducting. His first attempt to interest a publisher in the piece was rebuffed on the grounds that though it was "very good", "this class of music is practically unsaleable", but he found a publisher in 1893. The Serenade received its first public performance in Antwerp, Belgium on 21 July 1896, but was not given publicly in Britain until 1899. Elgar’s background as a violinist allowed him to write particularly effective and idiomatic music for strings, and he described the Serenade—with tongue firmly in cheek—as “very stringy in effect.” It is in three movements, beginning with wistful music marked Allegro piacevole (a “pleasing” Allegro). There is a underlying note of sadness in the main theme heard at the outset, and Elgar sets against this a more lilting middle section with brief solo turns for the principal violin. The long central Larghetto begins with an introduction that adapts ideas from the opening movement, but Elgar then introduces a gorgeous Romantic theme that is spun out in the same patient way as in his more famous “Nimrod” movement from the Enigma Variations. There is a brief contrasting interlude before this theme returns in the full orchestra. The movement ends in a whisper. The brief closing movement (Allegretto) returns to the Serenade’s opening mood, but in a more dancelike character.

Carl Nielsen's 'Little Suite for Strings' is from the composers first opus. Written during following his graduation from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. The programme note accompanying the concert in which it was premiered in 1888 referred, rather disparagingly, to the composer as "Mr. Carl Nielsen, whom nobody knows". On hearing the little suite, many of the audience must have sensed that that description would not remain appropriate for long. The work is one of great originality and inventiveness and immediately appealing musical ideas. It is in three movements, of which we are playing just the first. This is a simple movement based on a slow ostinato which accompanies a simple lyrical elegiac theme, possibly derived from one of his mother's songs.

Finally, English composer Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony is a work composed for string orchestra or string quartet. It was first performed on March 6, 1934, with the composer himself conducting the largely amateur Norwich String Orchestra. Britten wrote that this piece is “entirely based on material from works which the composer wrote between the ages of nine and twelve.” The piece is dedicated to his childhood viola teacher, Audrey Alston; and the alliterative playfulness of its title and its four movements, speak to its sense of fun and good spirit. Britten rejected post-war avant-garde, instead attempting to fill the role of all-round beloved national composer previously held by Vaughan Williams.

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