Program Notes: Classical II – Elgar’s Enigma
Perhaps the greatest 19th-century English work for orchestra, Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations presents fanciful musical portraits of the composer’s friends and family. YSO musicians Denise Dillenbeck and Jeffrey Snedeker are featured in the 1927 Concerto for Violin and Horn by English composer and women’s rights activist Ethel Smyth, and the program opens with the Caribbean-tinged Bamboula by Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. 
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
(August 15, 1875-September 1, 1912)
The Bamboula: Rhapsodic Dance for Orchestra, Op. 75
(1911)

Coleridge-Taylor’s father was a physician from Sierra Leone who was forced to leave London to return to Africa before his son was born due to racial barriers to maintaining a practice. His mother was English, and her side of the family included numerous musicians. Coleridge-Taylor showed early musical prowess and he enrolled in the Royal College of Music to study violin and composition. He was successful right out of school, receiving support from several prominent musical figures, including Edward Elgar, which led to increasing visibility and opportunity. Coleridge-Taylor was inspired by the efforts of Brahms, Dvořák, Vaughan Williams and Grieg to combine folk music with Western classical art music styles, and his efforts to integrate African traditions were well-received. His most famous work is The Song of Hiawatha (1898), a set of cantatas inspired by Longfellow’s 1855 poem. The Bamboula is built on a vigorous dance that came from Africa to Haiti to New Orleans via the slave trade in the 1750s. Coleridge-Taylor first used the melody in his publication 24 Negro Melodies (1905), a collection of concert pieces using Black folk melodies from Africa, the West Indies and the US. The orchestral version was commissioned by Mr. and Mrs. Carl Stoeckel, founders of the Norfolk Music Festival in Connecticut, and completed in 1911. It is a wonderful upbeat concert opener, with pomp and expressive lyricism consistent with English orchestral music of the early 1900s. Despite racial barriers and financial struggles, Coleridge-Taylor became a popular composer, touring the US several times, which fed his interest in exploring his musical and racial heritage. His popularity resulted in some American musicians praising him as the “African Mahler” and an invitation to visit President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House. His early death at 37 from pneumonia is often attributed to the stress of his financial situation. 

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Dame Ethel Mary Smyth
(April 22, 1858-May 8, 1944)
Concerto for Violin, Horn, and Orchestra
(1927)

Ethel Smyth was born in London to an upper middle-class family. Her father, a career military man, was opposed to her making a living as a musician. Despite his objections, she enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1877. While in Germany, she studied composition with Reinecke and Herzogenberg, and met Dvořák, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Clara Schumann and Brahms. She returned to England in 1889 and embarked on a successful compositional career that was not without obstacles.  Smyth composed songs, piano pieces, chamber music, orchestral and choral works, and operas; particularly significant were Der Wald (1903) and The Wreckers (1906). Critical reaction to her compositions reflected a double standard experienced by most women composers. When she composed music that was forthright and aggressive, she was accused of being too masculine or not being “lady-like.” When she composed delicate music, she was accused of being weak or less expressive. Like many, she was essentially marginalized at the time, which prevented her from receiving the attention accorded her male counterparts. Smyth conducted the premiere of Concerto for Violin, Horn, and Orchestra in London on May 5, 1927, with soloists Aubrey Brain (horn) and Jelly d’Arányi (violin). Dedicated to Sir Henry Wood, a prominent conductor and supporter of Smyth’s work, the lyricism of the melodies and the lushness of the orchestration fit the British style at the time, but the harmonies are more advanced, with surprising twists and abrupt contrasts. In the first movement, the soloists generally take turns, with interjections from the orchestra. Smyth uses a full range of compositional techniques and a free-flowing progression of ideas unified by recognizable motives and recurring themes. The overall mood is dramatic and somewhat unpredictable. Subtitled “Elegy: In Memoriam,” the second movement opens with a somber horn solo, joined by the solo violin and then the orchestra in a very heartfelt tribute. No dedicatee has been identified. A sentimental section recalls better times, and then the opening somber mood returns, with the horn playing longer melodic lines while the violin elaborates. The movement ends quietly as if resolved to remember the good times. The third movement begins with fanfares in the horn and virtuosic display in the violin. The music alternates between forceful passages, lighter dancelike figures and lyrical phrases. There is a long and complex cadenza—a serious conversation and compendium of advanced techniques for both soloists. The final section is forceful and dancelike, leading to a triumphant ending. 

A strong advocate for women’s suffrage, Smyth joined the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1910 and gave up music for two years to devote herself to the cause. Her The March of the Women (1911) became the anthem of the movement. In 1922, Smyth became the first female composer to be named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).  

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Edward Elgar
(June 2, 1857- February 23, 1934)
Variations on an Original Theme “Enigma,” Op. 36
(1899)

Elgar is the oldest of a group of English composers, including Gustav Holst, Frederick Delius and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who were catalysts for an English musical renaissance at the end of the 19th century. Elgar was raised in a musical family. He learned violin early on, and by his teen years he was working as a player, conductor and teacher. Elgar also composed music from a very early age.  Some scholars say he arrived at an individual style fairly early that didn’t evolve much—most of his works that are popular today were completed before he reached age 40.  In a late 19th-century context, his music sounds traditional, even nostalgic, but the characteristics are consistent with other English composers at the time—tonal, melodious (in his case, without the folksong flavoring of some of his contemporaries), standard orchestration, and predictable forms. The appeal of his music made him the first English composer to achieve international fame in over 200 years. The “Enigma” Variations of 1899 is viewed as Elgar’s first major compositional success, considered by many to be the very best British orchestral work up to that date. In his words, the variations were “begun in the spirit of good humour and continued in deep seriousness.” Each variation portrays a different friend, which adds to the sentimental aspect of this music. In fact, Elgar created the work at the piano, taking the theme and then improvising on it as he thought about each person and his/her character. The major appeal, however, is the masterful construction in the form of a massive arch, which peaks in Variation 9, the mysterious “Nimrod” variation. The arch is framed by variations for his wife (Variation 1) and portraying himself (last).  Hans Richter conducted the premiere on June 19, 1899, at St. James Hall, and the performance catapulted Elgar into the national spotlight. Numerous characteristics can be singled out as German or French, but the combination is clearly English, a style that was defined in his time and eventually used Elgar and this piece as a touchstone. Perhaps it is the melodic inflection, or possibly the remarkable colors and textures, or maybe just the nature of the emotional expression, deep, respectful, with a touch of humor; inevitably, it is a composer writing from his heart. While he did suffer a bit afterwards trying to live up to Enigma’s roaring success, Elgar’s place in history is secure. 

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