elgar - 5 improvisations

8/12/2019 Elgar - 5 Improvisations

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PREFACE

Although

apparently

professing

a dislike for the

instrument,

Elgar used the

piano

extensively

when

composing, and

would expand and

elaborate

his

ideas through improvisation at the keyb()ard. The must

notable instance of this was the genesis of the

Elligllhl

I:mJlIOIIS, when Elgar improvbed several

of

the \'arimions

in one ewning to his wife Alice. He was no \'irtuoso;

he played in an

idiosyncratic, orchestral

manner,

ljuitl'

unlike 'acceptable' pianism, but nonetheless effectlW

enough

for the thorough

exploration (If

new ideas,

.\lore than

any

of

his

contemporaries,

Elgar

embraced the new possibilities in recorded sound, and

from 1q 14

he

enthusiastically conducted

mam' of

his

own works for record,

The

nineteen-twenties sav, n:ry

little compositional activity from and it may be

that the

recorded piano

improvisations \\'ere

an

attempt to use the recording process to stimulate

progress on

ncw

wnrk. In a recording session in the

Small Queen's Hall,

London,

on 6th Kovember 1929,

Elgar improvised five pieces at the piano,

each

around

.f ' . minutes in

length (restricted by

the typical

length

of

one

side

of

a

i f

r.p,m, record).

These

recordings

lay

unheard for manv years, until their first n::lease in

1qi ); they offer fascinating insights into Elgar's

working process

and

pianism,

Elgar

opens

his first impnwisation with a

melody

fWl11 the ballet in the first act

of

Rossini's H"iflicl ll 1al.

\X'hile

remaining

faithful

to the

melody, he drastically

lc,\\,s the original tempo, and 're-orchestrates' with

rich harmony in

spread

chords. After an

extemporised

opening,

the second

improvisation

incnrporates a

noble melody derived from Fa{l s D/sc (lllrtl ;,Y, a song

fwm Elgar's 1917

wartime Kipling

setting, The Fringe S

i t

{IIC Fle'd. Perhaps

Elgar's subseljuent disillusion

ment \\'ith that era and its empty optimism

is

felt \\'ith

the sombre

minor key ending, The most technically

demanding and brilliant impwvisation

is

the third,

Out of

the opening four chords,

Elgar

presents

a

~ u r r y i n g

theme, with

busih' \vea\'ing CilnllnatlC

calcs. This

is

repeated in numerous keys and

\\'ith ease, suggesting the

material

was well kno\\'n to

Elgar. Similarly, the bulk of the fourth imprm'isation

was probably well established in ad\-;mcc, as Elgar

wrote this

out

as

the

slow movement ttlr his neYer

completed Piano Concerto. It

is

Elgar's lighter-music

\'(:111 at

its very best,

with

an

attractive

lilting

ljuality, I The fifth improvisation

is

the most profound

of the set, with wistful falling melodies and tender

harmonie

t

is unclear

how much of the material is

completely imprm'ised, but

the

piece is by far the

most

poignant

and

nostalgic of the

tl\'e, Its

closing A? major

melody

is

possibly a distant echo of the opening of the

First Symphony, written over twenty years earlier.

In

transcribing

these

imprmisatinns

I needed tn

trIke a balance between an

'accurate',

detailed

transcription

and

an

accessible score from which to

play. Se\'eral difficulties were

encnuntered

when

transcribing thc works, The poor sound ljualitv of the

recordings, along with

Elgar\

extensive usc of the

pedal, often made the pinpointing of exact detail

difficult.

Both

in terms

of

rhythm

and

tempo, Elgar's

planng S exceptionally free, causing uncertainty over

a preCISl'

rhythmic layout, and

his

exuberant

performance

contains '.ome obvious inaccuracies.

The

improvisations do not

bear

the structural perfectiun of

Elgar's \\Titten works, and

the

question arose of

whether

to adjust the material

t()

build more rigorous forms,

A

score that attempted to document exactly all of

Elgar's tigurarions, pedalling and rubato \vl1uld

be

c(}nfusing and dogmatic. Thus, my priority in notation

\\'as

to

create

a clear

text

that

is

akin

to

any

other

\vork, In nrdcr to overcome the difficulties presented

by the

recording

and

to

obtain the most accurate

representation of Elgar's performancc, I listened to the

improvisations many times, notating the music at the

piam) as I heard it,

and

playing

simultaneously

with

the recording once it was \\'ritten

down.

Despite the

lack of clarity and Elgar's occasional inaccuracies,

the

harmonic and melodic outlines of

each could be

easily established, as Elgar repeats

much of

hIS

thematic

material. These rcpetitions

allowed an 'ideal'

\'ersion of each themc to be notated and used for anal

ogous

places in each piece. For example, the principal

theme of the

third

improvisation is

rarely played in a

'correct' manner,

as

Elgar prefers

to

blur

the

sound

and smudge the detail.

Rather

than attempting to

reproduce Elgar's more approximate rendering, I

decided to notate precise chromatic scales for each

appearance

of the

theme, in

keeping

with

the

rondo

~ t r u t u r e and Elgar's style.

\X'here

Elgar

uses inner

arpeggios

to 'fill

in'

the

suund,

I

ha\'e notated these

in a precise

but

straightforward

manner.

Rhythms \vith the potential

for written complexity, I

tidied

to an

extent,

\\'hile

retaining some of the capriciousness of the original to

avoid stiffness.

An example of this approach can be

found in bar 4

of

the first improvisation, where Elgar

consistently

appears

to play the theme in the following

manncr:

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elgar - 5 improvisations

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