Elgar Symphony No 2

Elgar composed most of his 2nd Symphony in 1910. At the same time, Mahler was writing his 10th, Sibelius his 4th, Stravinsky was working on his ballets The Firebird and Petrushka, and Strauss was completing the opera Der Rosenkavalier. All these composers responded differently to the intensity of their time but there is no doubt that a sense of political insecurity and social change inspired this extraordinary confluence of musical masterpieces. Some embraced the global upheaval of the day with great excitement. Others weren’t so sure and relinquished their nineteenth century certainties with reluctance and trepidation.

For the first half of Elgar’s life, to be British was to rule the world. The British Empire controlled 450 million people over an area that made up a quarter of the earth’s land surface. The confidence this must have instilled is hard to imagine. And yet Elgar could see that such entitlement was hollow and misplaced, and would not last. He knew that the pride of patriotism could be hijacked by the ignorance of xenophobia and he was deeply troubled by many of the choices he saw being made.

The symphony starts confidently enough though, introducing us immediately to a musical gesture that Elgar labelled the ‘Spirit of Delight’. It’s a phrase that comes from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem ‘Song’, the first line of which Elgar copied out on to the front page of his score. It does not take long for the opening’s Victorian swagger to give way to music of more vulnerable circumspection, a transition that makes sense when you read the whole of Shelley’s poem, something that Elgar was keen for us to do. Its first verse suggests something nostalgically elusive:

Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
‘Tis since thou art fled away.

The wide ranging first movement (by far the longest of the four) expresses both the presence and the absence of the ‘Spirit of Delight’, a combination that has confused those who perhaps dislike the idea that music can be ambiguous. There is much that feels intimate, full of dying falls that Elgar said should draw us ‘out of the everyday world.’ But the movement ends as it began, with a brightness of bravado – a stiff upper lip giving maximum support to the Edwardian moustaches of the time.

The second movement is a funeral march, though for whom is unclear. Edward VII died in 1910, and with the symphony dedicated to the memory of the late King, the answer seems obvious. Yet sketches for this music can be dated back to 1903, when the unexpected death of his great friend Alfred E Rodewald, a cotton merchant and keen amateur musician, hit Elgar especially hard. The music is connected to Elgar’s personal grief as much as it is a symbol for a nation in mourning.

Elgar said that the start of the third movement was inspired by a trip he had just taken to Venice and its charming opening can well be imagined as something the musicians in the Piazza San Marco would play. But these joyful beginnings become manic over time and a terrifying central section suggests a more disturbing reality. Elgar described this section as the ‘madness that attends the excess or abuse of passion’. He knew where Europe’s gathering storm clouds were heading.
How does one follow a first movement that reflects uncertainty, a second which laments the past, and a third which looks into the future with terror and unease? Well, according to the instruction Elgar gives the musicians at the start of the finale, ‘with dignity.’ This request, possibly unique as a musical suggestion, gives us an inkling as to what Elgar thought the answer was. The tune has a nobility that is not grandiose, a pride that is not arrogant, and above all a humanity that transcends personal passion and political power. The end is a simple and sincere expression of human frailty but delivered with such eloquence that it has a certain triumph of its own. In a letter to his publisher Elgar wrote that the piece ends in a ‘calm and elevated mood.’ Maybe that is how he interpreted the ‘Spirit of Delight’.

The work’s first performance, which Elgar conducted, was not a success. With the impending Coronation of George V, the expectation was for something celebratory. But the symphony ends with a question, which with hindsight, is far more pertinent for the time. Its conclusion suggests that no one can know what’s going to happen and we have to make peace with our doubts if we are not to limit our opportunity to make good choices for the future. Not every question has an answer. In fact, the most interesting questions have none. That is not a reason not to ask them, especially when they can be expressed with such beauty and eloquence as this.

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