Sir
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
wrote his Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82, in 1918, at the same time as he wrote his
String Quartet in E minor and his
Piano Quintet in A minor. These three
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...
works were all written at "Brinkwells", the country house near
Fittleworth
Fittleworth is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located seven kilometres (3 miles) west from Pulborough on the A283 road and three miles (5 km) south east from Petworth. The village has ...
in
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...
that
Lady Elgar had acquired for her husband to recuperate and compose in, and they mark his major contribution to the chamber music genre.
[Kyoko Takezawa & Edoardo Maria Strabbioli, January 21, 2006]
/ref> His Cello Concerto in E minor of 1919 completed the quartet of introspective and melancholy works that comprised Elgar's last major creative spurt before his death in 1934.
The Violin Sonata is scored for the usual combination of violin and piano, and has three movements:
# Allegro
# Romance: Andante
# Allegro non troppo
Elgar's wife noted that the slow movement seemed to be influenced by the 'wood magic' or ''genii loci
In Religion in ancient Rome, classical Roman religion, a ''genius loci'' (plural ''genii locorum'') was the protective spirit of a place. It was often depicted in religious iconography as a figure holding attributes such as a cornucopia, patera ...
'' of the Fittleworth
Fittleworth is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located seven kilometres (3 miles) west from Pulborough on the A283 road and three miles (5 km) south east from Petworth. The village has ...
woods.
When the sonata was close to completion, Elgar offered to dedicate it to a family friend, Marie Joshua, and wrote to her: "I fear it does not carry us any further but it is full of golden sounds and I like it, but you must not expect anything violently chromatic or cubist". Marie Joshua died four days after receiving the letter, before she had had an opportunity to reply. As a tribute to her memory, Elgar quoted the ''dolcissimo'' melody from the slow movement just before the coda of the final movement.
The Violin Sonata in E minor was completed on 15 September 1918,[ and first performed on 13 March 1919 at a semi-public meeting of the ]British Music Society
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
by Elgar's friend W. H. Reed with Anthony Bernard
Anthony Bernard (25 January 18916 April 1963) was an English conductor, organist, pianist and composer.
Early life
Anthony Bernard's birth was registered as Alan Charles Butler in West Ham, then classified as Essex, in early 1891. His mother was ...
on piano. With Elgar present, it received its first public performance on 21 March 1919 in Aeolian Hall, with Reed and Landon Ronald
Sir Landon Ronald (born Landon Ronald Russell) (7 June 1873 – 14 August 1938) was an English conductor, composer, pianist, teacher and administrator.
In his early career he gained work as an accompanist and ''répétiteur'', but struggled ...
. Albert Sammons
Albert Edward Sammons CBE (23 February 188624 August 1957) was an English violinist, composer and later violin teacher. Almost self-taught on the violin, he had a wide repertoire as both chamber musician and soloist, although his reputation rest ...
and William Murdoch
William Murdoch (sometimes spelled Murdock) (21 August 1754 – 15 November 1839) was a Scottish engineer and inventor.
Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton & Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten yea ...
were the sonata's greatest champions in the early years, and they made a recording on 2 February 1935. (It was also Sammons who made the first complete recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor.) Earlier, in 1919, a recording was made by Marjorie Hayward
Marjorie Olive Hayward (14 August 188510 January 1953) was an English violinist and violin teacher, prominent during the first few decades of the 20th century.
Biography
Marjorie Hayward was born in Greenwich in 1885. An "infant prodigy", he ...
and Una Bourne.
The Violin Sonata has never had a reputation as one of Elgar's great works, and it features irregularly on concert programs. In recent years, however, it has been recorded a number of times, and there are now over 20 recordings in the catalogue.ArkivMusic
/ref> Those who have recorded it include Hugh Bean, Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi or Jehudi (Hebrew: יהודי, endonym for Jew) is a common Hebrew name:
* Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999), violinist and conductor
** Yehudi Menuhin School, a music school in Surrey, England
** Who's Yehoodi?, a catchphrase referring to the v ...
, Max Rostal, Lydia Mordkovitch
Lydia Mordkovitch (née Shtimerman; 30 April 1944 – 9 December 2014) was a Russian violinist.
Lydia was born in Saratov, Russia, on 30 April 1944. She returned with her parents to Kishinev after the war. In 1960, she moved to Odessa, where ...
, Nigel Kennedy
Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is an English violinist and violist.
His early career was primarily spent performing classical music, and he has since expanded into jazz, klezmer, and other music genres.
Early life and background
Kenn ...
, Midori
Midori (みどり, ミドリ, , , ) is the Japanese word for "green" and may refer to:
Places
* Midori, Gunma
* Midori-ku, Chiba
* Midori-ku, Nagoya
* Midori-ku, Sagamihara
* Midori-ku, Saitama
* Midori-ku, Yokohama
People Given name
* M ...
, Maxim Vengerov
Maxim Alexandrovich Vengerov (russian: Максим Александрович Венгеров, , mɐkˈsʲim ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ vʲɪnˈɡʲerəf; he, מקסים ונגרוב; born 20 August 1974) is a Russian-born Israeli violinist, v ...
, Tasmin Little
Tasmin Little (born 13 May 1965) is an English classical violinist. She is a concerto soloist and also performs as a recitalist and chamber musician. She has released numerous albums, winning the Critics Award at the Classic Brit Awards in 2011 ...
, Jonathan Crow
Jonathan Crow is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's concertmaster and a violinist in the New Orford String Quartet.
In 2005 Jonathan Crow joined the Schulich School of Music at McGill University as Assistant Professor of Violin and was appointed A ...
, Daniel Hope
Daniel Hope (born 17 August 1973, Durban, South Africa) is a European classical violinist.
Early life and education
Hope was born in Durban, South Africa, and is of Irish and Jewish German descent, his maternal grandparents, formerly from Be ...
and Jennifer Pike
Jennifer Elizabeth Pike (born 9 November 1989) is a British violinist.
Early years and education
Pike began playing the violin at the age of five, and after auditioning at the age of eight she gained a place at Chetham's School of Music in Ma ...
.
It was also included in the soundtrack of the anime ''Nodame Cantabile
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tomoko Ninomiya. It was serialized in Japan by Kodansha in the ''josei'' manga magazine ''Kiss'' from July 2001 to October 2009 and collected in 23 ''tankōbon'' volumes. A two-v ...
''.
References
External links
*
Performance
by Viviane Hagner
Viviane Hagner is a German violinist. She was born in Munich, Germany in 1977 (but grew up in Berlin), to a German father and Korean mother. She is sister to Nicole Hagner, the pianist.
Hagner started studying the piano at age 3 before switchin ...
(violin) and Tatiana Goncharova (piano) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was founded ...
in MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
format
{{Authority control
1918 compositions
Chamber music by Edward Elgar
Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
Compositions in E minor