Very early on in my conducting career I managed to go to Malvern and visit most of the houses
Margaret and myself went round with just a map
we didn't have Brown Elgar routes, we had to find the places, you know, it was quite fun
looking and comparing photographs where Elgar lived
but what we had never done was go down to Fittleworth in East Sussex
where Elgar was in a sort of retreat after and around the time of the first world war
he lived in Hampstead by then, he hated it in Netherhall Gardens
he had a house there which gave him status for Lady Elgar
and the whole business, he loathed it intensely
when he finished writing Music Makers, 100 years ago it was now
he just went for a walk on the heath, Hampstead Heath, in despair [inaudible]
They would go down there ...they lived down there in this incredibly non-plumbed...
thatched cottage in the middle of nowhere, Brinkwells
and they lived there right through to November sometimes,
no wonder poor Alice Elgar was ill
and eventually passed away with cancer but I don't think it helped her much
that she was in this terrible environment
but these great works, the cello concerto and the piano quintet,
the violin sonata and the string quartet
these are the [inaudible] and summit of Elgar's composing career
although we're talking 1917, 18, 19 and he lived to 1934
when Alice died in 1920
there wasn't an awful lot of music after that as we know
Nevertheless, the...although the cello concerto wasn't all written
in this beautiful place which you can go to
the wonderful cottage house there, amazing countryside
all these works were inspired, the cello concerto was inspired by this place
He told a historian that...
What things must have been like acoustically with the noise in those days
From there they could hear the guns and the silence
as it were, after, on the armistice. They were there for the armistice in 1918
and they could previously hear the noise from France
which, that's something, now with acoustics we think if we're in London on Hampstead Heath or in the quiet
we're not really, we want to really go somewhere quiet
But that peace that he found there really did inspire
these very solitary and isolated works
they are very threadbare
Gone is the opulence of Elgar
and this is extraordinary, this was going through his music at the time of Falstaff
the previous work because things were getting thinner
the second symphony and violin concerto, opulently scored
then things...it was weightwatchers, must have been
incredible thinning out of the texture
which of course was ideal for the problems there are with a cello concerto
for the register of the instrument is very much in between
very low, and high
Violin concertos are normally easy to balance
but the cello is very hard to be heard
and this skeleton picture of this concerto
the genius of the work and the fact that the work is...
so incredibly interestesting, we love the Elgar cello concerto
we perhaps take it for granted but it's totally [for Wilkins book to start off?]
a palindrome of structure in the first movement
a scherzo which is like a dream with notes you can't get hold of
one of Elgar's rather scatty dreams
that he was taking back to the days of Charles Lamb and those pictures
the water babies, that sort of dream world he inhabited
the most intense and most simple solo movement
which of course returns at the end of the finale
which tries to pretend to be as vulgar as it possibly can be
and you have in the finale the most unbelievable range of emotions
that is just unbelievable
from music hall frivolity at times
when the cello is doing lots of fancy skeleton
and we're playing silly tunes
and then suddenly the bottom of this world drops out
and we are left with the bare bones of a tragedy the music finishes with
And the tragedy is such that the piece goes back to the beginning
We can almost play the whole thing and go around the M25 cello concerto
and go back to the beginning. Nothing is resolved.
We go back to the beginning
and the only time the orchestra is asked to play together
is in the two chords that follow the return of the opening music
as if to say "That's it. There isn't any more."
And there wasn't any more.
And then the music ends in this incredibly flippant way.
It's despatched. As Elgar used to say, "Music is off".
It was the last great work really that Lady Elgar heard.
When she died he did go back to Brinkwells with his daughter.
The tragedy of that must have been unbelievably a ton to bear
and it certainly...I think he knew what was happening
to his wife that he loved enormously
Malcolm encouraged our musicians enormously
and no more than our artist tonight.
Twelve years ago we are there when Jamie did his first performance of the Elgar cello concerto
we were in the acoustic paradise of the Bromley Civic Centre [laughter]
He was in the first half and we did 'Child of our Time' in the second half
He's gone a long way since then
An artist of international renown
Many recordings, most of which are on sale in the foyer
which I've [inaudible] five percent [laughter]
but nevertheless we're really, really delighted
I know Malcolm would be chuffed to bits
to think that we're celebrating his life and British music
this year of all years
by asking Jamie to play the Elgar cello concerto
So could you please welcome Jamie Walton to our stage. [Applause]