SIR TOMMY ON SIR EDDIE

posted by James Reel

    If you believe that my occasional swipes at the music of Edward Elgar—for instance, here, here, here (one that apparently alarmed TSO concertmaster Steven Moeckel) and here—are out of line, consider what conductor Sir Thomas Beecham said of Elgar in his autobiography, A Mingled Chime:

The better side of him is to be found in miniature movements, where he is often fanciful, charming and, in one or two instances, exquisite. His big periods and ‘tuttis’ are less happy; bombast and rhetoric supplant too frequently real weight and poetical depth, and he strays with a dangerous ease to the borderline of a military rhodomontade that is hardly distinguishable from the commonplace and the vulgar.

    Beecham offered favorable comments on certain other aspects of Elgar’s work, but he pretty thoroughly damned Elgar’s handling of those elements that generally contribute to “significance” or “greatness” in music. Now that Elgar’s 150th anniversary year is within days of its conclusion, perhaps we can focus on more worthy topics.
    Just don’t get me started on Beecham’s advocacy for Delius.