Page 101 - GTMF 2024 Season Program

July 19 & 20
PROGRAM NOTES

Sir Edward Elgar

Cockaigne, Op. 40, “In London Town”

AT A GLANCE

Born: 1857
Died: 1934
Date of Composition: 1901
Instrumentation: Cockaigne is
scored for 2 flutes (2 doubling
nd
piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets,
2 bassoons, contrabassoon,
4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets,
3 trombones, tuba, percussion,
timpani, strings and optional organ.

Don’t believe everything you see.
How easy it is to be misled by
photographs of Sir Edward Elgar,
by the handlebar moustache
and the slicked-back hair and
the tweedy jackets. Images
arise of stuffy Edwardian gents
clutching their pipes while
bawling out patriotic paeans to
king and empire. After all, Elgar
wrote the tune that became Land
of Hope and Glory. All that’s
lacking is a Union Jack fluttering
in the background.
But it’s a bum rap. Edward Elgar
may have looked the part, but
actually he was a misfit, distinctly Sir Edward Elgar — Wikipedia
out of sync with his own time and
place. British composers of his
generation were typically born
to leisure; Elgar’s father was a Catholic. British composers Enigma Variations. He was an
shopkeeper and Edward taught taught at the Royal Academy enthusiastic amateur scientist,
violin to pay the rent. British of Music; Elgar did not. British devoted husband and friend, and
composers went to Oxford or composers were clubby something of a depressive whose
Cambridge and then the Leipzig Londoners; Elgar couldn’t stand darker moods got the upper
Conservatory of Music; Elgar the place and preferred a quiet hand at times.
could not and did not. British life in rural Worcester with his And yet it was Sir Edward Elgar
composers nodded to each other wife Alice and their circle of who gave us a brawling, roiling
over their local Church of England friends—many of whom he and rollicking portrait of London
pews; Elgar was staunchly immortalized in his glorious in his concert overture Cockaigne,

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