Cello Songs After the War in Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
The Backstory
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
I'm Elgar, and I'm delighted to tell you the backstory of my Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85. You'll learn how a promise to a cellist, a quiet Sussex cottage and a disappointing first performance in 1919 led to one of the most loved cello works ever written. On this site my fellow composers and I also teach you to recognize our pieces when you hear them, so come and try it yourself.
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A Promise I Rather Hoped You'd Forget
Long before the concerto existed, the cellist Carl Fuchs got me to promise that I would write something for his instrument. I made the promise the way most of us make promises, cheerfully and with no plan for keeping it. Later Fuchs came back to the subject, and Paul Grümmer joined him in reminding me what I had said. Two cellists politely holding you to your word is hard to ignore, and I'm glad they didn't give up.A Cottage, a Pencil and a Muddled Calendar
I did the work at Brinkwells, my country cottage near Fittleworth in Sussex, where it was quiet enough to hear my own thoughts. Nobody can say exactly when the concerto began, because I'm not known to have started it before 1919. Yet the first tune was reportedly written down a year earlier, so the music may have been waiting for me all that time. I leave the exact date to the historians, and I'm happy for the mystery to stay.Out of Step With the Fashion
By the time I wrote this piece, the First World War was over, and my music had begun to seem old-fashioned to many listeners. I didn't try to chase the new mood, and I let the concerto be what it wanted to be. It turned out more thoughtful and sorrowful than my earlier Violin Concerto, with much less showing off. If that Violin Concerto is a grand speech, this one is a quiet conversation late in the evening.Whom It's For, and Who Printed It
I dedicated the concerto to Sidney Colvin and his wife. A dedication is a small thing on the page, but it tells you that the music was written with particular people in mind. The publisher Novello in London brought out the score in 1920–21, so musicians everywhere could finally read it for themselves. That mattered a great deal, because a piece nobody can read is hard to play.The Evening It Was Introduced to the World
The first performance took place on 27 October 1919 at Queen's Hall in London. The London Symphony Orchestra played, Felix Salmond was the cello soloist, and I conducted. Some printed sources name the wrong orchestra, but it was certainly the London Symphony Orchestra on the stage that night. It was a big evening for me, and it didn't go the way I had hoped.A Rehearsal That Ran Away With the Clock
Another conductor on the same programme, Albert Coates, overran his rehearsal time, and that cut into my own. As a result the orchestra was under-prepared, and the performance suffered for it. I never blamed Salmond, and I credited his careful preparation with saving the evening. Ernest Newman wrote in The Observer that the orchestra played badly, yet he still admired the wisdom and beauty he found in the music.Four Movements, or Four Courses
A movement is simply a large section of a piece with a pause on either side, much like the courses of a dinner. The first, marked Adagio – Moderato, is the opening course, and at about 8 minutes it is slow, serious and rather grand. The second, Lento – Allegro molto, is the short and nimble palate cleanser, and the third, a plain Adagio of about 4 minutes 50 seconds, is a tender song in which the cello sings almost without an audience. The last, which begins Allegro and has several more markings along the way, is the longest at about 11½ minutes, and it carries the whole meal to its end.A Modest Crowd Around One Voice
The soloist is the star, and I kept the orchestra around it fairly light, with pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons. Four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, a tuba and timpani are there too, along with the strings. I was careful not to bury the cello, because it's a gentle instrument and can easily be drowned out. The whole performance lasts a little under 30 minutes, which is short for a concerto, and I never felt it needed more.A Slow Start in Two Cities
The concerto was not an immediate success, and its reputation grew only with time. The next London performance came more than a year after the premiere. In the United States it was first played at Carnegie Hall on 21 November 1922, with Jean Gérardy as soloist and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski. The audience there showed little enthusiasm, so the piece had some patience to learn.How the Wider World Came Around
In 1920 I made a shortened acoustic recording with the cellist Beatrice Harrison, and in 1928 we made the first complete one. The real turning point came in 1965, when Jacqueline du Pré recorded it with Sir John Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra, and that recording helped make the work popular. Today it stands alongside Dvořák's concerto as one of the two most performed cello concertos. I find that deeply moving, given how quietly it began.---
I hope you enjoyed learning about the backstory of my Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85. Looking back, it still strikes me how a quiet promise, a country cottage and a tune scribbled down after a hospital stay could grow into a work that people keep returning to. Music of this kind is rarely finished with once you've heard it, because it seems to say something a little different each time. I wrote it in a sad and thoughtful mood, and I'm touched that so many listeners have found their own feelings in it. There is still plenty more to explore in this concerto, from the way each of its four movements is shaped to the stories of the performers who made it their own. If you'd like to dig deeper, please click on the links provided and carry on exploring the Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85. I'd be delighted to have you listen again, and I suspect you'll notice something new when you do.