Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 2 in E major, Op. 63, was completed on 28 February 1911 and was premiered at the London Musical Festival at the Queen's Hall by the Queen's Hall Orchestra on 24 May 1911 with the composer conducting. The work, which Elgar called "the passionate pilgrimage of the soul",McVeagh, Diana. "Elgar, Sir Edward", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, subscription access. Retrieved 8 March 2009. was his last completed symphony; the composition of his Symphony No. 3, begun in 1933, was cut short by his death in 1934.
The dedication reads:
The more personal nature of this work, however, is clear in a letter to friend and close correspondent Alice Stuart-Wortley, in which Elgar states:
Composition and influences
These remarks, recounted by Elgar's friend Charles Sanford Terry, shed light on Elgar's creative process. Some sketches of the Symphony No. 2 date back to 1903, a letter from October of that year indicating an idea for a symphony in E major to be dedicated to his friend and conductor Hans Richter. The symphony was set aside during the composition of In the South, Symphony No. 1, and the Violin Concerto.Meikle, p. 46. Rejected ideas from the latter work and earlier sketches joined the material Elgar began developing in late 1910 to complete the piece.Kent, pp 41–43.
The symphony's thematic material, like much of Elgar's work, consists of short, closely interrelated motives which he develops via repetition, sequential techniques, and subtle cross references. Harmonically, the piece often borders on tonal ambiguity, with the composer employing musical devices such as chromaticism and, in the third movement, a whole tone scale in order to heighten the feeling of tonal uncertainty.Meikle, pp. 57–58. Elgar also tends to emphasise a tonic-subdominant dichotomy rather than the more typical dominant; examples of this include the C minor Larghetto's second theme in F major, and the A major beginning to the first movement's recapitulation.Meikle, p. 50. The repetition of similar rhythm forms an essential part of the structural backbone of the piece, much in the manner of Brahms.Meikle, p., 57.
Various large and small scale musical allusions, both obvious and implied, may be found throughout the work. Robert Meikle draws attention to the Mahlerian treatment of the material in the last movement, as well as likenesses to Brahms's A German Requiem.Meikle, p. 55. Meikle also notes the similarities to certain aspects of Brahms's Symphony No. 3, in particular the cyclical return of thematic material and the subdued texture which concludes both works.Meikle, p. 60. The motive in the first violins at rehearsal 1 of the first movement, reappearing in both the rondo and the finale, resembles both Elgar's own so-called "Judgment" theme from The Dream of Gerontius and the Dies irae. An inverted chord appears at the conclusion of the work,Meikle, p. 58. and Allen Gimbel illustrates many possible links between this symphony and Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, a work Elgar admired deeply. Specifically, Gimbel points out the resemblance of the motive on the last three beats of bar 2 of the first movement and the "Abgesang" of Walther's Prize Song from Die Meistersinger, thus linking the trials of the opera's hero to Elgar's desire to assert his independence as an artist.
Instrumentation The symphony is scored for 3 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 B clarinets, E clarinet, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, cymbals, 2 harps, and strings.
Analysis I. Allegro vivace e nobilmente
The first movement is the longest of the four, running at approximately 17 minutes. The opening contains wide intervals in the strings and upper winds with upward leaps, thus allowing Elgar to create much expression and passion. Elgar himself described this movement as "tremendous in energy".Kennedy (1970), p.58.
It opens with what is known as the "Spirit of Delight" theme in E major, which reappears several times throughout the movement.Kennedy (1970), p. 59. After eight bars, a two-bar theme is introduced, followed by two more two-bar themes. A small bridging passage leads us to the second subject, a wistful tune played by the strings. Elgar was insistent that the first entrance of this new subject be played religiously pianissimo without sacrificing the expression dictated. This subject is formed from the repetition of a two-bar theme through a sequence that builds from pianissimo to fortissimo. This then gives way to a slow, soft cello theme at rehearsal 11, featuring a song-like character. Throughout this section, the violas play a subtle accompaniment figure consisting of a quarter note moving up Diatonic and chromatically to an eighth note. This figure seems unimportant; however, it later goes on to become a major part of the heroic episode at rehearsal 20, interspersed with a trumpet call which bursts through triumphantly. The manipulation of these short motives serve as the basis of Elgar's composition in this movement. The brevity of this thematic material does not leave the listener feeling exhausted, as Elgar ties them up by closely relating each, resulting in a lengthy flowing development at rehearsal 24.
The opening melody of the development is made up of eerie diatonic and chromatic scales and is rather ambiguous, culminating in the appearance of what Elgar called the "ghost" motive in the violins at rehearsal 24.Kent, p. 42. A clearer and more grounded tune appears later in the cellos, commanding this section until the transformation into what appears to be a super-development. Elgar quickly thickens out the score and fills it with punctuating accents and six bars of downward leaps into the main theme, thus beginning the transition back into the primary material. This bridging section contains a break after the first bar of rehearsal 42 which gives the audience a chance to catch its breath before plunging into the recapitulation, which follows the standard outline. Following is a coda section at rehearsal 61, which introduces a short, calm section before uprooting the music with a surge of excitement and closing with a virtuosic ending.
II. Larghetto
The second movement of the Symphony is a Larghetto funeral march in C minor. It has become popular belief that this movement is an elegy to Edward VII, after whose death it was written. Many, including Michael Kennedy, hold the belief that it is also a more personal expression of Elgar's grief, as he had lost close friends August Johannes Jaeger and Alfred Edward Rodewald around the time he was working on the symphony.
The movement is in sonata form without a development and is characterised by its manipulation of modal expectations. It opens with a seven-bar C minor introduction of soft chords in the strings, grouped into a 3+3+1 bar pattern which contrasts with the clear 4+4 grouping of the main theme's funeral march. The march tread of the movement is suggested beginning at bar 8 by a series of throbbing chords on beats two and four, pulsing in the string and drum accompaniment under the grave winds and brass melody. An unexpected welling of emotion is heard just before the March section closes at rehearsal 70, followed by a transitory passage featuring a "sigh" motive (rehearsal 70) in the woodwinds. This transition modulates to the second theme in F minor opens with a lyrical but subdued string episode at 71. Then, as if Elgar had lost his sense of restraint, we hear a build-up of dynamic, an increase in tempo, and more imaginative scoring leading to a triumphant F major climax in the brass, marked "Nobilmente e semplice" (rehearsal 76). The "sigh" figure is again heard in the closing thematic area at rehearsal 78, as if to recall earlier grief, slowly melting into the recapitulation of the C minor March theme at rehearsal 79.
The primary theme is now heard against a new countersubject in the oboe, resembling a solo lament of which Elgar, conducting, said:
The lyrical string second theme follows immediately at rehearsal 81 without a transition, this time in E major, the key of the "Spirit of Delight" theme. Everything follows according to sonata form convention until the coda (three bars after rehearsal 88), an extended V chord resolving to a warm and mournful return to C minor at rehearsal 89. An allusion to the introduction is then interrupted by an unexpected crescendo in the trombones and strings, quickly silenced as the movement ends with a decrescendo to ppp.
III. Rondo
The third movement is the shortest of the four, running 8 to 9 minutes. Labelled a rondo by Elgar, it by no means adheres to the typical rondo archetype; Robert Meikle successfully analysed the movement's structure according to several different forms: two different rondos (the first ABACABA, the second ABACADABACA), a scherzo and trio, and a sonata form.Meikle, "The True Foundation", 53–55.
The opening theme in C major is derived from a motif heard initially in the first movement (at rehearsal 1). Featuring a recurring two sixteenth–eighth note rhythm and a sprightly character, it is traded between strings and woodwinds in quick successive units, maintaining a sense of rhythmic unrest through offbeat accompaniment patterns and hemiolas. A second sweeping theme in C minor begins at rehearsal 93, similar in contour and rhythm to the first movement motive mentioned above. Marked fortissimo and sonoramente in the strings, it is occasionally supplemented by winds and horns and punctuated by accented off-beats in the brass and timpani. This theme is then repeated piano by the first violins with interjecting woodwind solos. The opening material returns in fragments, running through a series of harmonic sequences and building to the entrance of the third theme at rehearsal 100, which maintains the sweeping aspects of the C minor section with the added rhythmic punch of the opening. This is followed by a return to the opening thematic material in earnest.
A pastoral theme appears at rehearsal 106 in the woodwinds, oscillating between a string motive related to the C minor theme and the opening material. Throughout this section, the timpani subtly foreshadows the coming strife with a repeated eighth note pattern played softly in the background. This action begins to intensify at rehearsal 118, with the return of the "ghost" motive from the first movement and the hammering of eighth notes in timpani, brass, high winds, and tambourine. It is a striking moment, a violent outburst in the midst of relative serenity; Elgar stated that it represented "the madness that attends the excess or abuse of passion", and tied it to a section of a Tennyson poem related to a corpse's experience in his grave ("...the hoofs of the horses beat, beat into my scalp and brain...").Kennedy, "Symphony No. 2", 62. The episode passes seemingly unnoticed, fading away before the recapitulation of earlier material, concluding with a triumphant C major cadence.
IV. Moderato e maestoso The fourth movement of the symphony, marked Moderato e maestoso, is in a clear sonata form. The exposition opens with a primary theme in E major; every bar has the same rhythmic pattern and the last beat of each bar ends with a downwards leap of a perfect fifth. An aggressive transitional theme at rehearsal 139 leads, through sequences, to a grandioso climax (four bars before rehearsal 142), followed by a new theme in the dominant (B major) at 142, marked Nobilmente like the climactic section of the second movement.