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The Sonata in G major, Op. 28 is Edward Elgar's only sonata composed for the organ and was first performed on 8 July 1895. It also exists in arrangements for full orchestra made after Elgar's death.
The first movement of the Sonata was played at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
The genesis of the work was a request to Elgar to write an organ voluntary for a convention of American organists in the English city of Worcester in 1895. Instead, Elgar decided on a four movement sonata of nearly half an hour's length. [1]
The four movements are:
The opening theme resembles the beginning of Elgar's The Black Knight , a cantata completed two years earlier and gaining acceptance when Elgar began work on the organ sonata. [1] The outer movements follow the classic sonata form; the inner movements are in three-part A-B-A form. Michael Kennedy observes that to play the finale successfully, the organist needs to be a mental and physical athlete. [2]
Elgar wrote, "one week's work", in the score inscription, but that measures only the final constructive push. He had worked on the piece off and on for nearly three months. Biographer Jerrold Moore notes that Elgar depended, in order to complete a work, on the stimulation of an imminent deadline. This was the first time, but not the last, that Elgar cut it so close that there was insufficient time for rehearsal. [1] It was first performed by the Worcester Cathedral organist, Hugh Blair, on 8 July 1895. [2]
The work was dedicated to Elgar's friend and fellow-musician Charles Swinnerton Heap (1847-1900). [2]
In the 1940s, following Elgar's death in 1934, the publishers decided that an orchestration of the sonata should be commissioned, and having consulted the composer's daughter and the conductor Sir Adrian Boult, they entrusted the job to Gordon Jacob. The orchestrated sonata was performed in 1946 (by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Boult). It was neglected for decades thereafter, being revived only in 1988 in a recording by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley, made in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool in 1988 for EMI. The notes to that recording aver that "due to Jacob's sympathetic scoring the version may be described as Elgar's Symphony No 0". In 2007 a second recording of the orchestrated sonata was issued by Chandos Records, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Richard Hickox.
The Organ Sonata in its original form has been recorded by, among others, Jennifer Bate, Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, Carlo Curley, Harold Darke, Gareth Green, Christopher Herrick, Donald Hunt, [notes 1] Nicolas Kynaston, James Lancelot, Thomas Murray, Simon Preston, Wolfgang Rübsam, Arturo Sacchetti, John Scott, Herbert Sumsion, Robert Quinney and Thomas Trotter.
A sonata for organ was arranged by Ivor Atkins from Elgar's Severn Suite , written as a test piece for a 1930 brass band competition.
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH was a British conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later.
Sir Granville Ransome Bantock was a British composer of classical music.
The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory. Elgar disapproved of the use of the term "oratorio" for the work, though his wishes are not always followed. The piece is widely regarded as Elgar's finest choral work, and some consider it his masterpiece.
Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61, is one of his longest orchestral compositions, and the last of his works to gain immediate popular success.
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about music. As a composer he was prolific: the list of his works totals more than 700, mostly compositions of his own, but a substantial minority of orchestrations and arrangements of other composers' works. Those whose music he orchestrated range from William Byrd to Edward Elgar to Noël Coward.
Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A♭ major, Op. 55 is one of his two completed symphonies. The first performance was given by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter in Manchester, England, on 3 December 1908. It was widely known that Elgar had been planning a symphony for more than ten years, and the announcement that he had finally completed it aroused enormous interest. The critical reception was enthusiastic, and the public response unprecedented. The symphony achieved what The Musical Times described as "immediate and phenomenal success", with a hundred performances in Britain, continental Europe and America within just over a year of its première.
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his Symphony in E minor, published as Symphony No. 6, in 1944–47, during and immediately after World War II and revised in 1950. Dedicated to Michael Mullinar, it was first performed, in its original version, by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 21 April 1948. Within a year it had received some 100 performances, including the U.S. premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky on 7 August 1948. Leopold Stokowski gave the first New York performances the following January with the New York Philharmonic and immediately recorded it, declaring that "this is music that will take its place with the greatest creations of the masters." However, Vaughan Williams, very nervous about this symphony, threatened several times to tear up the draft. At the same time, his programme note for the first performance took a defiantly flippant tone.
Sir Ivor Algernon Atkins was the choirmaster and organist at Worcester Cathedral from 1897 to 1950, and a friend of and collaborator with Edward Elgar. He is remembered for editing Allegri's Miserere with the famous top-C part for the treble. He is also well known for "The Three Kings", an arrangement of a song by Peter Cornelius. Atkins was also a composer of songs, church music, service settings and anthems.
The Wand of Youth Suites No. 1 and No. 2 are works for orchestra by Edward Elgar, first performed in 1907 and 1908 respectively. The titles Elgar gave them were, in full: The Wand of Youth First Suite, Op. 1a (1869–1907) and The Wand of Youth Second Suite,. The music was drawn from material written by the composer in his youth and orchestrated forty years or so later.
Cockaigne (In London Town), Op. 40, also known as the Cockaigne Overture, is a concert overture for full orchestra written by the British composer Edward Elgar in 1900–1901.
Froissart, Op. 19, is a concert overture by Edward Elgar, inspired by the 14th-century Chronicles of Jean Froissart. Elgar was first attracted to the Chronicles after finding mention of them in Walter Scott's Old Mortality.
The Serenade for String Orchestra in E minor, Op. 20, is an early piece in three short movements, by Edward Elgar. It was written in March 1892 and first performed privately in that year; its public premiere was in 1896. It became one of Elgar's most popular compositions, and has been recorded many times.
Polonia is a symphonic prelude by the English composer Edward Elgar written in 1915 as his Op. 76.
A Colour Symphony, Op. 24, F. 106, was written by Arthur Bliss in 1921–22. It was his first major work for orchestra, and is today one of his best-known compositions.
The first recording of Edward Elgar's Symphony No 1 was made by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1930, conducted by the composer for His Master's Voice. The recording was reissued on long-playing record (LP) in 1970, and on compact disc in 1992 as part of EMI's "Elgar Edition" of all the composer's electrical recordings of his works.
Sevillana, or, as the composer titled it Sevillaña , is a short piece for orchestra by the English composer Edward Elgar written in 1884 and published as his Op. 7. It was first published by Tuckwood, with the composer's revision of 1889 published by Ascherberg in 1895. It was dedicated to W. C. Stockley, conductor of the Birmingham Festival.
Edward Elgar's Symphony No 2 was first recorded complete in 1927 by His Master's Voice conducted by the composer. This recording was reissued on LP record and later on compact disc. There was no further recording for seventeen years, until Sir Adrian Boult made the first of his five recordings of the symphony in 1944. Since then there have been many more new recordings, the majority played by British orchestras with seven of them recorded by the London Philharmonic.
The Severn Suite, Opus 87, is a musical work written by Sir Edward Elgar. It is a late composition, written in 1930, the result of an invitation to write a test piece for the National Brass Band Championship. It was dedicated to his friend, the author and critic George Bernard Shaw.
Elegy, Op. 58 is a short piece for string orchestra by Edward Elgar, composed in 1909. It was written in response to a request for a short piece to commemorate deceased members of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. The work was composed within a month of the death of his close friend August Jaeger and may reflect Elgar's grief at his loss.
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