| The Sanguine Fan | |
|---|---|
| Ballet score by Edward Elgar | |
 "A Fan in Sanguine" by Charles Conder | |
| Opus | 81 |
The Sanguine Fan, Op. 81, is a single-act ballet written by Edward Elgar in 1917. It was composed to raise money for wartime charities, and after two performances in 1917 and a recording of excerpts in 1920, the score was neglected until 1973, when the conductor Sir Adrian Boult revived it for a recording. It was later staged in the theatre by the London Festival Ballet.
Elgar's close friend and confidante, Alice Stuart-Wortley (Lady Stuart of Wortley) asked him to compose the music for a one-act ballet to be given at a fund-raising performance in aid of war charities in March 1917. [1] Elgar agreed and wrote the music quickly: within a fortnight he had a complete short score and began the full orchestration. [2]
The scenario was by Ina Lowther (later the founder of the ballet course at the Royal College of Music). [1] Her inspiration came from a decorative fan painted by Charles Conder using mostly the dark red colour sanguine used in heraldry. The fan depicted a glade with on one side the mythical figures of Echo and Pan and on the other mortals in 18th-century costume. [3] Lowther devised a story in which the mortals dance among the trees before one of the men quarrels with his lover and, as they draw apart, he curses the god of love before becoming fascinated by Echo. Pan wakes, strikes the man dead and runs off into the trees with Echo, laughing sardonically as the dead man's lover kneels in grief over his body. [4]
For the charity performance leading West End actors took the main roles: Gerald du Maurier played Pan and the two lovers were played by Fay Compton and Ernest Thesiger; [5] Lowther played Echo. [4] The first performance was part of the revue Chelsea on Tiptoe at the Chelsea Palace Theatre, London on 20 March 1917, and was conducted by the composer. Afterwards he added a further number, a shepherd's dance, which received its premiere at a second charity performance in May. [5]
The score, which plays for a little under 20 minutes, is in nine continuous sections:
Elgar conducted parts of the score for an acoustic recording in 1920, and apart from the publication of a piano arrangement of a single number, "Echo's Dance", the work was thereafter neglected for more than fifty years. In 1973 Elgar's score was unearthed and the conductor Sir Adrian Boult agreed to record it for EMI with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. [6] Further recordings followed, conducted by Bryden Thomson (1988), David Lloyd-Jones (1998) and John Wilson (2012). [7]
In September 1976, at the instigation of its director, Beryl Grey, the London Festival Ballet revived the score, with a new scenario and choreography by Ronald Hynd. It was set at an Edwardian soirée in Carlton House Terrace during which twin brothers become involved in a mix-up with two elegant ladies, one of whom suspects her sanguine-coloured fan has been stolen by the other. [8] Some of the performances were conducted by Boult, whose last public appearance was conducting a performance on 24 June 1978. [9]
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.
Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, when his music had already gone out of fashion with the concert-going public. In contrast with Elgar's earlier Violin Concerto, which is lyrical and passionate, the Cello Concerto is for the most part contemplative and elegiac.
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.
The Music Makers, Op. 69, is a work for contralto or mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar. It was dedicated to "my friend Nicholas Kilburn". It was first performed at the Birmingham Festival on 1 October 1912, conducted by the composer, with Muriel Foster as the soloist.
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", was his last completed symphony; the composition of his Symphony No. 3, begun in 1933, was cut short by his death in 1934.
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 dedicated his Symphony No. 4 in F minor to Arnold Bax.
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.
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.
Edward Elgar's Third Symphony Op. 88 (posth.) was incomplete at the time of his death in 1934. Elgar left 130 pages of sketches, which the British composer Anthony Payne worked on for many years, producing a complete symphony in 1997, officially known as "Edward Elgar: the sketches for Symphony No 3 elaborated by Anthony Payne" or in brief "Elgar/Payne Symphony No 3". The first public performance was at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 15 February 1998, by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis.
"The Pipes of Pan" is a poem by Adrian Ross set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar, being completed on 5 June 1899.
Polonia is a symphonic prelude by the English composer Edward Elgar written in 1915 as his Op. 76.
Diarmuid and Grania is a play in poetic prose co-written by George Moore and W. B. Yeats in 1901, with incidental music by the English composer Edward Elgar.
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.
From the Bavarian Highlands, Op 27 is a work for choir and orchestra by Edward Elgar.
The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham made several orchestral suites from neglected music by George Frideric Handel, mostly from the composer's 42 surviving operas. The best known of the suites are The Gods Go a'Begging (1928), The Origin of Design (1932), The Faithful Shepherd (1940), Amaryllis (1944) and The Great Elopement.
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.
