An all English Evening (英國之夜)

Few would dispute that the English are wonderful with words (Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw etc), but serious music never seems to have been their forte. But there's nothing to stop them from welcoming musicians from the continent like Mendelssohn, who has been adopted by the Brits and treated as one of their own. But though rare, they got a home grown composer too: Elgar.  We had a taste of both specimens last Saturday at the Cultural Centre: two pieces by Mendelssohn: his The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave Overture) and his Symphony No. 3 (Scottish) and Elgar's Sea Pictures.

The first work is one of the most popular works by Mendelssohn, written in the summer of 1829, when he was about 20, said to be inspired by a visit to the famous sea cave with rectangular rock columns rising straight from the bottom of the sea at the island's shores at the northernmost part of Scotland. We hear in this work the sound of sea waves pounding at the rocky cliffs, waves after wave and we can feel the strong sea gusts cutting into the pitiless rock faces, scouring the walls of the cave and thundering out against the unforgiving northern skies, stark, magnificent, strong, and yet not completely devoid of a kind of tenderness as the winds abate and gently blow over the grass and fluffy feathers of reed flowers, growing upon its shores as the sea gulls perform graceful figures of 8 in the sky riding upon rising air current above the huge Atlantic swells of the mighty sea as the sun comes out.  Although it's called an overture, it's an overture to nothing and stands as a work complete in itself. It's one of my favourites from Mendelssohn. 

Unlike Haydn, Mendelssohn did not write many symphonies. His third was begun at more or less the same time as his Fingal Cave Overture but was not completed until almost a dozen years later in 1842 ! I really don't know why this symphony has been called "Scottish Symphony" apart from the fact that he began it shortly after his visit to Scotland in 1829. It is said that he did however visit the ruined church of Mary the Queen of of Scots there which might have inspired him to write the theme of first movement, a theme which is repeated from time to time in the other movements s. But whatever might have been the true reason for the Scottish Symphony being so named, it's another very listenable work. The first movement is rather solemn, its second is by turns very frolicking and forceful, its third has a heavy marchlike rhythm, but ts fourth blasts away into a very upbeat, massive and forceful climax.

By contrast Elgar's Sea Pictures, written at the close of the 19th century, are much less powerful.They consist of a series of 5 songs originally written for a soprano but was later done in a lower key to fit the voice of a contralto singer Clara Butt  whom Elgar liked. The five songs were all inspired by certain poems which Elgar found moving: Sea Slumber Song (Roden Noel 1834-1894), In Haven (Capri) (Caroline Alice Elgar, his wife),  Sabbath Morning at Sea (Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861) , Where Corals Lie (Richard Garnett)  and the Swimmer, (Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833-1870). They were sung for us by a rather tall and elegant mezzo-sophrano Christian Stotjin who studied under Udo Reinemann, Jard van Nes and Dame Janet Baker and had performed in Amsterdam, Vienna, New York and Paris and whose album Tchaikovsky Romances was the BBC Music Magazine's Vocal Recording of 2010. She has a good voice but I was not particularly moved although the orchestral music did help. It's got nothing to do with her. it's Elgar. I like Mendelssohn's works much better.