Elgar in Eastern Europe

[Christopher]

An Albanian violinist - Alda Dizdari - is working to promote Elgar in Eastern Europe.  She was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000nls - (towards the end) and spoke about how is currently perceived there (he is "unsung" there, known only for the Cello Concerto and Enigma) and how she wants to use his Violin Concerto to raise his profile in the region.  She is performing it this Sunday in Cadogan Hall.

https://aldaviolin.com/biography/

https://www.cadoganhall.com/event/southbank-sinfonia-181014/
Following a two year journey promoting and premiering Elgar's Violin Concerto in Eastern Europe, the concert violinist Alda Dizdari and conductor Alexander Walker come to the Cadogan to perform Elgar's masterpiece in a gala performance where Alexander Walker will be presented with the Elgar Medal by the Elgar Society of Great Britain and the violinist Alda Dizdari will launch a book inspired by the travels with this concerto titled Kiss me Again; A Memoir of Elgar in Unusual Places.

Also an article in The Sunday Times yesterday (7th Oct) - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alda-dizdari-interview-elgar-violin-concerto-kiss-me-again-a-memoir-of-elgar-in-unusual-places-qmjslmrxq

[Double-A]

I think it is correct to consider Elgar an unsung composer anywhere outside the Anglo-Saxon world, not just in Eastern Europe.

I find it interesting that there is no British-born sung composer between Purcell and Britten while in other areas, most notably literature the British arguably dominated the field--at least compared to Germany.

[matesic]

You forget Sullivan! The museum of the RAM has a display featuring their star students of the 19th century. Today Sullivan and Sterndale Bennett are the only ones with the slightest reputation, national or international. Most of the rest seem to have produced just organ music and oratorios.

[JimL]

This reminds me of that oft-quoted G.B. Shaw comment that Heaven was an eternity of German music and English literature, and Hell was the opposite.

[Alan Howe]

Very silly, of course, if you consider the upward trajectory of British music in the 20th century. Anyway, back to the topic...

[JimL]

More appropriate for the time he wrote it, I would think.

[eschiss1]

Which would be when during his 90+ years?
I can't find a source for the quote. Sometime between 1865 and 1950, I should imagine (I'm dropping his first decade out of consideration just- because.) Still, that leaves anytime between the end of the US Civil War to the end of what IMSLP defines as the early 20th century era (well out of our remit!) as time in which he could have written it... a substantial period of English and German literature and music. So when _was_ it?

[eschiss1]

(Given Shaw's encouragement of Elgar in writing his never-finished 3rd during the 1930s, there's some faint relevance, I suppose, but response can be taken to pmsg )

[Alan Howe]

Anyway, let's get away from GBS...

[Gareth Vaughan]

Oh please, yes, let's...

[Ilja]

I think it is correct to consider Elgar an unsung composer anywhere outside the Anglo-Saxon world, not just in Eastern Europe.

I don't think that is correct at all, although Elgar is only known here from a handful of works. But the Enigma Variations are pretty common concert fare, and have been for decades. Other works perhaps not so much, although my irregular but not infrequent concert visits in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Portugal and Sweden have had me listening to a couple of Violin Concertos, one Dream of Gerontius, and at least three stints of In the South. And that from someone who isn't much of an Elgar fan.

[eschiss1]

I always find the Elgar Society Concert Listings somewhat thought-provoking on that topic (however unavoidably incomplete.) (Ilja seems mostly right, but there's happily the occasional exception- the cello concerto in Amsterdam a week from tomorrow, for instance and in Vienna in March 2019. (One cellist is playing the concerto in Vienna and a couple of places in the US in the next few months, a different cellist in Amsterdam. Also one in Bergen. Several performances of the work in the US though whether that counts as part of the Anglo-Saxon world - complicated question that I'd answer in the negative myself but anyway.)) (Eg mid-May 2019, San Francisco symphony - Mendelssohn 4th symphony, Elgar violin concerto, Bacewicz overture for orchestra. Pity I can't get to that concert for all that I know the Mendelssohn well (and who knows, maybe they're playing the "other" version of it...))

(That said, the concert listings seem to be for Western Europe (including UK), Australia, USA & Canada - I don't offhand see any concerts from Eastern Europe listed, though I don't doubt that they would be if submitted to the Elgar Society for inclusion? ... I think?... oh, ok, I also see one (15 February 2019) in Singapore on the list.)

[eschiss1]

Ms. Dizdari has a book out, "Kiss Me Again: A Memoir of Elgar in Unusual Places", available over Amazon Kindle.

[Alan Howe]

More details here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kiss-Me-Again-Memoir-Unusual/dp/0244408505/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539500362&sr=8-1&keywords=Kiss+Me+Again%3A+A+Memoir+of+Elgar+in+Unusual+Places#reader_0244408505

Fascinating.

[chriskh]

Elgar's fate abroad may be partly tied up with Mediterranean vs Nordic tastes. He's certainly not played much in Italy, but even that little may amount to more than they play of Sibelius, apart from the Violin Concerto, and far more than they play of Nielsen. I haven't found reference. for example, to any performances of Sibelius 6 in Italy at all except for a couple conducted by Jeffrey Tate (who also did a lot of British music for RAI, and not just obvious things) in the present century.