The Makers of British Music - Illustrated London News, 24th October 1908

[Jimfin]

Maybe Delius was painted out: his absence is being often commented on on UC.

[albion]

Looks like there's some old stick in the back row...

You mean you really didn't know that Mackenzie was a unicorn?

[calico]

Albion - thanks for posting this picture.

They look like they're in two opposing teams - maybe for a duel?

[Sydney Grew]

Both were hypersensitive to criticism (but quick enough to dish it out), frequently tactless, stubborn and, in Stanford's case especially, quarrelsome. . . .

Vaguely seeking something to shed more light on this subject, I did find some snippets that may be of interest:

1) Fuller Maitland - Music in the XIXth Century (1902):

". . . it may be said in passing that Stanford's various articles in warm commendation of works by his contemporaries, such as 'The Golden Legend' (National Review, Nov. 1886), 'Judith' (Fortnightly Review, Oct. 1888), and 'Falstaff' (Fortnightly Review, April 1893), are a lasting monument to his critical insight, as well as to his complete lack of that professional jealousy which has spoilt the nature of too many English musicians."

2) Sydney Grew - Our Favourite Musicians (1922 - chapter on Elgar):

"He [Elgar] has a biting tongue when necessary, and does not wrap honey round the sting. . . . This, however, is not to imply that Elgar is unkind."

[albion]

Stanford's reaction (in a letter to Joachim) to the ecstatic critical reception which Elgar's The Apostles received at Birmingham in 1903 was "Is the art of music going mad? You should hear the Apostles by Elgar. Ye gods! Such ugliness! and all the papers raving about it. It gives me a bad stomach-ache." Earlier that same year Jaeger had reported to Elgar that "A young friend of mine has just been here after an interview with Stanford re modern music. He says C.V.S. foamed at the mouth almost dismissing R. Strauss' & other moderns' music. Poor disappointed man!"

The reference to Elgar in Stanford and Cecil Forsyth's 1916 History of Music is pointedly dismissive, alleging that he had "reaped where others had sowed. Cut off from his contemporaries by the circumstances of his religion and his want of regular academic training, he was lucky enough to enter the field and find the preliminary ploughing already done." The description of Stanford in the same chapter on modern British composers, admittedly written by Forsyth, is brazen puffery - "[he] is the man of widest achievement in this group," noted for "purity, clarity, and beauty of expression."



Whilst Stanford often gets the lion's share of blame for the rift because of his track-history in detonating friendships (eg. with Richter and Parry), Elgar was certainly quite capable of taking umbrage at a supposed slight and of being haughtily aloof to the point of rudeness. He was acutely conscious that he was not a product of the college-academy system and jealously guarded his hard-won reputation. After the notorious Birmingham lecture (which Rosa Burley, in the audience, considered "one of the most embarrassing failures to which it has ever been my misfortune to listen" and during which Ivor Atkins and George Sinclair, the organists respectively at Worcester and Hereford, "fidgeted in our seats, becoming more and more anxious as the lecture proceeded about the effect of his words in the musical world at large"), Parry confided to his diary that Stanford "was in a great rage about Elgar's inaugural address" and that Mackenzie was prepared "to discuss the recent pronouncements by Elgar which rouse his ire greatly - and no wonder!" Jerrold Northrop Moore gave a succinct summary of the Elgar-Stanford relationship - "On the one side, Edward's dizzying success despite his lack of academic connections could tempt jealousy even in natures more patient than Stanford's. On the other side, Stanford's energetic advice and advocacy could always strike a man of Edward's insecurity as tinged with patronage."

[Jimfin]

I certainly get the impression from Dibble's excellent biography, that I would have been unlikely to like Stanford, however much I adore his music and feel he is underrated as a composer. But I don't imagine I would have liked Elgar more. I would have preferred to be on a nice boat cruise with Sullivan and his mate the Duke of Edinburgh. Listening to Elgar and Stanford behind their backs.
      Stanford always disliked Strauss, using him as an example of ugliness. He even thought the opening of VW's Sea Symphony was too modern: what would be have made of no. 4?
     Forsyth seems to have been an absolute idiot as a music critic: every time he is quoted it is saying something completely wrong-headed. He even made disparaging comment about the viola, despite having written a concerto for it.
     Re. Elgar's lectures, they do seem to have been silly, but Havergal Brian was an enormous admirer of them.