Edward Elgar was born in Broadheath, near Worcester, England, on June 2, 1857, and died in Worcester on February 23, 1934. The first performance of the Cello Concerto took place at the Queen’s Hall in London, England, on October 27, 1919, with Felix Salmond as soloist, and the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to the solo cello, the Concerto is scored for piccolo (optional), two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba (optional), timpani, and strings. Approximate performance time is thirty minutes.
In the spring of 1918, following a long and painful illness finally diagnosed as tonsillitis, Edward Elgar underwent surgery. The composer’s daughter, Carice, recalled: “He was in a great deal of pain for several days; (there) were not anything like the sedatives that we have now, but nevertheless he woke up one morning and asked for pencil and paper.” Elgar then composed the first music he had written in nine months – a beautiful melody in 9/8 time. That fall, Alice Elgar noted that her husband was at work orchestrating the melody.
By the spring of the following year, Elgar devoted much time and attention to this music, which now took form as his Cello Concerto in E minor. On June 26, 1919, Elgar wrote to his friend, Sidney Colvin: “I am frantically busy writing & have nearly completed a Concerto for Violoncello—a real large work & I think good & alive.” Elgar later dedicated the Concerto to Sidney Colvin and his wife, Frances.
Cellist Felix Salmond assisted Elgar in the composition of the solo part. In August, Elgar offered Salmond the opportunity to be the soloist in the Concerto’s world premiere, which took place at the Queen’s Hall in London on October 27, 1919. It was the opening of the London Symphony Orchestra’s first concert season following World War I.
Albert Coates, the Orchestra’s new conductor, was scheduled to lead music by Wagner, Scriabin, and Borodin. Elgar would conduct the premiere of his Cello Concerto. Coates decided to devote virtually all of the allotted rehearsal time to the music he was conducting. As a result, the Concerto received a woefully inadequate performance.
In a review of the premiere of the Elgar Cello Concerto, the eminent British music critic, Ernest Newman, wrote: “never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable a public exhibition of itself.” Still, Newman was able to discern the considerable qualities of Elgar’s newest composition: “The work itself is lovely stuff, very simple – that pregnant simplicity that has come upon Elgar’s music in the last couple of years – but with a profound wisdom and beauty underlying its simplicity…the realization in tone of a fine spirit’s lifelong wistful brooding upon the loveliness of the earth.”
In time, the Elgar Concerto was recognized as one of the 20th century’s finest works for cello and orchestra. Many commentators have noted the Concerto’s “profound wisdom,” first cited by Ernest Newman. However, they often attribute that wisdom to far less genial circumstances than those suggested by Newman. Elgar composed the Cello Concerto after the devastation of the First World War. Elgar was all too aware of the effect the “War to End All Wars” had upon the world he knew and loved. As the composer wrote in 1917: “Everything good & nice & clean & sweet is far away—never to return.”
And perhaps Elgar sensed that his own life – at least as a composer – was reaching its final stages. In his catalogue of works, Elgar wrote the following next to the listing of his Cello Concerto: “FINIS R.I.P.” And after his beloved Alice’s death in 1920, Elgar was never the same. Although Edward Elgar lived another fifteen years after the premiere of the Cello Concerto, it proved to be his last major work.
The Concerto is in four movements. After a slow-tempo introduction (Adagio), the violas introduce the melody Elgar composed during his recuperative period (Moderato). The second movement also opens with a slow-tempo introduction (Lento), resolving to music whose filigree orchestration and irrepressible energy are worthy of the finest Mendelssohn scherzos (Allegro molto). The third movement (Adagio) features an elegiac, wide-ranging melody, played molto espressivo by the soloist. The finale (Allegro; Moderato; Allegro, ma non troppo) ensues without pause.
The music’s lively gait slows for a lengthy episode of extraordinary introspection and pathos. Echoes of the preceding Adagio add to the mood of resignation, as the music seems to fade to a silent conclusion. Suddenly, a reprise of the Concerto’s formidable opening measures, followed by a brief restatement of the principal theme, lead to a terse resolution.