Elgar: Sea Pictures, a Cycle of Five Songs for Contralto and Orchestra, Op. 37 (with full score)

Performers: Janet Baker (voice), John Barbirolli (conductor), London Symphony Orchestra 0:00 Sea Slumber-Song 5:05 In Haven 7:08 Sabbath Morning at Sea 13:26 Where Corals Lie 17:36 The Swimmer Programme notes by Michael Kennedy for Hyperion: With the exception of ‘In haven’, this cycle of songs was composed in July 1899 while Elgar was at his beloved Herefordshire cottage, Birchwood. In the previous month he had achieved his first major triumph in London, with the first performance of the Enigma Variations. Sea Pictures had been commissioned by the Norwich Festival and was first performed there in October 1899 with Clara Butt as soloist and Elgar conducting. ‘She sang really well’, Elgar wrote, noting also that she had appropriately ‘dressed like a mermaid’. The song cycle was repeated in London two days later, and two of the songs (with piano accompaniment) were sung to Queen Victoria at Balmoral within a fortnight. Their popularity was thus assured, and the cycle was one of the few works on which the composer considered he received a satisfactory financial return in those years. With his wide knowledge of literature, Elgar took immense care in choosing the five poems. Whether or not they are great poetry is immaterial: one cannot now imagine them apart from the music. Of the poets, Roden Noel, son of the Earl of Gainsborough, published several books of verse and a life of Byron. Richard Garnett was, for nearly 50 years, on the staff of the British Museum, becoming Keeper of Printed Books. Adam Lindsay Gordon was born in the Azores, settled in Australia and shot himself in disappointment over an unsuccessful claim to a family estate in Scotland. Mrs. Browning and Alice Elgar scarcely need any introduction. Elgar was stimulated by the five poems in much the same way as he was by O’Shaughnessy’s ‘The Music Makers’. Several deliberate allusions to some of his other works are embedded in the orchestral texture, and the enchanting theme of ‘Where corals lie’ derives from a quadrille written for his asylum band at Powick 20 years earlier. Mahler, one of the few other contemporary composers of orchestral song cycles, conducted Sea Pictures (excluding No 5) in New York in 1910. We may be sure he recognised a twin soul when he encountered the imaginative beauty of the orchestration. ‘Sea slumber-song’ gives the impression of a nocturnal seascape with the tide lapping over pebbles poetically evoked by divided strings, harp glissandi and entrancing woodwind solos. ‘In haven’, to use Alice Elgar’s words, is lightly scored and was the first of the songs to be composed—as ‘Love alone shall stay’ (lute song) for voice and piano in 1897 (published a year later). The ‘Capri’ of the subtitle is subtly suggested by the siciliano-like rhythm. In ‘Sabbath morning at sea’ Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s religious ecstasy aboard ship brings a solemn mood: the singer’s recitative-like opening turning into impassioned melody is a strong pointer to Gerontius’s vocal part. At the start of the fourth verse, the first song is quoted on the lower strings. This ‘Nimrod’-like grandeur is followed, as in the Enigma Variations, by lightness and grace in ‘Where corals lie’, given a deliciously lilting accompaniment. It has become the best-loved song of the five, perhaps because it gave Elgar scope to express passionate yearning for the unattainable. With half an eye on The Flying Dutchman, Elgar’s ‘The swimmer’ plunges into a stormy sea and comes up with a splendid rolling theme as he breasts the waves. In the more relaxed central section, when the singer recalls ‘heights and hollows of fern and heather’ a quotation from ‘Where corals lie’ is gently murmured by the oboe. After that the music gathers force for the impressive ending.