Edward Elgar - Orchestral Miniatures (1882-1913)

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM GCVO (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. Please support my channels: https://ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans Miniatures for Orchestra 1. Sérénade lyrique (1899) (0:00) 2. Salut d'amour, Op. 12 (1888) (4:42) Dedication: a Carice (Caroline Alice Elgar) 3. Dream Children, Op. 43 (1902) a. Andante (8:01) b. Allegretto piacevole (11:33) 4. Contrasts (The Gavotte, A.D. 1700 & 1900) Op.10 No.3 (1882 rev.1899) (15:49) 5. Woodland Interlude from Caractacus Op.35 (1898) (19:36) Dedication: Queen Victoria 6. Interlude from Falstaff Op. 68 (1913) (21:37) Dedication: Sir Landon Ronald Bournemouth Sinfonietta conducted by Norman Del Mar. 2. Salut d'amour. Elgar finished the piece in July 1888, when he was romantically involved with Caroline Alice Roberts, and he called it "Liebesgruss" ('Love's Greeting') because of Miss Roberts' fluency in German. On their engagement she had already presented him with a poem "The Wind at Dawn" which he set to music and, when he returned home to London on 22 September from a holiday at the house of his friend Dr. Charles Buck in Settle, he gave her Salut d'Amour as an engagement present. The dedication was in French: "à Carice". "Carice" was a combination of his wife's names Caroline Alice, and was the name to be given to their daughter born two years later. 3. Dream Children These two pieces were written in 1902, when Elgar was approaching the peak of his fame and popularity. Unusually for Elgar they were not written to any commission. Michael Kennedy suggests that they may have been retrieved from the unused material for a symphony celebrating General Gordon which Elgar had been working on since 1898. They are not complete symphonic movements (the first movement takes a little over three minutes to perform and the second a little over four minutes) but it was Elgar's practice to work in small sections and then put them together into a whole. Ernest Newman described Dream Children as "a couple of delicate little pastels for a small orchestra, inspired by an essay of Charles Lamb. Elia (sc. Lamb), entertaining some children with stories of their grandmother, finds them gradually disappear from his sight he is, indeed, only dreaming": And while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been." Newman continues, "The two pieces are very short – 24 and 141 bars respectively. The first, a tender little reverie with much lovely feeling underlying its simplicity, is the better of the two. The second, though charming, is more obvious in its sentiment. At the end of it there is a return to the theme of the first". 5. A short section of music harking back in mood to the “Woodland Interlude” of Caractacus introduces the oboe that dominates in its virtuosic but reflective writing. There is no extended tutti writing, the orchestra acting as an atmospheric backdrop, and the short movement quietly fades to nothing.