Elgar festival brings fresh hope and glory
AFTER well over a year of Covid lockdown postponements Worcester’s Elgar for Everyone Festival is back up and running, packed with an exciting weekend of events.
Kenneth Woods, principal conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra and festival director, says: “There’s excitement, elation, expectation and trepidation,” he begins.
“There’s nothing to compare to live music – even the best possible filmed performance is ultimately only flashing lights on a screen and speakers moving back and forth.
‘‘Concerts are where connections happen. And festivals, even more so. For all that we’ve missed the thrill of music being made in the moment and shared by all, we’ve also missed the community around the music. We’ve missed the connections, seeing friends, collaborating with colleagues.
‘‘We chose Elgar’s Enigma Variations
this year as the centrepiece of the festival for this reason. It’s about friendship, it’s about connection.”
In festival promotion he refers to
Elgar as this country’s greatest composer. How would he defend that statement to the champions of Purcell, Walton, Britten and others?
“Well, any statement like that must be made with a smile, as we know these kinds of judgements are, to an extent, subjective and statements like this are meant to be more playfully provocative than statements of gospel truth.
“There may well be a composer greater than all of these that has slipped below the radar – when one thinks of the kind of obscurity that engulfed Bach and Mahler for several decades after their deaths, you must admit that we never fully know what is out there until time works its magic. But, of all British composers, it’s hard to think of any composer who, at their best, took music to such incredible emotional and spiritual heights as Elgar.”
This festival boasts a really varied line-up of events. How did the planning go?
“The planning went fast,” Kenneth emphasises. “We were heartbroken when the festival couldn’t proceed in the spring. Once we saw an opening in October, there was precious little time to put together a programme and get funding in place. Our plan was to keep the festival more modest in scale this time, but, on that front, we’ve failed. There’s a real feast of music to be had, pretty much all weekend.”
Many of the places with whom Elgar had strong personal connections figure as performance locations during the festival, none more prominent than Worcester Cathedral.
This will be the venue for a Gala Concert on Saturday, October 30 (7.30pm), celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Worcester Charter. Kenneth Woods conducts the
English Symphony Orchestra in an all-British programme including Vaughan Williams’ Housmaninspired song-cycle On Wenlock Edge, Mark Wilde the tenor soloist, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
Mark Wilde is also soloist in a recital of English song, accompanied by David Owen Norris. Two Worcestershire composers of the Victorian era are featured, Elgar himself and Walter Battison Haynes, as well as a contemporary one, Worcester-based Ian Venables.
Venables has been described in Musical Opinion as “Britain’s greatest living composer of art songs”, and in this recital at Huntingdon Hall his song-cycle The Last Invocation, based on poems by Walt Whitman, receives its premiere.
Much more is on offer all over the city from October 29 - 31, with all details at www.elgarfestival.org