Visits to the coffee shop

Twice a week, I enjoy having a flat white at my local coffee shop, choosing a time (about 11.00) when there are not too many people about and there is thus a choice of tables. My ritual is the same each time: order the coffee, collect it, settle at a table, and then read the paper that I have bought from the M&S shop that is next door to my habitual haunt. I take my time over the coffee (unless it gets busy and I need to give up my table, unlike the “home office” customers) and then walk back home. Nine times out of ten I feel better than when I arrived at the shop and I can’t really explain why. It’s not because of the stimulus of caffeine, although that may play a small part, but more about making me feel part of a bigger world; something about which psychiatrists would have their own comments to make. I also enjoy coffee with friends, but my solo visits have a quite different quality, suiting my mildly autistic nature.

Sometimes, a piece in the newspaper has a special appeal and that happened this morning when I read the review by Ellen Peirson-Hagger of Sheila Heti’s book Pure Colour in the "i" newspaper for 25th February 2022. It contained a paragraph that really made me think (both the review and the paragraph are shown below).

The question that was posed touched a nerve ending and I started to ask myself why I am moved deeply by some works of art – I guess that is something we all do, but I can only speak from my own experience.

When I’m in the right mood, I can be so moved by some pieces of music that I almost feel shaken. Something very deep within me is getting touched and I can easily see how this could be interpreted as “the breath of God”. What is this feeling? I don’t know the answer, but the effect is profound. Does it help to know that the composers that most affect me in this way are Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Sibelius? All three wrote music that was evocative of places that I know and where I have been “at one” with both Nature and Landscape. Of course, it is easy to say that my feelings are those of a Romantic and that it is all very emotional, but that doesn’t explain why I am that way. It feels like an attempt to find “light at the end of a tunnel”.

Other arts also affect me, but not to such a profound emotional level, although some paintings I return to stare at every time I visit galleries on repeat visits. It might be works by Turner or by Murillo, and there is no consistency of subject matter, just something that draws me. Turner I find fascinating, because he was seeking to portray something about the essence of Nature: Murillo because there is no artist better at conveying human tenderness. Like my reaction to certain pieces of music, the feelings can be (inadequately) described, but they cannot be shared.

It leaves me with the question of whether what I feel is similar to what others feel and whether that deep feeling causes them to believe in God. It’s interesting what can come from reading one’s paper in the local coffee shop.

 

Remembering Troyte – Edward Elgar’s dependable friend

A stone monument was erected at the summit of the Worcestershire Beacon (the highest point in the Malvern Hills) to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It features a toposcope, which allows visitors to identify the hills, and other features, that they can observe from this point (see above). The current toposcope is an exact replacement of the original, which was stolen (but subsequently recovered), and it was designed by Arthur Troyte Griffith (1864-1942), a well-known Malvern architect of the time (see below).

Troyte was educated at Harrow (where his father was a master) and at Oriel College Oxford. Percy M Young [1] describes him as “an all-round scholar, with special interests in art and literature”, who loved nature and painted water colours, played chess to a high level, and who was also an enthusiast for crossword puzzles. After Oxford, his interest in buildings led him to architecture and he moved to Malvern to set up a practice. 

In 1896, Troyte became friends with Edward Elgar, who was seven years older and who, at that time, was living in “Forli”, a house in Alexandra Road, Malvern Link. Elgar was well-known locally as a teacher, musician, and composer of pieces for various instruments and ensembles, but he was a difficult man [2], with a strong need for recognition and praise; sinking into self-pitying gloom when he felt things were not going well for him. A contrasting side of Elgar’s personality was his love of “japes” and the exhilaration provided by being outdoors in the natural world, and these were both traits that Troyte shared. He was later celebrated by Elgar in Variation VII of the Enigma Variations, where the composer highlights his friend’s lack of skill as a musician. Michael Kennedy writes [3]:

The variation is not a portrait. It merely records “maladroit essays to play the pianoforte; later the strong rhythm suggests the attempts of the instructor [Elgar] to make something like order out of the chaos, and the final despairing ‘slam’ records that the effort proved to be [in] vain.”   

As music was so important to Elgar, and he had the facility to play several instruments well, one can imagine his frustration. It is not unusual for musicians to have a low tolerance of the performance of those less gifted than themselves, but the strong bond of affection, and shared interests, between the two men overcame Elgar’s likely intolerance. Indeed, Troyte remained one of Elgar’s most valued friends for the rest of his life; many letters being written between the two [1] that show Troyte’s dependability and support in all manner of practical matters, including interior design [4]. He was also a valued guest at dinner parties and other social events, where the two could enjoy their love of what we now call banter.

If Troyte’s contribution to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was the toposcope on Worcestershire Beacon, Elgar’s was his Imperial March, a composition that impressed London audiences [3] and which began the progress to world-wide recognition. In 1897, the two men had been friends for a year and it was in 1899 that Troyte was celebrated in the Enigma Variations, the piece that cemented Elgar’s fame and which remains so popular today.

I wrote earlier about my recent walk on the Malvern Hills [5] and I began my stroll close to Troyte’s old house in Lower Wyche Road on the flanks of the Worcestershire Beacon. On reaching the top of the Beacon, I had the reminder of Troyte on the Silver Jubilee monument and, in addition to being surrounded “by a feeling of Elgar”, it was also good to remember one of Elgar’s most valued friends. We know that Elgar had generous musical support from Augustus Jaeger (of Novello and Company - fondly recalled as Nimrod in Variation IX of the Enigma Variations) and from many others, but Troyte provided a substantial “anchoring role” in the gifted composer’s life. Those of us who are moved by Elgar’s music probably owe Troyte a good deal.

[1] Percy M Young (ed.) (1956) Letters of Edward Elgar, and other writings. London, Geoffrey Bles.

[2] Michael De-la-Noy (1983) Elgar: the man. London, Allen Lane.

[3] Michael Kennedy (1968) Portrait of Elgar. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

[4] Michael Kennedy (2004) The Life of Elgar. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

[5] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2019/05/elgars-inspiration.html

For a recording of Variotion VII of the Enigma Variations, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugeTgWjIt6c

For a biography of Arthur Troyte Griffith, see http://www.troytegriffith.org/

Elgar’s inspiration

I have loved Elgar’s orchestral music since I was a child. There is something about it that brings a connection with Nature and the outdoors, summed up by Jerrold Northrop Moore [1]:

The country had filled Elgar’s music as it had filled the greatest English art. It is a pastoral vision reaching back through Samuel Palmer and Turner and Constable, through Keats and Coleridge and Wordsworth.. ..This was the heritage that shaped Elgar and his music, and that touches his music’s audience still.

It wasn’t until I watched Ken Russell’s BBC documentary [2] that I knew much about Elgar the man, but that programme set me off reading biographies and articles. For some reason, I came to view Elgar as a person whose love of the countryside was similar to my own, although I have no skill in communicating that love in music, or in any other way for that matter. 

In crude terms, his music “touched my soul” (whatever that means), and it is difficult for me to listen to some pieces without feeling strong emotions. I’m not frightened by that, but for many years I put off visiting the Malvern Hills, an important source of inspiration for Elgar, because I thought I might be disappointed. Last week, however, I walked up to the top of the Worcestershire Beacon from the woods surrounding the Hills.

Moore [1] relates a story about Elgar at the end of his life:

It was the music of the Cello Concerto that remained with him then. As he lay dying early in 1934, he “rather feebly” whistled the 9/8 sequence of up-and-down to the friend who had tried to provide his opera libretto: “If ever you’re walking on the Malvern Hills and hear that, don’t be afraid. It’s only me.”

I carried this thought with me on my walk and found myself humming the 9/8 theme, so I was carrying Elgar with me. The walk began with leafy paths and it then became more open as I climbed, admiring the views all the while. This is a brief photographic record of the day:

It was exhilarating to stroll up to the Beacon and I can see how it provided inspiration for the beautiful pastoral music of a great Romantic like Elgar. At the risk of gaining an entry in “Pseuds Corner”, there was a sense of being on Earth, but also looking out from above it, at the wide vista on either side. It was a joyous experience and I can’t understand why I hesitated walking on the Malvern Hills for so many years. 

I’m already looking forward to going back and the 9/8 theme of the Cello Concerto now brings new memories.

[1] Jerrold Northrop Moore (2004) Elgar: Child of Dreams. London, Faber and Faber.

[2] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2013/04/edward-elgar-ken-russell-nature-and-me.html

Elgar's Enigma

I've been re-reading Patrick Turner's scholarly book on Elgar's Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma) Op. 36 [1]. He explains how the piece acquired its title and also puts forward an explanation of the enigma – that the variations originated with the French folk melody to which we sing the nursery rhyme Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. As Elgar never explained the origin of the Variations we will never know whether Turner is correct, but we do know that Elgar played a tune to his wife, Alice, in the manner of several of his friends and that this led to the dedication of the Variations by Elgar "to my friends pictured within".

The link below is to the acclaimed interpretation of the work by Toscanini.

Even if one knows little of the origins of the piece, the Enigma Variations are certainly popular and "Nimrod", the variation based on Elgar's friend August Jaeger of the music publisher Novello, is the best known. I knew it before I knew the rest of the piece, largely from hearing "Nimrod" many times on radio programmes of music requests. We didn't have a record player (this must sound so odd to readers brought up in the modern era) and it wasn't until I was a student that I was able to buy an LP of the Enigma Variations and that began my exploration of Elgar's beautiful and inspiring music.

I have already written about Elgar and soul, complete with a tease that neuroscientists will never understand how music affects the emotions [2], but I wanted to write more after reading quotes in Turner's book [1]. The first came from the conductor Leopold Stokowski after he conducted the Variations in Philadelphia and New York in 1929:

We had not played them for four seasons, and the impression I received from them was of such depth of feeling and beauty that I was stirred by this music far more profoundly than I can express in words. Often when we play a work after not having heard it for several seasons, we have the impression of its being the expression of another period and of being alien to the life of today. But your Variations gave me the most powerful impression of eternal vitality and architectural design – and also something very difficult to express, a floating upward into a mystical level where time and space seem to cease.

The other quote is from Turner himself:

..I never cease to wonder what it was about Elgar that enabled him to produce music which succeeds in moving me in a way in which no other music does. What is the strange alchemy that draws people to his music and, once drawn, traps them?

Both quotes imply that Elgar had a special quality that enabled him to communicate something deep and intimate. I alluded to this in the earlier post [2], yet I have no idea whether the moving feelings that I have when listening to the piece are the same as those that Stokowski, Turner and many others describe. The imagery that I have must be personal, yet the result is the same for all of us – almost being in contact with a higher sense. What is the rational explanation of that and why is Elgar so good at creating that feeling? It's another enigma.

[1] Patrick Turner (1999) Elgar's 'Enigma' Variations – a centenary celebration. London, Thames Publishing.

[2] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2015/12/elgar-soul-and-neuroscience.html

Standen, Jacques Delamain and Olivier Messaien

I like perusing the titles of books in the libraries of large country houses. They give an impression of the interests of previous owners of the house and, because of my liking for Natural History, it is volumes on this subject that particularly catch my eye [1,2,3].

Last week, I visited Standen House, the country home of the Beale family from the end of the Nineteenth Century. It has lovely gardens and the interior of the house is decorated in Arts and Craft style and contains some very fine furniture [4]. As would be expected in the library of a family with seven children - and, later, grandchildren - there were many volumes about fairy tales and adventure, but the book that stood out for me was The Days and Nights of Birds by the French amateur ornithologist Jacques Delamain (the cover of my copy is shown above). Ornithology has always been a popular pastime, and many books have been written about the habits, and habitats, of birds. In the Foreword of The Days and Nights of Birds [5] Delamain writes:

"But has not everything essential been said about birds?" The question was put to me one day by Abel Bonnard who was unwilling to see too narrow a limit imposed on his keen poetical curiosity. I assured him that this subject, like all which touch nature, was inexhaustible. Indeed, for the seeker, one discovery leads to another and new problems appear which the mind tries to solve. The beauty of living creatures and the setting in which they move, life's harmony and complexity, always awake in us unexpected echoes. Intellectual curiosity, the aesthetic sense and poetry never fail to renew the world.

Each one of us follows his own way, seeking to understand the mystery of creation. For some, the way grows endlessly broader, embracing vast horizons, others advance slowly and shortsightedly along a narrow path. But no one can set out without discovering riches..

We can see that Delamain's interest in birds was wrapped up with his love of Nature and he communicated this in an attractive prose style that is apparent even in translation. It is easy to see how readers may be stimulated to look more closely at birds after reading his books and Delamain concludes the Foreword by writing:

My first book, Why Birds Sing, brought me precious assurance from my readers that I had taught them how better to observe Nature, and how to love her more. If my present volume induces them to look once more on the ever varied spectacle offered to our eyes by the seasons as they pass, and increase their interest in the creatures that people our fields, woods and rivers, it will have fulfilled its purpose.

One can imagine Mr Beale, or visitors to Standen, reading the book and using it as a guide to their own observations on walks in the garden or around the estate.

The writings of Delamain influenced many others, including the composer Olivier Messaien. Messiaen was fascinated by birdsong and Hill and Simeone [6] describe the result of his visit to Delamain's home La Branderaie de Gardépéé (see above):

In April 1952,.. .. Messaien took what proved to be a decisive step. At the suggestion of his publisher Leduc he paid a short visit (15-17 April) to Jacques Delamain, a leading ornithologist and prolific author. Delamain lived in south-west France, his house at Gardépéé set in large wooded grounds midway between Cognac and the neighbouring town of Jarnac, where the Delamain family firm still produces brandy. Delamain's tuition enabled Messaien's knowledge of ornithology to catch up with his musical aspirations. In particular, he learned to identify birds solely through their songs or cries: 'It was [Delamain] who taught me to recognise a bird from its song, without having to see its plumage or the shape of its beak.'

..the visit to Delamain proved a life-changing experience. Delamain inspired Messiaen to pursue his researches in a more systematic way. The results can be seen in the surviving birdsong notebooks, the Cahiers de notation des chants d'oiseaux, in which Messaien started to collect his observations from nature..

Messaien went on to compose Réveil des oiseaux and Hill and Simeone [5] include a quote from the composer about this work:

"In Réveil des oiseaux [...] there's really nothing but bird songs [...], without any added rhythm or counterpoint, and the birds singing are really found together in nature; it's a completely truthful work. It's about an awakening of birds in the beginning of a spring morning; the cycle goes from midnight to noon: night songs, an awakening at four in the morning, a big tutti of birds cut short by the sunrise, forenoon songs, and the great silnce of noon.."

You can hear the piece in this video clip [7] and it is interesting that it follows a sequence of bird song through a day, perhaps in homage to Delamain's Days and Nights of Birds.

I find the link between Delamain and Messaien fascinating: a great composer and a wonderful writer both communicating about Nature and the pleasure that it gave them. Thank you Standen, and the National Trust, for giving me a chance to tell the story.

[1] http://www.rwotton.blogspot/2014/08/changing-ones-mind-about-creation-or-not.html

[2] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2016/03/oxburgh-hall-fabres-entomology-and.html

[3] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2016/07/scotney-castle-and-eminent-natural.html

[4] https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/standen-house-and-garden/features/a-history-of-the-beale-family

[5] Jacques Delamain (1933) The Days and Nights of Birds (translated by Mary Schlumberger). London, Victor Gollancz.

[6] Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone (2007) Olivier Messiaen: Oiseuax exotiques. Aldershot, Ashgate, 

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6xJv0SwZpU

Elgar, soul, and neuroscience

Sir Edward Elgar did not follow conventional religious practices and his biographer, Michael Kennedy [1], remarks that:

He expressed a wish that he should be buried at the confluence of Severn and Teme, without religious ceremony. He had for many years avoided going to church and while dying and still lucid refused to see a priest.

Raised a Roman Catholic, Elgar certainly knew well the concept of soul – it is no wonder that Cardinal Newman's poem The Dream of Gerontius had such an attraction for him, forming the basis of one of his greatest compositions. He was a complex man and his music reflected that, extending from State ceremonial, through religious oratorio, to the pastoral. It is the reflective, soulful Elgar that has always had the most appeal for me and his source of inspiration came from his feelings for people and a passion for landscape and the natural world. His loyal friend, W. H. (Billy) Reed [2] tells us of visits to Elgar:

Elgar was intensely fond of the country. Like William Morris, he was in love with the earth. He seemed to know every inch of Worcestershire (his own county), Herefordshire and the Malverns, Gloucestershire, and the Severn and Wye Rivers. He never tired of talking of them, exploring and re-exploring them if only to see again all the things he knew to be there; and his great joy was to have a kindred spirit with him to share in these pleasures, and to see his own joy reflected in the face of another.

Reed was the leader of the London Symphony Orchestra and provides us with another insight into the inner Elgar when he wrote:

I remember once when we were rehearsing the First Symphony, and the passage at Fig. 66 in the second movement was being played in too matter-of-fact a manner to please him, he stopped and said, "Don't play it like that: play it like" – then he hesitated, and added under his breath before he could stop himself – "like something we hear down by the river"..

It is soul – an inner self, moulded by emotional wounds and triumphs – that Elgar portrays so well in his music. Some people listening to pieces such as Sospiri or the Violin Concerto will be unmoved and find them rather slow and meaningless, but, for me, these pieces cut through everyday things into something much deeper. Here are recordings of the two:

Both works have a link to Billy Reed as he helped Elgar, himself a competent violinist, with fingering and other technical aspects of the solo part of the Concerto. He was not only a very fine violinist, but his nature was quite different to that of Elgar's [3]:

Reed was valuable as a technical adviser and indispensible as a warm-hearted companion, his sympathy, wit, and gay charm being antidotal to Elgar's frequent melancholy.

A photograph of the two men in later years is shown below (from the cover of Reed's book) and something of their relationship comes across in it. Reed was the dedicatee of Sospiri and this was a wonderful gesture by Elgar, reflecting the help that Reed had given the composer four years earlier. 

On the manuscript of the Violin Concerto is written "Aquí está encerrada el alma de ....." (Herein is enshrined the soul of .....), something that has engaged many Elgar scholars, in attempting to identify the person represented by "....." Not being a scholar, I have nothing to add there. What is clear, however, is that the piece does contain what Elgar himself described as his "insidest inside" [1,3]. He was pleased with the Violin Concerto and, during its composition, wrote to a friend [3]:

I have the Concerto well in hand & have played (?) it thro' on the p.f. & it's good! awfully emotional! too emotional but I love it..

I do not get an affecting and moving response when I see the notes of Sospiri or the Violin Concerto written down – I have to hear them (they are music after all). At the risk of trivialising the wonderful sensations that result from listening to the pieces, I wonder how the music would be interpreted by a neuroscientist? Firstly, each instrument in the orchestra is creating sound waves and the complex of sounds is transmitted through the air to be picked up by the ears of the listener, then passing down the auditory canals to vibrate the eardrums and the small bones of the middle ear. The complex of sounds is then translated into electrochemical signals that pass along the auditory nerve to the brain where they are interpreted. Recent studies indicate that there is a special area of the brain that is used to process signals that are generated by music [4], but this is only part of the story. Once received, the signals produce responses in other parts of the brain dealing with pleasure, memory and a host of other activities related to soul. 

In closing, I would like to return to Elgar the man rather than the composer, although both are, of course, interlinked. Above is a picture of Elgar shortly after he had cycled over to his father's home (Mr Elgar was, by then, a widower, living with his daughter, Polly). The composer had just learned of his Knighthood and the reaction of old Mr Elgar also expresses a very special kind of emotion; the handkerchief being used for much blowing of the nose and mopping of the eyes. Elgar stands behind him in "nobilmente" pose, showing a very different part of his soul from that which generated Sospiri and the Violin Concerto. He would no doubt been impressed by the extraordinary achievements of contemporary neuroscience (he was an enthusiast for both chemistry and technology), even though its findings only lead to a rudimentary understanding of the complexities of musical appreciation. If we ever understand the neuroscience of soul, and I doubt that we will, the next question would be: how did soul evolve?

[1] Michael Kennedy (1968) Portrait of Elgar. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

[2] W. H. Reed (1936) Elgar as I knew him. London, Victor Gollancz.

[3] Percy M. Young (1956) Letters of Edward Elgar and other writings. London, Geoffrey Bles.

[4] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-brain-has-dedicated-set-of-nerve-cells-that-respond-only-to-sound-of-music-study-finds-a6780246.html