Falstaff (Elgar)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Falstaff (disambiguation).

Falstaff – Symphonic Study in C minor Op.68 is an orchestral piece by the English composer Edward Elgar.

Falstaff, though not so designated by the composer, is a symphonic poem in the tradition of Liszt and Richard Strauss. It portrays Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight of Shakespeare's Henry IV parts I and II.

1 Structure
2 History
3 References
4 Notes

[edit] Structure

The composer set out the divisions of the score in an ‘analytical essay' in The Musical Times in 1913:

I. Falstaff and Prince Henry

II. Eastcheap – Gadshill – The Boar’s Head. Revelry and sleep – Dream Interlude: ‘Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk’ (Poco allegretto)

III. Falstaff’s march – The return through Gloucestershire – Interlude: Gloucestershire. Shallow’s orchard (Allegretto) – The new king – The hurried ride to London

IV. King Henry V’s progress – The repudiation of Falstaff, and his death

In the first section Elgar establishes the two main themes of the piece, that for Prince Hal (marked grandioso) being courtly and grand, and that for Falstaff himself showing ‘a goodly, portly man, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage.’ (Boito adapted these words of Falstaff for his libretto for the Verdi opera, but the Falstaff of the opera is essentially the buffo character from The Merry Wives of Windsor, whereas Elgar’s is the Falstaff of Henry IV.)

The subsequent development of the score follows closely the key events of the two parts of Henry IV in which Falstaff features. The Gadshill section shows him attempting a bullion robbery but being himself attacked and robbed by the disguised Hal and his companions. Falstaff returns to his base at the inn and drowns his sorrows in drink. In his drunken sleep he dreams of his youth, when a slim page to the Duke of Norfolk. (Here too Boito/Verdi and Elgar treat the same material quite differently: in the opera Falstaff’s nostalgic reminiscence is an up tempo little aria (‘Quand’ ero paggio’) but Elgar’s treatment is slow and wistful.)

Part III of the score moves to Shakespeare’s Henry IV part II. After Falstaff’s summons to court and commission to raise soldiers for the King’s army, there is a battle scene and then a second interlude, an English idyll in a Gloucestershire orchard. This is dispelled by the news of the King’s death and Prince Hal’s accession. As in the play, Falstaff hurries to London confident of favours from the new monarch, but is instead dismissed and banished. Finally the broken Falstaff, having crept away, lies dying – ‘the king hath killed his heart’ and after a return of the theme of the second interlude a piano C major chord in the brass and a hushed roll on the side-drum portray Falstaff’s death. The work ends with a very brief version of Prince Hal’s theme, showing, in the composer’s words that ‘the man of stern reality has triumphed.’

[edit] History

One way in which Verdi’s and Elgar’s Falstaff are alike is that neither is among its composer’s most popular works. Both are more respected than loved by the general music-loving public, and some commentators have classed them as works for the aficionado. Comparing the frequency with which they as opposed to other works of the two composers were presented in the past century seems to bear this out. By 1955 the authoritative publication The Record Guide could describe Elgar's Falstaff as 'the only tone poem of its day that suffers nothing by comparison with the best of Richard Strauss's works in the genre', but there were many who disagreed with that and with Sir Donald Francis Tovey’s view that Falstaff was ‘one of the immeasurably great things in music’ with power ‘identical with Shakespeare’s.’ After a performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1983 the critic of the local paper, The New York Times, opined that the conductor ‘could not do much, in fact, to rescue the character’s spirited braggadocio from the programmatic detail that smothered the music.’ The well-known Elgarian writer Michael Kennedy criticised the work for 'too frequent reliance on sequences' and an over-idealised depiction of the female characters.^[1] Even Elgar's great friend and champion, W H Reed, thought that the principal themes show less distinction than some of Elgar's earlier works. Reed acknowledged, nevertheless, that Elgar himself thought Falstaff the highest point of his purely orchestral work.

Though concert performances have been comparatively rare, the work has been well served in recordings. The composer’s own 1931/1932 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, produced by the eminent Fred Gaisberg of HMV, was widely praised both at the time of its release and when it was remastered for LP and then for CD. Also on HMV, Sir John Barbirolli’s 1964 Hallé recording was chosen by BBC Radio 3’s Record Review as the recommended version, even over the composer’s own. Sir Adrian Boult was closely associated with the work, and made three recordings of it; his final version, set down in 1973 was praised by critics for emphasising the ‘symphonic’ aspect. In 2005 the BBC also recommended a Naxos recording by David Lloyd Jones and the English Northern Philharmonic.

[edit] References

The Record Guide, by Edward Sackville-West, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Andrew Porter and William Mann, Collins, London 1955
Elgar by W H Reed, J M Dent & Sons, London 1939
New York Times online archive
BBC Radio 3 Record Review online archive
Notes to HMV CD CDM 7 63113 2 (LPO/Boult 1973 recording of Falstaff)