Hall records 42 seconds of richly flavoured bombast

   http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1104249,00.html

   David Ward
   Thursday December 11, 2003
   The Guardian, London

   The first recording of a hitherto unknown work composed in
   a haze of cigarette smoke by Sir Edward Elgar is about to be
   released on CD. The recorded performance by the Hall orchestra
   in the BBC's Manchester studios is also thought to have been
   the world premiere of a composition Elgar completed more than
   80 years ago.

   The work, for heroic baritone soloist and very large orchestra,
   including eight horns and swirling harp, will be included on
   a disc on the Hall's own label which will also feature the
   composer's much-loved cello concerto.

   Elgar's Smoking Cantata will not detain listeners long: it
   lasts just 42 seconds, which is probably some sort of record.
   "I think it's the shortest work I have ever conducted," said
   Mark Elder, the Hall's music director.  "It's certainly shorter
   than the national anthem.  It made the orchestra laugh like
   mad when they played it through for the first time."

   The piece was unknown until the autograph manuscript came up
   for auction earlier this year and was bought for 3,800 by the
   Elgar Birthplace Museum in Worcester with the help of funds
   from public and anonymous donors.

   It is now on public display there.

   The score is headed "specimen of an edifying, allegorical,
   improving, expostulatory, educational, persuasive, hortatory,
   instructive, dictatorial, magisterial, inadautory work" for
   soloist and orchestra.  Elgar gave it the opus number 1,001
   and dated the three-page score July 10 1919.

   It was apparently written at Ridgehurst, the Hertfordshire
   home of the wealthy banker Edward Speyer.

   "Elgar met Speyer in 1901 and regularly stayed in his house,"
   said Catherine Sloan, director of the museum.

   "He seems to have loved the peace and tranquillity of the
   place and it may have stirred his creativity.

   "He tried hard to shrug off the fact that his background was
   in trade.

   At Ridgehurst he felt very comfortable among the country
   gentlemen of his day.  He enjoyed their company and they
   enjoyed his."

   Three months before the first performance of the cello concerto
   Elgar went to Ridgehurst to try it out with Felix Salmond,
   who was to be the soloist at the premiere.

   Speyer was a good host but repeatedly asked his guests not
   to smoke in the hall or on the stairs.

   In response Elgar reached for his sheets of 20-stave manuscript
   paper and began composing - and doodling.

   He cast Speyer as the soloist who declaims, in neurotically
   rising pitch, "Kindly, kindly, kindly do not smoke in the
   hall or staircase" and then exits.

   In the middle of the score Elgar added a medieval hell's mouth with smoke
   belching from it and curling up the page.

   "It's deliberately very bombastic, a satire on a very grand
   recitative from a very grand opera," said Elder, still reeling
   from having put his baton down almost as soon as he picked
   it up.

   "All his life Elgar enjoyed wordplay, games, anagrams and
   puns.  But his sense of humour very rarely got a chance to
   come through in his music."

   Ms Sloan said: "This is a novelty piece and was never designed
   to be performed.  It's meant to fun.

   "We tend to think of Elgar as a stern and serious Edwardian.
   But here we can see he liked a joke."

   A recording was suggested to the Hall when it emerged that
   it planned to commit Elgar's entire works to CD.

   "It's a joke," said John Summers, the Hall's chief executive.
   "And rather a good joke.  We've enjoyed it."

   Shoestring airs

   Chopin's Waltz in D flat, Op 64, No 1, is known as the Minute
   Waltz.  It lasts two minutes

   Four of Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op 10, last less
   than a minute each

   The world's shortest opera is believed to be The Deliverance
   of Theseus by Darius Milhaud, first performed in 1928: 7
   minutes, 27 seconds

   Charles Ives's orchestral piece The Gong on the Hook and
   Ladder or Firemen's Parade on Main Street lasts two minutes

   Stravinsky's Greeting Prelude, written in 1955 for the 80th
   birthday of the conductor Pierre Monteux, includes Happy
   Birthday and lasts one minute

   King Harald's Saga by Judith Weir: a three-act opera based
   on the Norwegian invasion of England in 1066.  Scored for
   solo soprano who sings eight solo roles as well as the part
   of the Norwegian army.  No section lasts more than one minute.
   Total length: under 10 minutes

   Benjamin Britten's Tema Sacher for solo cello, composed in
   1976, the year he died: under a minute.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
[log in to unmask]