JELKA ( Calling) : Hildegarde? Hildegarde?

Enter Hildegarde, the Maid.

HILDEGARDE: Yes, Madam?

JELKA: My dear, do fetch us some ( Turning to Elgar)…tea, coffee?

DELIUS: Champagne…

JELKA: Oh, Fred.

DELIUS: What?

JELKA: You know you are not allowed…

DELIUS: Not allowed? Nonsense, Jelka, I demand Champagne.

JELKA: Oh very well. Champagne, Hildegarde.

DELIUS: Two bottles of the Bollinger ‘16, Hildegarde.

HILDEGARDE: Sir.

Hildegarde exits.

DELIUS: A wonderful concert last week, Edward.

ELGAR: You were in London…surely not?

DELIUS: No, we heard it on the wireless you kindly sent us.

ELGAR: Ah, I see. The tone is so clear don’t you think? I would never have imagined, when I was writing Gerontius, that your music, Fred, that George’s plays might be broadcast, and be listened to by tens of thousands of people? It is beyond my comprehension.

DELIUS: Lots of royalties though.

ELGAR: Indeed. Although I have to say that over the years I feel I could have organised things a little better in that department. Joe was saying on the way down about never giving a sucker an even break. I feel I may have been something of a sucker in that area, Fred.

DELIUS: W.C. Fields - never give a sucker an even break.( Delius laughs to himself) How, I miss the cinema, Edward. I went to see Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer ten times, ten times.

JELKA: And we were thrown out ten times because you would insist on singing along. I have never been so embarrassed.

ELGAR (Laughing): D’you know, Harold Lloyd always reminds me of my father, dear old man. Jelka, tell me, will cinema affect your work as a painter, affect painting as a whole, affect art in general?

JELKA: Absolutely. Images are what the artist lives for, therefore we must adapt to the cinema, to the popular image. You too must adapt, as must Fred. You should both write for the cinema.

ELGAR: Do you really think so?

DELIUS: Potemkin was another wonderful film, and I didn’t sing along to that did I, Jelka?

JELKA: No, thank goodness. But you should write something for Hollywood, Edward? I believe many Russian composers have moved there.

ELGAR: Hollywood? Gosh. Do you think so? Music by Sir Edward Elgar, that’d show ‘em.

JELKA: Yes. If not your work will die, wither as perhaps it should.

Elgar roars with laughter

DELIUS: Jelka!

JELKA: America already leads the way in film making, Fred, and it always will, because they are always looking to create something new; they do not rely on tradition.

ELGAR: You are absolutely right, Madam Delius. But I’ll tell you something: Hollywood is too interested in art. All I’m interested in is money. (PAUSE) And I’ll tell you something else - Griffith wanted me to write the music for The Birth of a Nation, don’t you know.

DELIUS: No, I don’t believe it.

ELGAR: Yes, I turned him down, of course, felt then it was rather beneath my talent. What a damn fool, eh. Twenty thousand dollars he offered me. Apparently Chaplin suggested I do it, which I have to say was rather splendid of him not having met the chap. When I told George all he could say was ( ELGAR ADOPTS AN IRISH ACCENT) “Good god, man, you’ve never said anything about this before. Why I had lunch with Chaplin only last July, he never mentioned it either. D’you know he served roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in a heat wave, ninety degrees. I have to say he does seem to be very much the Englishman who judges success by his own childhood deprivations.” (PAUSE) George is a vegetarian of course. (PAUSE) Joe writes screenplays - I believe that is what they call them - he intends to make it big in Hollywood; he probably will, too.

Hildegarde enters with the champagne and places it on the table. Joe follows her with the parcel which he puts on the floor at the edge of the stage.

DELIUS: Ah, Hildegarde, the champagne. Now I want you to open the champagne in the way I showed you.

HILDEGARDE: But, sir…

DELIUS: Now come on, madchen, no need to be afraid. First remove the foil, then untie the wire. Remember how the waiters at Le Moulin Rouge…

JELKA: Fred, what have you been saying to her? The girl has no desire, I’m sure, to hear about your youthful exploits in Paris. Until she came here she had never been away from Saxony…

HILDEGARDE: Oh no, Madam, we lived in Zurich for a while, and I was once taken on a school outing to Verdun. Pardon, Madam.

ELGAR: Did they serve you champagne, Hildegarde? All beautiful young women should drink champagne.

HILDEGARDE: Oh no, your honour, only Perrier water, and almond cakes. We were not made welcome. But our Rabbi insisted we had the right to visit the battlefield. When the locals knew we were German, were Jews, they jeered and spat at us. I remember how some of the French boys smoked cigars behind the memorial and stubbed them out on the names of the German dead until our Rabbi found them and beat them with his stick. Oh, how we laughed.

Everyone laughs

DELIUS: Good, quite right. Now remember, you must never allow the cork to pop as if from a gun. Hold onto it and allow it to gently ease itself out without a sound. Ready, Hildegarde?

HILDEGARDE: Yes, sir.

Hildegarde slowly eases the cork from the bottle, smiling hugely as she does so.

ELGAR: Bravo, Hildegarde, bravo indeed.

DELIUS: Bravo, my dear.

JELKA: Well done, Hilde. Now just pour a glass for everyone.

JOE: Ain’t you the one, honey. Ain’t you the one.

Go to Part 4.

ELGAR: Of course. But you must humour two old men, Jelka; and I have to say, my dear, you look radiant, so beautiful.

JELKA: Sir Edward, please. And why must I humour two old men?

ELGAR: What else is there, Madam Delius? We have all tried in our way to humour the very world itself, have we not, to make it a place that even politicians might not wish to spoil. But spoil it they do. So why not humour the two of us?

JELKA: What? Have you given in? And such a friend of Mr Shaw. I had expected more.

ELGAR: George would say that expectation usually leads to disappointment. No, Madam, I have not given in, but as we travel this dark valley that is the 1930s a little humour is welcome surely?

JELKA: George says! George says! Have you no voice of your own? (Pause) Forgive me, that was uncalled for.

DELIUS: I thought you didn’t want to talk of politics, Jelka?

Jelka gives Delius a withering stare. Elgar then tries to lighten the mood.

ELGAR: Ha. Do you know, Fred, if I were forty years younger I’d steal her away from you and no mistake. Such passion, such, such? Where would we go, Jelka? The South Seas? Taihiti perhaps, follow in the footsteps of Gauguin? Paint, write music, eat coconuts, drink wine, make love beneath the palms?

Delius then picks up on Elgar’s mood

DELIUS: You are a cad, sir! If you were forty years younger I’d not be the way I am and would demand a dual to protect Jelka’s honour. Pistols or swords, Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet of Broadheath?

ELGAR: There speaks a Bavarian Yorkshireman. But as you are aware I have little facility with swords. Pistols, sir! Damn good shot - even for a First Baronet of Broadheath, not to mention a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order!

DELIUS: Titles, man, letters, nothing more. Of little consequence in the real world, you could easily have refused them.

ELGAR: Is that so? I don’t remember you refusing your Companion of Honour.

DELIUS: Hmm? A trifle, a mere nod toward my natural genius, no more. Now to business. Pistols? Manstoppers? Cowardly weapons. And Bavaria be damned, Edward, Westphalia. Pistols? Bah! Swords! Real weapons, real blood, real fighting at close quarters. Now, when I was a young man in Leipzig…

JELKA: Fred, enough.

ELGAR: He’d never find us would he, Jelka?

JELKA: And if I were forty years younger I would avoid the two of you like a contagion. In fact forty years ago Fred had still not met me. Perhaps that might have been preferable, what do you think, Fred, Fritzy? What do you say?

DELIUS (Angrily): What do you want me to say, Jelka, that I wish I’d never met you? Why do you taunt me so? Anyway, our guest doesn’t want to hear this. All I know is that forty years ago Hitler was still only four years old. Someone should have kidnapped him, broken his scrawny neck and buried him deep in a forest, deep in a German forest, and the whole of the German Royal Family, and their English cousins, and the landed Junkers while they were at it. What do you say, Edward? What do you say Jelka? Should the mob have murdered the Rosens’, and the Delius’ and buried the damned lot of them in a dark German forest? I say they should.

ELGAR: I say, Fred, that’s a bit strong isn’t it? Murder? Should we talk of it so lightly?

DELIUS: I am not talking lightly. Others seem not to be either. There is unfinished business ahead.

ELGAR: Others? Unfinished business? Oh, I’m damned if I know. (Pause) I was in Brazil not long ago, and their forests are ruddy dark too. Perhaps we should send him there? Hitler, eh?

DELIUS: With Goring.

ELGAR: Ha! Goring it is. But don’t murder them. Let them wander around until the natives stew ‘em up for supper? Goring alone should last them a week.

JELKA: Hitler and Goring as Hansel und Gretal? Splendid idea. Probably do the world a power of good.

ELGAR: D’you know forty years ago I was still in the thrall of Oscar Wilde. Now if someone had left him deep in a forest the natives might very well have been drinking Absynthe and using nail polish within a month. Now let’s get off the subject. Madam I am as dry as a dog’s tail in a following wind.

They all laugh

Go to Part 3.

It is May 1933 and we are in the garden of Delius’s French home at Grez-sur-Loing, twenty miles south of Paris. There is a table covered in a white cloth, and around the table chairs. To one side an easel with one of Jelka Delius’ unfinished canvases. It is a hot day.

We hear Noel Coward singing “ Lover of my Dreams”.

The 71 year old Frederick Delius enters pushed in a wheelchair by his German nurse, Carl; they are followed by Delius’s wife, Jelka. Delius is paralysed, and partially blind as a result of Syphilis. He wears a white suite, white shirt, dark glasses, and a large white fedora. Jelka is a woman in her 60s, and her clothes are more reminiscent of the 1910s, than of the 1930s. As the Noel Coward fades we hear Delius’s Concerto for Cello in the background. The nurse parks Delius to one side of the table, and Jelka sits at the other side.

JELKA: Why did you say he could call, Fred? You know I don’t like Elgar.

DELIUS: Jelka? Leibling? Edward is a good man, a good composer too. But not as good as me you understand.

JELKA: He intimidates me, he’s so loud, and tall.

DELIUS: Jelka Rosen, daughter of a Junker intimidated by an Englishman?

JELKA: Just don’t ask me to join in. I shall escape and paint for the day.

DELIUS: As you wish, but at least stay for an hour, and make him welcome. (To the nurse) You may leave us now, Carl, but keep a look out for Sir Edward.

The Nurse Exits

JELKA: An hour.

DELIUS: Good, then you can escape.

We hear the sound of men laughing.

DELIUS: I think he is already here, my dear?

Enter Sir Edward Elgar, followed by his driver Joe. They are still laughing as if they have shared a rather good joke. Elgar is wearing a dark suit, and has a cane. Joe is wearing a rumpled suit and shirt. Elgar sees Delius.

Sir Edward Elgar

ELGAR: Ah, Fred.

Elgar goes over to Delius, removes the fedora and kisses the top of Delius’ head, then puts the hat back.

ELGAR: How are you, old man?

DELIUS: As you see, Edward, as you see. Such noise.

ELGAR: Joe can tell a good joke. (To Jelka) How are you, my dear?

JELKA: Fine.

ELGAR (To Joe): Joe, say hello to Frederick Delius, England’s finest composer, and his delightful wife Jelka.

JOE: A great pleasure, sir, ma’am.

DELIUS: Fred, call me Fred.

JOE: Fred, sir.

ELGAR: We had quite a journey did we not, Joe?

JOE: We did.

ELGAR: Nearly ended in the ditch, some damn fool of a motorcyclist. Joe is a taxi driver from Paris, an American.

DELIUS: Ah, indeed. I spent many happy years in Paris, it is the most wonderful of cities, is it not?

JOE: Indeed it is, sir, er, Fred.

DELIUS: Sit down, Joe, Edward. But alas I fear we may all remember this day, and this year for more important reasons than a motorcyclist. I received a letter from my sister this morning where she has written again of the outpourings of adulation shown on Hitler’s birthday last month. It obviously preys on her mind a good deal, and I have to say I fear for my family’s land under his chancellorship.

ELGAR: You may be right, Fred, and I have to say I feel he is greatly flawed. A statesman who begins by persecuting the Jews is as hopelessly compromised as an officer who cheats at cards. But I feel I must support his proclamation on compulsory labour, and his nationalisation of the trade unions, which are essentially communist of course.

DELIUS: You sound like your friend Shaw.

ELGAR: George? The most notorious of communists. And he would argue that it is senseless for Hitler to denounce Marxism at every opportunity, that he should wait to see who his friends are.

JELKA: Sir Edward. Fred. I will not have politics discussed on such a beautiful day.

Elgar goes across to Jelka and kisses her hand; he’d kiss her mouth if he could.

ELGAR: Madam Delius, Jelka, forgive me, and, as you say, on such a beautiful day, and in such a beautiful garden. It is an honour, a delight, to meet you again.

JELKA: Thank you, Sir Edward. Fred? That corporal will not last, the German people will not tolerate him.

Elgar returns to his seat.

DELIUS: But, Jelka, they voted for him in overwhelming numbers. He has already purged the universities of professors who do not agree with National Socialism. The work of Freud and Einstein can no longer be taught. The man will destroy everything that is beautiful, including this garden if he gets half a chance. He is the personification of the worst of the German character, the worst of you and I, Jelka. He is the brutality of the German army in 1914.

Elgar coughs

ELGAR: Joe? I wonder would you mind bringing in the package from the car?

JOE: Hell no, Sir Edward.

Joe Exits

ELGAR: Hell no. I rather like the American don’t you? So honest. We would have been lost in 1918 without them I fear.

JELKA: Sir Edward, please.

Go to Part 2.

Sir Edward Elgar would have been 150 in June this year, and something more of a prodigy at that age than even he had been in life.

We all know Elgar’s popular classics, of course, Nimrod from the Enigma Variations, Pomp and Circumstance No. 1 — Land of Hope and Glory — and a rash of wonderfully melodic, string-based compositions that recall Edwardian England like no other. When asked if he used folk music in his work, he repied, “Madam, I write the folk tunes of England”. And so he did.

Yet he accomplished much more than that. The German conductor, Hans Richter, said of his First symphony, “It is the greatest symphony of modern times, and not just in this country [England] either.” Richter premiered it, as well as the Enigma Variations and his oratorio, The Dream of Gerontius.

Although quintessentially English, Elgar’s music was firmly rooted in the Austro-German Romantic tradition. His poor background prevented him from studying in Leipzig. He did, though, get to Bayreuth in 1892 where he experienced the first performance of Wagner’s greatest achievement, Parsifal. He saw it twice and Der Meistersinger four times. Needless to say, he became a passionate Wagnerian for the rest of his life.

Classy Classical will be covering this event throughout this year, including a hoped-for serialization of Steve Newman’s play on Elgar.

To celebrate Elgar’s 150th, the UK’s Daily Mail is offering an Elgar Edition of five CDs with Mark Elder conducting the Halle Orchestra. Works included are :

1. First Symphony; In the South.
2. Enigma Variations; Serenade for Strings; Cockaigne (In London Town).
3. Falstaff; Cello Concerto; Romance; The Smoking Cantata.
4. Second Symphony; Introduction and Allegro for Strings.
5. Froissart; Dream Children; The Music Makers.

Unusually, there’s no website for purchases, but you can ring : +44 (0)1634 832789. The price in sterling is £44.95 ($88).