W. H. Reed’s Elgar As I Knew Him – Part 3

Throughout Billy Reed’s book Elgar As I Knew Him, first published in 1936, we get superb insights into the composer’s life, from how - with Reed’s own skill as a violinist — he managed to “organise” his magnificent Violin Concerto (a piece, for some reason, we seldom hear these days), with Reed trying out the difficult passages to see if they could actually be done. We also see Elgar as a man of many passions, one of which was for chemistry (with resultant explosions) with a fully equipped laboratory set-up in a garden shed; in fact Elgar patented an apparatus for producing sulphurated hydrogen known as the “Elgar S.H. Apparatus”. The shed (known as “The Ark”) was also used by Elgar and Reed to hide, from Lady Elgar, bottles of India Pale Ale they’d smuggled in from the local pub in a sack – all very Ealing Comedy, all very English.

And when you learn that Elgar, after a dinner party, liked nothing better than to entertain his guests with toys bought from Woolworth’s, you are suddenly very close to the heart of the man: to a man of fun (and childhood fun at that), fun that can be heard in all his music, but often darkened by periods of black depression that often accompanies the fun at a discreet distance.

All of this is in Reed’s book, and Elgar’s love of dogs, which was something he was only able to indulge in after Lady Elgar’s death in 1920, with Mina, a Cairn Terrier (he wrote a lovely piece of music named after her), and Marco, a Spaniel – plus, at one time another Cairn Terrier - becoming his inseparable companions, whose constant love, along with Bernard Shaw’s badgering, may have given Elgar the courage to accept the BBC’s commission to write a third symphony.

On page 169 of his book Reed gets round to the subject of the 3rd Symphony…

Before entering upon the description of this work, let me quote a letter I received from Bernard Shaw, which may act as an additional deterrent to anyone who may think that, after all, it is a tragedy that this symphony should remain unperformed, and that some other composer should take fragments and build them into some sort of practicable coherence: in short, as Elgar said, tinker with it.

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W.H. Reed’s Elgar As I Knew Him — Part 2

Reed first met Elgar at the Queen’s Hall, London, in 1902…

“ We had been rehearsing his funeral march from Grania and Diarmid, and I was so thrilled by the music, and by what was to my ear the newness of the orchestral sound, that I left my seat among the first violins and followed him out through the curtains until I caught him up half way up the stairs. Breathlessly I begged him to excuse me for thrusting myself forward, but I was anxious to know whether he gave lessons in harmony, counterpoint, etc. His answer was characteristic: ‘My dear boy I don’t know anything about those things.’ Rather subdued, I returned to my seat in the orchestra, hoping that Mr. Wood (now Sir Henry) had not noticed my brief absence. Little did I then think that those few words exchanged on the stairs at Queen’s Hall were to be the prelude to a firm and most intimate friendship, which would last without any break for over thirty years: in fact, until the day of his death.”

It was Sir Edward who made the next move…

“ It was soon very evident that Elgar was not annoyed by my temerity in running after him that day, for afterwards, whenever he came to conduct, he never failed to speak to me on his way to or from the conductor’s desk, always finding something friendly and encouraging to say. Naturally very much flattered that he should remember my existence, what was my astonishment when, meeting him one day in Regent Street, he stopped me to know whether I had any spare time, and if so could I come up to see him at a flat in New Cavendish Street where he was then living. He was sketching out something for the fiddle, and wanted to settle, in his own mind, some question of bowing and certain intricacies in the passage work. As can easily be imagined, I leapt at his suggestion.”

Elgar and the author. Photo by Mr E.Hall, BBC Symphony Orchestra

Which is a bit like a playwright of the time, say Somerset Maugham, asking a relatively unknown actor to pop round to try out a few lines. But then Elgar was a generous man, with his wife the driving force, and…

“ It was at his flat in New Cavendish Street that I was introduced to Lady Elgar. She, in my opinion, exercised a decisive influence upon Elgar and his music. She had the loftiest ideals imaginable, and, though not able to criticise him technically, she had unerring judgement and æsthetic sense, amounting to a sure instinct for the rightness and fitness of things…”

Which is something I try to bring across in my play A Summer Garden. It’s my opinion, and that of many others, that marrying Alice Roberts was the best thing Elgar ever did.

Billy Reed goes on to write…

“ One evening later in the year, Elgar had been working nearly all day; and we were sitting discussing the details of the construction and the possible lay-out of the orchestration which would follow, when he suddenly said, ‘You know, Billy’ - I was Billy by this time - ‘ my wife is a wonderful woman. I play phrases and tunes to her because she always likes to see what progress I have been making. Well, she nods her head and says nothing, or just “ Oh, Edward!” - but I know whether she approves or not, and I always feel that there is something wrong with it if she doesn’t. She never expresses her disapproval, as she feels she is not sufficiently competent to judge of the workings of the musical mind; but, a few nights before you came, we were at Plas Gwyn, Hereford. I played some of the music I had written that day, and she nodded her head appreciatively, except over one passage, at which she sat up, rather grimly, I thought. However, I went to bed leaving it as it was; but I got up as soon as it was light and went down to look over what I had written. I found it as I had left it, except that there was a little piece of paper, pinned over the offending bars, on which was written, “ All of it is beautiful and just right, except this ending. Don’t you think, dear Edward, that this end is just a little…?” Well, Billy, I scrapped that end. Not a word was ever said about it; but I rewrote it; and as I heard no more I knew that it was approved.’”

And it’s these insights that Reed brings to his book that makes it such an important document for the lover, and the scholar, of Elgar’s music.

William Henry Reed was born in France on July 29th 1876 (just five days before Wild Bill Hickock was shot dead by Jack MacCall in Deadwood). He studied violin and composition at the London Royal Academy of Music, where he graduated with honours. By 1904 he’d joined the London Symphony Orchestra, and by 1912 had become leader, a position he held until 1935 when he became Chairman of the Orchestra.

Throughout his career Reed taught violin at the Royal College of Music, conducted many amateur orchestras, and acted as an examiner and adjudicator.

Apart from playing, teaching and adjudicating, Reed was also an accomplished composer, which included a Symphony for Strings, a Violin Concerto in A Minor, plus a good deal of very popular light orchestral pieces, most notably Down in the West Country and Aesop’s Fables. But for me it’s his beautiful collection of Chamber Music for Violin and Piano, which were recorded in 2004 by Dutton Digital, with Robert Gibbs (violin & viola), and Mary Mei-Loc-Wu on piano.

To Be Continued…