ELGAR REMEMBERED

FIFTY YEARS after Sir Edward Elgar's death, the Elgar family is alive and well, and still living in his native county of Worcestershire. That is the good news.
The sad news is that Elgar's four great-nieces are the last to bear the surname, though the line will be continued with their cousins' family, the Graft ons.
A few days ago I visited the "Elgar country" and was privileged to meet two of the remaining
Elgars. I visited the Catholic church in Worcester where Sir Edward was once organist. and also his birthplace in nearby Broadheath.
I took with me an excellent new literary portrait of the man: Spirit of England; Edward Elgar in his World, by Jerrold Northrop Moore.
Moore's book is invaluable for its insights into Elgar's character, and I found it helped me
especially to understand the relationship between the composer's music and his attitude to Catholicism.
The Elgars have become firmly associated with Catholicism and with Worcestershire. But Edward's father, William Henry Elgar, came from Dover, and was a freethinker.
The name, in fact, comes from the Scandinavian AElgar, and is to be found chiefly around Kent and Sussex. (A great-niece, Margaret Elgar, told me she fokind the name in the Brighton telephone directory.) His father's antipathy to Catholicism may have had something to do with Edward's ambivalence towards his faith. Yet if this is so, there is no evidence that it affected his siblings. His youngest sister, Helen (known as "Dot") (1864-1939) became a Dominican nun, and rose to the rank of Mother General of her Order in England.
The Catholic connection came about because W H Elgar knew two brothers called Leicester, who were Catholics and attended St George's church, Worcester, built by the Jesuits soon after Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
According to Moore "The Worcester Catholics were in need of an organist. and young Elgar could increase his earnings by taking the job. It entailed training the choir, selecting music in consultation with the priest in charge, the organist occasionally arranging and even writing some of the music himself.
W H Elgar was a free-thinker, and he wrote to his family in Dover of 'the playhouse mummery of the Papist". But he took the job, and was to fill it for 37 years."
It is said that during the sermon he used to slip out to the pub across the road. However his wife, Ann, who accompanied him to Mass, was converted to Catholicism, and, says Moore, "brought up all her children as Catholics despite her husband's tacit opposition".
Edward, who followed his father in various musicmaking activities in Worcester, learned to play the organ, and deputised for his father from the age of 15.
"When years later the old man's irascibility became too much for the choir, Edward actually took over the organistship for two years, but he disliked the limitations inherent in the life of a church musician" says Moore.
In 1885 Edward took over as organist, and stayed in the post until 1888.
One of my first acts on arriving in Worcester was to visit St George's. It is still in the hands of the Jesuits, and the Superior, Fr Joseph Duggan very kindly showed me the organ and choir loft where Elgar and his father had once played. The church has been added to since those days. A stone facade. the present high altar. and two side altars were added in 1895.
The organ, too, has been rebuilt. A Belgian instrument was installed around the time Edward took over from his father, and this was added to over the years by Nicholsons of Worcester.
In 1970, Nicholsons rebuilt and considerably enlarged the instrument, the money being fouhd by public subscription in memory of Elgar.
An interesting feature of the new organ is that the old console (stops and keyboards) used by Elgar has been left exactly as it was, and the new, detached, console has the letter E added to those drawstops which are part of the original instrument. This enables an organist to isolate those parts of the organ which the composer knew.
A plaque in the organ loft notes that Edward first played the old instrument on July l4, 1872. It also notes that in 1878-79 Elgar composed several church pieces there, including 0 Salutaris, Tantum Ergo, Salve Regina, four litanies for the Blessed Virgin Mary dedicated to a Fr T Knight S.1, and the regal-sounding, but now liturgically outdated Ecce Sacerdos. Oddly enough. Elgar never composed a Mass, though he did arrange a Mozart violin sonata as a Gloria and themes from Beethoven symphonies as a Credo while he was assistant organist at St George's.
Catholic music was not the only influence though. Elgar lived in the shadow of the Anglican Cathedral, and played among its tombs from early boyhood. His father kept a music shop in Worcester High Street, and 1 was horrified to find that it had been demolished in the 1960s to make way for a monstrosity of a modern store.
A major influence was the Three Choirs Festival, held every year by the cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford.
Anglican church music was, if anything, a greater influence on him than that of the Catholic church.
In fact, Moore says: "Anglicans were more useful than Catholics, Etgar reasoned, if he wanted to avoid the doctrinal trouble which beset Gerontius in several English cathedrals, and appeal to the widest audience. In abandoning the Catholic viewpoint, however, Elgar abandoned one of his strongest points of identification with religion".
The Dream of Gerontius is generally recognised as Elgar's greatest work. Yet after the failure of its premiere in 1900 Elgar made a revealing remark in a letter to his publisher, Jaeger: "I always said God was against art and I still believe it".
Nevertheless, perusing his personal library at Broadheath, I found many spiritual books which he had used in connection with later works such as The Apostles. I also noted that his secular reading included books by Edgar Wallace and P G Wodehouse.
The four remaining members of the Elgar family still bearing the name are four sisters, granddaughters of Edward's brother, Frank.
In both music and Catholicism they have kept the Elgar tradition alive. The eldest, Margaret, and the next in age, Mary, are still parishioners at St George's.
The other two sisters are twins. Hilary lives in Great Malvern (another of Elgar's haunts), and Catherine in Bristol.
All four are teachers, though only Margaret teaches music full time, mainly at Malvern Ladies' College. Mary teaches at the blind school in Worcester, and also plays the flute. Hilary teaches at St Joseph's Catholic junior school, in Malvern, and Catherine at a Bristol comprehensive school.
Only Margaret is old enough to remember the elderly Sir Edward. She was about seven when he died in 1934. I chatted with her about her personal recollections of him when we met at Hilary's cottage in Great Malvern.
She remembers visits to his house quite clearly. It was still the days when children were seen and not heard. "They would be seated at a separate table from the adults. Then, when he was ready to do so. he would come across and talk to the children in a way they could understand.
"I remember him helping us to pick raspberries and putting them in a rhubarb leaf. He talked a little bit to us, then took us to his summer house". (This was later given to the trustees, and can now be seen at the birthplace at Broadheath.)
She also recollects him sitting at a table turning a score, while his trusty dogs, always at his side in later years, sat at his feet.
The Catholic churches of the area have not forgotten Elgar either. In this anniversary year there has been a memorial Mass at St Wulstan's, Little Malvern (where Elgar and his wife, Alice, are buried) and there will be concerts of his music at St George's in May and August.
"Spirit of England" is published by Heinemann at £10.95. Gerald Northrop Moore's major biography, "Elgar — a Creative Life", will be published by Heinemann later this year. A recent record of Elgar's Church music was released by Abbey Records and features Worcester Cathedral Choir, directed by Donald Hunt.