Thought you’d be interested and entertained by this collection of stories and blogs! J
Turns out Elgar also learned to play the trombone while in his mid-forties. Hopefully my playing
doesn’t cause anyone to laugh the way Elgar’s did!
Composers' trombones played again
Trombones belonging to two of England's most famous composers are to be played again years after
their owners' deaths.
The trombones, which belonged to Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst, are being restored at a small factory in Honley,
West Yorkshire.
Elgar and Holst both died in 1934 and their instruments had been in a museum at the Royal College of Music.
To mark the 75th anniversary of their deaths a professional trombonist is recording with the instruments.
Trombonist Sue Addison specialises in playing historical music on authentic instruments of the age, and said the
trombones were a pleasure to play.
"They allow you to play with lots of different colour, they just sing", she said.
She approached the Royal College of Music about loaning the instruments when she saw them in the museum.
She said: "They're not leaving my sight. They're very well insured and secured. They're little gems."
Brass specialist Michael Rath said restoring the instruments in his shop was the highlight of his career.
Years in a museum has left the trombones with "all sorts of horrible gunk inside them", he said.
Before becoming a music teacher and composer, Holst, who was from Cheltenham, had been a professional
trombonist. He went on to write The Planets Suite.
Born near Worcester, Elgar is best known for the Pomp and Circumstance marches, which include Proms favourite
Land of Hope and Glory.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/u ... 153504.stm
(You can hear one of these trombones being played on a video linked to this BBC story.)
Published: 2009/07/16 11:05:48 GMT
© BBC MMIX
1 of 2 11/30/2009 06:10 PM
Elgar's and Holst's trombones being restored near (Moravian site) Fulnec...
November 20, 2009
Great composer, shame he couldn't play
By Arifa Akbar, Arts Correspondent
Letter uncovered in museum reveals how Edward Elgar was so bad at the trombone it made
people laugh
He is one of the world's most eminent composers, who cemented his reputation at the vanguard of the
English Romantic movement with compositions such as the Enigma Variations and the Pomp and
Circumstance marches.
But Edward Elgar was also a terrible trombone player, it has now transpired, even though he wrote the most
beautiful melodies for the instrument in his compositions.
His skills were so poor that when the composer from Worcester started playing a specially inscribed
trombone for a dear friend, she ran out of the room in a fit of hysterical laughter, leaving the composer
swearing in frustration.
Sue Addison, the principal trombonist for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE), who has been
researching Elgar's trombone which is kept at the Royal College of Music, discovered a revealing letter
written by his friend, Dora Penny, who often went to Elgar's home to listen to his compositions, and on whom
he based a character in Enigma Variations.
The letter, which is only four lines long, recounted a comical incident in which Elgar revealed himself to be
disastrous on the instrument. It read:
"On one occasion, he [Elgar] got up and fetched a trombone that was
standing in a corner and began trying to play passages in the score. He didn't do very well and often played
a note higher or lower than the one he wanted... and as he swore every time that happened, I got into such a
state of hysterics that I didn't know what to do. Then he turned to me [and said]: 'How do you expect me to
play this dodgasted thing if you laugh?'
"I went out of the room as quickly as I could and sat on the stairs, clinging to the banisters 'til the pain eased
but it was no good. I couldn't stop there as he went on making comic noises, so I went downstairs out of
earshot for a bit." The letter had been archived at the Elgar Birthplace Museum in Worcester but had not been noticed until
now.
In the course of her research, Ms Addison also found that he took up the instrument at the age of 43, not as
a young boy as had been previously believed.
The confusion may have arisen from an inscription on the bell of the trombone, which bears Elgar's name as
well as the date 1875, which was assumed to be when he started playing the instrument, at 18 years of age.
But an admission Elgar made in 1900 proves it lay untouched for decades.
Ms Addison said: "Elgar wrote hundreds of letters to his publisher, Jaegar, discussing changes to his work,
and in one letter dated 1900, when he was writing The Dream of Gerontius, he writes a PS which said 'I'm
learning the trombone', and he drew a sketch of himself playing it by the side of the letter. He later said he
wasn't sure whether he was worse on the typewriter or the trombone."
The instrument was given by Elgar to the YMCA's Music Section in Worcester when they appealed for
instruments in 1918 to send off to British troops abroad to raise morale. Elgar, then 63, wrote: "Why should I
keep it for sentiment when the 'boys' can put it to use?"
It went "missing in action" until it was found at the Ealing Branch of the YMCA in 1934 following a series of
adverts to locate it. The YMCA then donated the trombone to the Royal College of Music.
Ms Addison said she originally set out to discover if Elgar ever played his trombone publicly, as he is known
to have done with the violin, organ, piano and bassoon. She will now play the composer's trombone in a
performance by the OAE of The Dream of Gerontius at the Royal Festival Hall next Tuesday - the first time it
has been played in a concert since Elgar's death in 1934. The OAE performance in London, and later in
Birmingham Town Hall, will be a rare opportunity to hear the piece performed on original instruments with the
same pitch as Elgar would have used.
HTTP://WWW.INDEPENDENT.CO.UK/ARTS-ENTER ... E-HE-COULD
2 of 2 11/30/2009 06:10 PM
