the weaknesses that seem to be inseparable from genius—and, most particularly, from artistic genius—are precisely those one would not expect to discover associated with greatness of mind. it would appear that few men are so great as their work, or, if they are, their greatness is spasmodic and evanescent. works of genius, it is sometimes stated, are created in moods of exaltation, when the spirit is in turmoil, when the mind is lit and the nerves are tense. in some cases it may be so. it was so, i believe, in the case of wagner, who had long spells, measured by years, of unproductiveness, when his creative powers lay fallow; and it was so in the case of hugo wolf, beethoven, shelley, poe, berlioz and many other men whose names spring to the mind. but it certainly was not so with balzac and dickens, any more than it is to-day with arnold bennett.
there is in sir edward elgar’s work a strange contradiction: great depth of understanding combined with a curious fastidiousness of style that is almost finicking. many aspects of life appeal to his sympathies and to his imagination, but an innate and exaggerated delicacy, an almost feminine shrinking, is noticeable in even his strongest and most outspoken work.... it is this delicacy, this shrinking, that to the casual acquaintance is at once his most conspicuous and most teasing characteristic.
my first meeting with elgar was ten years ago, when, being commissioned to interview him for a monthly musical magazine, i called on him at the midland hotel, 80manchester, where he was staying for a night. on my way to his room i met him in the corridor, where he carefully explained that he had made it a strict rule never to be interviewed for the press and that under no circumstances could that rule be broken. his firm words were spoken with hesitation, and it was quite obvious to me that he was feeling more than a trifle nervous. i have little doubt that this nervousness was due to the fact that in an hour’s time he was to conduct a concert at the free trade hall. however, he was kind enough to loiter for some minutes and talk, but he took care, when i left him, to remind me that nothing of what he had said to me must appear in print.
i, of course, obeyed him, but, in place of an interview, i wrote an impressionistic sketch of the man as i had seen him during my few minutes’ conversation at the midland hotel. of this impressionistic sketch i remember nothing except that, in describing his general bearing and manner, i used the word “aristocratic.” at this word elgar rose like a fat trout eager to swallow a floating fly. it confirmed his own hopes. and i who had perceived this quality so speedily, so unerringly, and who had proclaimed it to the world, was worthy of reward. yes; he would consent to be interviewed. the ban should be lifted; for once the rule should be broken. a letter came inviting me to plas gwyn, hereford—a letter written by his wife and full of charming compliments about my article.
so to hereford i went and talked music and chemistry. it was christmas week, and within ten minutes of my arrival lady elgar was giving me hot dishes, wine and her views on the political situation. the country was in the throes of a general election, and while i ate and drank i heard how the empire was, as dr kendrick pyne used to say, “rushing headlong to the bow-wows.” lady elgar did not seem to wish to know to what particular party (if any) i belonged, but i quickly discovered that to confess 81myself a radical would be to arouse feelings of hostility in her bosom. radicals were the unspeakable people. there was not one, i gathered, in hereford. they appeared to infest lancashire, and some had been heard of in wales. also, there were people called nonconformists. many persons were radicals, many nonconformists; but some were both. the radicals had won several seats. what was the country coming to? where was the country going?
where, indeed? i did not allow lady elgar’s rather violent political prejudices to interfere with my appetite, and she appeared to be perfectly satisfied with an occasional sudden lift of my eyebrows, and such ejaculations as: “oh, quite! quite!” “most assuredly!” and “incredible!” if she thought about me at all—and i am persuaded she did not—she must have believed me also to be a tory. after all, had not i called her husband “aristocratic,” and is that the sort of word used by a radical save in contempt?
after lunch elgar took me a quick walk along the river-bank. for the first half-hour i found him rather reserved and non-committal, and i soon recognised that if i were to succeed in obtaining his views on any matter of interest i must rigidly abstain from direct questions. but when he did commit himself to any opinion, he did so in the manner of one who is sure of his own ground and cannot consider, even temporarily, any change in the attitude he has already assumed.
i found his views on musical critics amusing, but before proceeding to set them down i must make some reference to his relations with ernest newman. newman, it is generally agreed, is unquestionably the most brilliant, the fairest-minded and the most courageous writer on music in england. his power is very great, and he has done more to educate public opinion on musical matters in england than any other man. for some little period 82previous to the time of which i am writing he and elgar had been close friends, and their friendship was all the stronger because it rested on the attraction of opposites. elgar was an ardent catholic, a conservative; newman was an uncompromising free-thinker and a radical. elgar was a pet of society, a man careful and even snobbish in his choice of his friends, whilst newman cared nothing for society and would be friendly with any man who interested or amused him.
up to the time elgar composed the apostles he had no more whole-hearted admirer than newman, but this work was to sever their friendship and, for a time, to bring bitterness where before there had been esteem and even affection. newman was invited by a new york paper—i think the musical courier—to write at considerable length on the apostles. as his opinion of this work was, on the whole, unfavourable, he may possibly have hesitated to consider an invitation the acceptance of which would lead to his giving pain to a friend. but probably newman thought, as most inflexibly honest men would think, that, on a matter of public concern, silence would be cowardly. in the event, he wrote his article and sent it to america, also forwarding a copy to elgar himself, telling him that, though it went against his feelings of friendship to condemn the work, he thought it a matter of duty to speak what was in his mind. that letter and that article severed their friendship, and the severance lasted for some considerable time.
my visit to elgar took place during his estrangement from newman, and when i mentioned the subject of musical criticism to him it was, i imagine, with the hope that the name of the famous critic would crop up. it did.
“the worst of musical criticism in this country,” said elgar, “is that there is so much of it and so little that is serviceable. most of those who are skilled musicians either have not the gift of criticism or they cannot express 83their ideas in writing, and most of those who can write are deplorably deficient in their knowledge of music. for myself i never read criticism of my own work; it simply does not interest me. when i have composed or published a work, my interest in it wanes and dies; it belongs to the public. what the professional critics think of it does not concern me in the least.”
though i knew that elgar had on previous occasions given expression to similar views, his statement amazed me. so i pressed him a little.
“but suppose,” i urged, “a new work of yours were so universally condemned by the critics that performances of it ceased to take place. would you not then read their criticisms in order to discover if there was not some truth in their statements?”
“it is possible, but i do not think i should. but your supposition is an inconceivable one: there is never universal agreement among musical critics. i think you will notice that many of them are, from the æsthetic point of view, absolutely devoid of principle; i mean, they are victims of their own temperaments. they, as the schoolgirl says, ‘know what they like.’ the music they condemn is either the music that does not appeal to their particular kind of nervous system or it is the music they do not understand. they have no standard, no norm, no historical sense, no——”
he stammered a little and waved a vague arm in the air.
“there are exceptions, of course,” i ventured. “newman, for example.”
“no; ernest newman is not altogether an exception. he is an unbeliever, and therefore cannot understand religious music—music that is at once reverential, mystical and devout.”
“‘devout’?” whispered i to myself. aloud i said:
“a man’s reason, i think, may reject a religion, though his emotional nature may be susceptible to its slightest 84appeal. besides, newman has a most profound admiration for your the dream of gerontius.”
elgar was silent for a few minutes. then, with an air of detachment and with great inconsequence, he said:
“baughan, of the daily news, cannot hum a melody correctly in tune. he looks at music from the point of view of a man of letters. so does newman, fine musician though he is. newman advocates programme music. now, i do not say that programme music should not be written, for i have composed programme music myself. but i do maintain that it is a lower form of art than absolute music. newman, i believe, refuses to acknowledge that either kind is necessarily higher or lower than the other. he has, as i have said, the literary man’s point of view about music. so have many musical critics.”
“and so,” i interpolated, “if one has to accept what you say as correct, have many composers, and composers also who are not specifically literary. and, after what you have said, i find that strange. take the case of richard strauss, all of whose later symphonic poems have a programme, a literary basis. do you, for that reason, declare that strauss regards music from the literary man’s point of view—strauss who, of all living musicians, is the greatest?”
he paused for a few moments, and it seemed to me that our pace quickened as we left the bank of the river and made for a pathway across a meadow. but he would not take up the argument; stammering a little, he said:
“richard strauss is a very great man—a fine fellow.”
but as that was not the point under discussion, i felt that either his mind was wandering or that he could think of no reply to my objection.
a little later, on our way home, we discussed the younger generation of composers, and i found him very 85appreciative of the work done by his juniors. he particularly mentioned havergal brian, a composer who has more than justified what elgar prophesied of him, though perhaps not in the manner elgar anticipated.
apropos of something or other, elgar said, i think quite needlessly and a little vainly:
“you must not, as many people appear to do, imagine that i am a musician and nothing else. i am many things; i find time for many things. do not picture me always bending over manuscript paper and writing down notes; months pass at frequent intervals when i write nothing at all. at present i am making a study of chemistry.”
i think i was expected to look surprised, or to give vent to an exclamation of surprise, but i did neither, for i also had made a study of chemistry, and it seemed to me the kind of work that any man of inquiring mind might take up. i did not for one moment imagine that i was living in the first half of the nineteenth century when practically all british musicians were musicians and nothing else and not always even musicians.
when we had returned to the house we sat before a large fire and, under the soothing influence of warmth and semi-darkness, stopped all argument. in the evening lady elgar accompanied me to the station, and all the way from hereford to manchester i turned over in my mind the strange problem that was presented to me by the fact that, though i was a passionate, almost fanatical lover of elgar’s music, the creator of that music attracted me not at all. i saw in his mind a daintiness that was irritating, a refinement that was distressingly self-conscious.
some years later sir edward elgar moved to london, and when i saw him in his new home he tried to prove to me that living in london was cheaper than living in the country.
his attitude towards me on this occasion was peculiarly 86strange. i represented a labour paper, but elgar did not know that i was at the same time writing leading articles for a london conservative daily. he treated me with the most careful kindness, a kindness so careful, indeed, that it might be called patronising. it soon became quite clear to me that he imagined i myself came from the labouring classes, but i cannot boast that honour, and as he, the aristocrat, was in contact with me, the plebeian, it was his manifest duty and his undoubted pleasure to help me along the upward path. i was advised to read shakespeare.
“shakespeare,” said he, “frees the mind. you, as a journalist, will find him useful in so far as a close study of his works will purify your style and enlarge your vocabulary.”
“which of the plays would you advise me to read?” asked i, with simulated innocence and playing up to him with eyes and voice.
the astounding man considered a minute and then mentioned half-a-dozen plays, the titles of which i carefully wrote down in my pocket-book.
“and ruskin,” he added as an afterthought. “oh, yes, and cardinal newman. newman’s style is perhaps the purest style of any man who wrote in the nineteenth century.”
“i do not think so,” said i, thoroughly roused and forgetting to play my part. “the apologia is slipshod. my own style, faulty though it may be, is more correct, more lucid, even more distinguished than cardinal newman’s.”
he turned away, either angry or amused.
“it is true,” said i, with warmth. “anyone who has tried for years, as i have done, to master the art of writing, and who examines the apologia carefully will perceive at once that it is shamefully badly written. for two generations it has been the fashion to praise newman’s style, but those who have done so have never read him in a critical 87spirit. i would infinitely prefer to have written a racy book like—well, like moll flanders, where the english is beautifully clean and strong, than the sloppy apologia.”
“moll flanders,” he said questioningly; “moll flanders? i do not know the book.”
“it is all about a whore,” said i brutally, “written by one defoe.”
and that, of course, put an end to our conversation. i rose to leave.
the impression left on my mind by my two visits to elgar is definite enough, but i am willing to believe that it does not represent the man as he truly is. he is abnormally sensitive, abnormally observant, abnormally intuitive. like almost all men, he is open to flattery, but the flattery must be applied by means of hints, praise half veiled, innuendo. if you gush he will freeze; if you praise directly, he will wince. his mind is essentially narrow, for he shrinks from the phenomena in life that hurt him and he will not force himself to understand alien things. his intellect is continually rejecting the very matters that, in order to gain largeness, tolerance and a full view of life, it should understand and accept. yet, within its narrow confines, his brain functions most rapidly and with a clear light.
i have been told by members of the various orchestras he has conducted that when interpreting a work like the dream of gerontius his face is wet with tears.
he has a proper sense of his own dignity, and it is doubtful if he exaggerates the importance of his own powers. many years ago, as i have related, i employed the word “aristocrat” in describing him, and to-day i feel that that word must stand. he has all the strength of the aristocrat and many of the aristocrat’s weaknesses.
