The Worcester County and City Pauper Lunatic Asylum was opened in 1852. It
may well surprise many listeners to this disc as it did me that one of the
most popular and successful activities arranged for the patients was a
weekly dance. The brass band originally employed for these purposes was soon
changed to a more mixed ensemble, and by the time that Elgar was appointed
as bandmaster in 1879 it included a piccolo, flute, clarinet, two cornets,
euphonium, bombardon, strings and piano. The players were Asylum staff and
the composer's friends. Elgar wrote much dance music for this group and that
which survives is included on this disc together with a handful of other
early works.
This is not the first time that Barry Collett has conducted this music on
disc. His earlier version on the
British Music Label included only the Asylum music and was played
by the Rutland Sinfonia. Although this was admirably enterprising in
presenting this then unknown music to the public the playing and recording
combined to a somewhat unrelenting effect. The present disc is in every way
its superior. What seemed on the earlier disc like a series of somewhat
crude and uninteresting dances are transformed into a delightful series of
varied miniatures. The music remains a minor part even of Elgar's minor
works but it now will give much pleasure to the listener with a taste for
the dance music of the period. It gives further pleasure to the Elgarian
wanting to spot the composer's characteristics in an early form. He was
always a keen recycler of his own music, and this is apparent right from the
first piece - a Menuetto apparently submitted as a kind of audition piece.
Its central section later reappeared as the central section of the Minuet Op
21. Part of the Quadrille
L'Assomoir later became
The Wild
Bears from
The Wand of Youth Suite No 2. Throughout the disc
there are odd turns of phrase and characteristic progressions that
immediately recall the mature composer.
As is common in this sort of music most of the titles are of no great
significance. It is however worth mentioning that despite its name
A
Singing Quadrille is not one of those embarrassing pieces in which
instrumentalists are expected to sing, usually very badly. It is based on a
series of nursery rhymes and other tunes and was completed only as a sketch,
played here in a version edited by Andrew Lyle and Barry Collett. Andrew
Lyle was also responsible for the edition used for all the Asylum music and
this has been published as part of the Elgar Complete Edition.
The success of this disc is largely due to the admirable playing of the
Innovation Chamber Ensemble, drawn from players from the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra, and to Barry Collett's idiomatic direction. The
recording is of excellent quality and the booklet notes are ample and
interesting. My only minor complaint is that the pauses between the figures
of the
Quadrilles and
Lancers are too long.
Given the instruments at the composer's disposal and the underlying
purpose of the music, much of what is heard here sounds inevitably like the
many thousands of other pieces of British dance music written towards the
end of the nineteenth century. That did not worry me, as that fascinating
body of work is only very sparsely represented on disc. Clearly this is not
a disc anyone should go to expecting profundity or revelation. Rather it
provides an interesting window on the activities of the young Elgar, on
British dance music in the later nineteenth century and perhaps on the
enlightened attitude towards "pauper lunatics" in Worcester at that
time.
John Sheppard
