Elgar & Brahms
PROGRAMME NOTES
written by AURÉLIE WALSCHAERT
Edward Elgar Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61 (1909)
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Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 (1885)
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10.12.2026 DE BIJLOKE GENT
11.12.2026 FLAGEY BRUSSELS
Elgar & Brahms
After a difficult start as a composer, the British Edward Elgar (1857-1934) finally made his breakthrough in 1899 with his orchestral work Enigma Variations. His First Symphony also won immediate acclaim: following its première on 3 December 1908, it received around a hundred performances worldwide in less than a year. It was even compared to the symphonies of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), one of his great musical role models. Two years later, Elgar unveiled a violin concerto, which also proved an instant success. ‘It is good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional, but I love it!’ he declared.
While Elgar felt confident about his concerto, Brahms was full of doubt after playing his Fourth Symphony on the piano for a few close friends. When no positive reactions came, he briefly considered releasing only the finale as a separate concert piece. Fortunately, he stayed with his original plan, for his Fourth Symphony shows Brahms at the height of his powers.
I say this to please no one; it is my own conviction… I place him on an equal footing with my idols, Beethoven and Brahms (…) I wish Elgar would write something for the violin.
Shrouded in enigmas
Elgar was himself a gifted violinist, so writing a concerto for his own instrument seemed a natural step. He began one in 1890, but, dissatisfied with the result, eventually destroyed the manuscript. It was only after the violinist Fritz Kreisler expressed his admiration for the composer in 1905 that Elgar considered returning to the idea. ‘I say this to please no one; it is my own conviction… I place him on an equal footing with my idols, Beethoven and Brahms (…) I wish Elgar would write something for the violin,’ Kreisler said. In 1907, he formally asked Elgar to do so, but the composer could only devote himself fully to the concerto after the première of his First Symphony in 1908. A commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society of London followed in 1909, and the première took place a year later, with Kreisler as soloist and Elgar conducting.
The audience was ecstatic: Kreisler was called back to the stage several times, and the orchestra’s leader, William Henry Reed, described the performance as ‘a complete triumph’. Kreisler himself was equally enthusiastic, calling the work ‘the greatest violin concerto since Beethoven’s’. This despite its considerable difficulty: the technical challenges, including numerous double stops and rapid changes of position, demand the soloist’s utmost concentration, as do the subtle shifts in tempo and expression.
As his Enigma Variations had already shown, Elgar carried his love of puzzles and cryptograms into his compositions. His Violin Concerto, too, contains a secret message: on the first page of the manuscript, he placed five dots at the end of the Spanish inscription ‘Aquí está encerrada el alma de…..’ (‘Herein is enshrined the soul of …..’). To this day, the identity of the person Elgar meant remains a mystery. Was it his close friend Alice Stuart-Wortley, nicknamed ‘Windflower’? Or his first love, Helen Weaver, who was also a violinist? Perhaps it was his best friend August Jaeger? Or was Elgar simply referring to himself? Whatever the answer, this intriguing mystery proved a clever marketing device, drawing extra attention to his work.
Between reason and emotion
While Elgar let emotion and personal secrets guide him in his Violin Concerto, his German contemporary Brahms wrestled with the question of how much feeling he could bring into his music. For a long time, he was seen as a conservative composer who held fast to traditional forms and harmonic structures. Yet he found subtle ways to renew them from within. He did so with the deepest respect for the legacy of earlier generations of composers, including J.S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.
It took Brahms some time to dare to measure himself against Beethoven’s symphonic genius. During one of their first meetings, Robert Schumann had hailed the young Brahms as Beethoven’s great successor, placing considerable pressure on his shoulders. Brahms was well into his forties when he ventured into his First Symphony. It was a success: immediately after its première, it was dubbed ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’. His Second Symphony followed less than a year later, and in 1883, by then in his fifties, Brahms completed his Third as a tribute to his friend and mentor Robert Schumann.
I really fear that it [the Fourth Symphony] tastes of the climate here. The cherries don’t ripen here; they’re inedible!
Fourth Symphony
During his next two summer holidays in the Austrian Alps, Brahms worked on another symphony. In September 1885, he wrote to Hans von Bülow, conductor of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, asking him to perform this new orchestral work. At the same time, he voiced his doubts: ‘I really fear that it [the Fourth Symphony] tastes of the climate here. The cherries don’t ripen here; they’re inedible!’ But von Bülow was full of praise, and on 25 October 1885, Brahms himself conducted the première. Although some critics found the work too intellectual, the audience warmed to his Fourth Symphony. Several prominent figures praised his inventiveness in developing its themes. In the first movement alone, Brahms demonstrates his mastery by drawing on just the opening four notes to generate musical material for an entire movement.
The finale, a tribute to Bach, is a true tour de force. Here, Brahms introduces a Baroque form, the chaconne, as the closing movement of a symphony. Within this tightly organised framework, he finds inventive ways to combine melodic and harmonic material. His admiration for the form had already emerged a few years earlier, when he wrote to Clara Schumann about Bach’s Chaconne for solo violin from the Partita No. 2: ‘If I imagine writing, or even conceiving, such a piece, I am certain that the extreme excitement and emotional tension would drive me mad.’ For his symphonic finale, Brahms borrowed the bass line from the chaconne in Bach’s cantata Nach Dir, Herr, verlanget mich, making a slight alteration, and shaped more than thirty variations into a dramatic conclusion.
