Symphony No. 1 (Elgar) - Musical Analysis

Musical Analysis

The work is the only frequently-performed symphony whose main key is A-flat major. It is scored for three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes and cor anglais, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (including snare drum, bass drum and cymbals), 2 harps, and strings. It is in four movements:

I. Andante. Nobilmente e semplice

II. Allegro molto

III. Adagio

IV. Lento — Allegro

The symphony is in a cyclic form: the incomplete "nobilmente" theme from the first movement returns in the finale for a complete grandioso statement after various transformations throughout the work. Elgar wrote, "the opening theme is intended to be simple &, in intention, noble & elevating ... the sort of ideal call – in the sense of persuasion, not coercion or command – & something above every day & sordid things." The musicologist Michael Kennedy writes "One cannot call it a motto-theme, but it is an idée fixe, and after its first quiet statement, the full orchestra repeat it fortissimo. It gently subsides back to woodwind and violas and abruptly switches to D minor, an extraordinary choice of key for the first allegro of a Symphony in A flat." Reed speculates that Elgar's choice of D minor was a gesture against academic rules. According to the conductor Sir Adrian Boult, the clashing keys arose because someone made a bet with Elgar that he could not compose a symphony in two keys at once. The movement is in traditional sonata form with two main themes, a development and a recapitulation. It ends quietly, "an effect of magical stillness".

The second movement is a brisk allegro. Elgar did not call it a scherzo, and though Reed calls it "vivacious", others, including Kennedy, have found it restless and even sinister in parts. A middle section, in B flat, is in Elgar's Wand of Youth vein. He asked orchestras to play it "like something you hear down by the river." As the movement draws to a close it slows down, and its first theme is transformed into the main theme of the slow movement, despite their contrasting tempi and different keys. According to Reed, "Someone once had the temerity to ask Elgar which version, the allegro or the adagio, was written first; but the question was not very well received and the subject was not pursued."

Kennedy says of the adagio that it is "unique among Elgar slow movements in the absence of that anguished yearning usually to be found in his quieter passages. There is no Angst here, instead a benedictory tranquillity..." The second subject of the movement remains in the tranquil vein, and the movement ends in what Reed calls "the astounding effect of the muted trombones in the last five bars … like a voice from another world."

The finale begins in D minor with a slow repeat of one of the subsidiary themes of the first movement, showing Elgar in "one of his most dreamy and mysterious moods." After the introduction there is a restless allegro, with a succession of themes including an "impulsive march-rhythm". The movement builds to a climax and ends with the nobilmente opening theme of the symphony returning "orchestrated with glittering splendour" to bring the work to a "triumphant and confident" conclusion.