Symphony No. 2 (Elgar) - Composition and Influences

Composition and Influences

In every movement its form and above all its climax were clearly in Elgar's mind. Indeed, as he has often told me, it is the climax which he invariably settles first. But withal there is a great mass of fluctuating material which might fit into the work as it developed in his mind to finality – for it had been created in the same "oven" which had cast them all. Nothing satisfied him until itself and its context seemed, as he said, inevitable.

These remarks, recounted by Elgar's friend Charles Sanford Terry, shed light on Elgar's creative process. Some sketches of the Symphony No. 2 date back to 1903, a letter from October of that year indicating an idea for a symphony in E-flat major to be dedicated to his friend and conductor Hans Richter. The symphony was set aside during the composition of In the South, the First Symphony, and the Violin Concerto. Rejected ideas from the latter work and earlier sketches joined the material Elgar began developing in late 1910 to complete the piece.

The Second Symphony's Theme thematic material, like much of Elgar's work, consists of short, closely interrelated motives which he develops via repetition, sequential techniques, and subtle cross references. Harmonically, the piece often borders on tonally ambiguous, with the composer employing musical devices such as chromaticism and, in the third movement, a whole tone scale in order to heighten the feeling of tonal uncertainty. Elgar also tends to emphasize a tonic-subdominant dichotomy rather than the more typical dominant; examples of this include the C minor Larghetto's second theme in F major, and the A-flat major beginning to the first movement's recapitulation. The repetition of similar rhythm forms an essential part of the structural backbone of the piece, much in the manner of Brahms.

Various large and small scale musical allusions, both obvious and implied, may be found throughout the work. Robert Meikle draws attention to the Mahlerian treatment of the material in the last movement, as well as likenesses to Brahms's A German Requiem. Meikle also notes the similarities to certain aspects of Brahms's Symphony No. 3, in particular the cyclical return of thematic material and the subdued texture which concludes both works. The motive in the first violins at rehearsal 1 of the first movement, reappearing in both the rondo and the finale, resembles both Elgar's own so-called "Judgment" theme from The Dream of Gerontius and the Dies irae. An inverted chord appears at the conclusion of the work, and Allen Gimbel illustrates many possible links between this symphony and Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, a work Elgar admired deeply. Specifically, Gimbel points out the resemblance of the motive on the last three beats of m. 2 of the first movement and the "Abgesang" of Walther's Prize Song from Die Meistersinger, thus linking the trials of the opera's hero to Elgar's desire to assert his independence as an artist.