Piano Quintet in A minor, Op.84

Elgar’s
Piano Quintet is part of a burst of creative activity that saw the
Violin Sonata, the Quartet and the Cello Concerto all spring to life
alongside it in the years 1918-19. This in fact proved to be his swan
song as after his wife Alice died the next year he was unable to
compose any more. The inspiration for all these works came from
extended visits to the Sussex countryside, to a cottage called
Brinkwells. The war had been a bad time for Elgar, he had been ill,
he loathed London and he was fed up with composing patriotic works.
His illness proved to be tonsillitis and after their removal in March
1918 his health improved along with the move to the country. The work
was given a private performance by the Brodsky Quartet and the
pianist William Murdock the following April before being premiered at
the Wigmore Hall. The Quintet was dedicated to the great critic and
biographer of Wagner, Ernest Newman.

The
moderato
introduction
creates a mood
of
mystery and uncertainty with its strange hesitancies and little
staccato
mottos.
This unfolds into a slow dance measure of vaguely oriental character,
which is broken into by the Allegro,
a
vigorous but banal march-like theme, symbolic perhaps of the years
just ended. The second theme quickly takes over, picking up from the
dance of the opening and transforming it into a Spanish dance with
guitar accompaniment before suddenly moving to the Viennese cafés
with a full-blown waltz, which fades back into the moderato
and
its unsettling staccato
murmurs.
This mysterious development is answered by a magical bell-like theme
that seems to assuage these doubts before giving way to a forceful
working out of the material. This eventually calms down for a return
of the dances complete with the magic bells. The coda is made up of a
rerun of the moderato
and
the close is quiet and hesitant.

The
new answer is the radiant Adagio
theme
in the viola, which the composer of Nimrod knows full well how to
exploit. The movement builds to one storm driven climax, followed by
a passionate statement of the theme itself. The mood for the rest is
restrained and lyrical, though not without opportunity for the
strings to demonstrate their richness of tone. The long drawn out
close is particularly effective.

The
Andante
introduction
returns us immediately to the doubts of the first movement, which the
robust Allegro
theme
can only crush without answering. This is proven by the moment of
reflection at the centre of all this activity, when the staccato
motto
and the Spanish dance of the first movement resurface. Afterwards
there is a gradual build up to a jubilant and noisy finish. And you
will find in the cool of the night that it is the Adagio
theme
that stays in the mind and we might wonder if this is what he was
trying to say to us, that he would give all the pomp and circumstance
for one well wrought and deeply felt Adagio.

Francis
Humphrys