Solo songs with piano (1857–1900) by Edward Elgar Piano Accompaniment - Sheet Music

SKU: ST.EWE15

Elgar’s solo songs are not among his best known works and, as we have said before, there is a tendency to dismiss them as second-rate. That the latter is a consequence of the former - years of neglect leading to the false assumption that they are better left forgotten - is clearly demonstrated by this volume, and something it will hopefully help redress. Admittedly A War Song (first published as A Soldier’s Song), ranks among the worst of Elgar’s jingoistic pot-boilers; but alongside the world renowned Sea Pictures are the songs thought good enough by Ascherberg to republish as the 7 Lieder album (including four which composer Haydn Wood also thought good enough to arrange as orchestral miniatures); the powerful The Wind at Dawn, Elgar’s first setting of words by his wife Alice; the delicate Dry those fair, those crystal eyes, which Elgar dashed off for the Charing Cross Hospital Bazaar; As I laye a-thynkynge, Elgar’s setting of faux-mediæval words of Robert Harris Barham, creator of the Ingoldsby Legends; and a number of other equally delightful songs.nnFor the scholar, however, the thrill of the volume surely lies in the discovery among the unpublished works and fragments of two songs – The Millwheel (Winter) and Muleteer’s Serenade – previously thought lost, or possibly to have been left as fragmentary sketches which Elgar later incorporated into his cantata King Olaf. Locating the sketches among other preparatory material for King Olaf presented no difficulty; and as the editorial process rolled back the layers of history to get at the works intended for piano accompaniment, we discovered not half-finished sketches but two fully-formed songs. Alice’s diaries hint at a private performance of one of the songs; a first public performance of both songs will be given at Elgar’s Birthplace on 2 June, the composer’s birthday.