“Unexpectedly British”: accentuation of THE nationally English in Edward Elgar’s “Fa lstaff”

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The relevance of the article lies in revealing the peculiarities of the composer’s way of appeal to the national cultural heritage. The aim of the study is to determine the principles of embodiment of “the nationally English” in the symphonic etude “Falstaff” by Edward Elgar. The main method of the research is drawing parallels, on the one hand, and between the embodiment of the English national character through the image of Falstaff in musical and dramatic works, on the other. Research results. A conclusion is made that the main factor creating strong ties between the “symphonic etude” and the national tradition is spectacular national characterisation. Moreover, for the sake of applying the “English” the composer consciously and significantly changes his musical language. The author turns to very detailed programme (unlike general type of programness in most of his works), and that allows him to scrupulously depict the plot of Shakespeare’s chronicle on which he focuses on. Elgar also portrays overtly humoristic situations, for the first time in his symphonic works, because it would be impossible to disregard this side of Falstaff’s character, as it is the contrast of comical in the beginning and solemn in the denouement that create the tragic effect. The structural side of the composition is also unprecedented as it is formally has one movement, but the composer himself divides it in four parts (ignoring the arrangement of events in “Henry IV” in two parts) while all the parts are connected in various ways. As a result of this, “Falstaff” becomes the longest single-movement symphonic composition of Elgar. The composer favours linear type of musical thinking, integrating it with sudden “flashes” of thematically significant elements in different strata of the texture, and this all combined provides completely lush, unpredictable sonority of the orchestra. On the top of this, the author extensively uses themes with obvious genre genesis, especially in order to depict Shallow’s Gardens, although it is possible to find more traditional for Elgar passages with generalised type of intonation. Such characteristic for Elgar principles, as multi-thematism and elusion of the tonal centralisation (while using quite traditional chords in every given moment) find their new meaning regarding illustrative role of the music. A conclusion is made that the “Britishness” of the symphonic etude lies not in the use of folk intonations or allusions to the past of professional music, but in meticulous attention to W. Shakespeare’s text: both on levels of portraying or interaction between the “characters” and form-creating according to the scenes. Despite the fact that E. Elgar’s musical language seems to be quite distant from Falstaff’s comical essence, the composer was able to find means adequate to the character’s image, such as “wandering” tonal structure; superficial, but rather important analogy between quite large scale of a single-movement work and Falstaff’s body image; narrative orchestration.