Elgar: Falstaff / Elegy / The Sanguine Fan

"Rich, full naxos sound with high dynamic contrasts adds satisfying weight to David Lloyd-Jones's taut and dramatic account of Elgar's elaborate Shakespearean portrait."
*** Three Stars. Penguin Stereo Guide

The idea for what was to become Falstaff, Symphonic Study in C minor, had been a possibility in Elgar's mind since 1901, but it was not until 1913 that he set to work seriously, determined to provide a work in response to a commission for the coming Leeds Festival, and completing the composition on 5th August. Dedicated to the conductor Landon Ronald, who directed the first London performance, Falstaff allies the composer with the Richard Strauss of the symphonic poems and was seen by George Bernard Shaw as a distinct rival, outclassing Till Eulenspiegel and Don Quixote. The work held a very special place in the affections of the composer. As he explained in a letter to the critic Ernest Newman: "Falstaff… is the name but Shakespeare - the whole of human life - is the theme… over it all runs - even in the tavern - the undercurrent of our failings and sorrows". And towards the end of the period of composition Elgar told a reporter: "I have, I think, enjoyed writing it more than any other music I have composed… I shall say 'good-bye' to it with regret, for the hours I have spent on it have brought me a great deal of happiness".

Shakespeare's greatest comic creation, Falstaff, makes his first appearance in King Henry the Fourth, Part 1, as a partner of riot and dishonour with the king's tearaway son, Prince Henry, affectionately known as Hal. A highway robbery is arranged by Falstaff and his companions, after which he himself is robbed by the Prince and Poins, in disguise. Once back at the Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap, they proceed to mock Falstaff for his cowardice and outrageous boasting. In the midst of the revelry, the Sheriff and his men come to arrest Falstaff for theft, but Prince Hal has hidden him behind a curtain, where he falls into a drunken sleep, and according to Elgar, dreams of his innocent childhood. Later, Falstaff is ordered to raise a company of soldiers for the civil war, and at the home of his old friend Justice Shallow in Gloucestershire he turns matters to a profit by selling a discharge to those he has first chosen, and recruiting in their place a band of unfit and incompetent scarecrows. As he relaxes in Shallow's orchard, news is brought of the death of King Henry IV and of the Prince's accession to the throne. Falstaff hurries back to London, hoping for honours from the King. On greeting him as he enters Westminster Abbey for the coronation, Falstaff finds himself cruelly rejected by King Henry V, who is determined to put his disreputable past behind him. Falstaff never recovers from the blow and becomes a shadow of his former portly self, though still preserving happy memories of their earlier friendship.