Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)
Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47, was composed in 1905 for performance in an all-Elgar concert by the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. It is a string concertante piece scored for string quartet and string orchestra, Elgar wrote it to show off the players' virtuosity. For its structure he drew on the 18th-century concerto grosso form.
The work was an immediate success in Britain, where it has remained a favourite in concert and on record. Orchestras outside Britain programme the piece rarely, although it has been recorded by orchestras from the US, Germany, Slovakia, Austria and the Netherlands, and conducted for records by, among others, Arturo Toscanini, Charles Munch, Bernard Haitink, Tadaaki Otaka, Pinchas Zukerman and Semyon Bychkov.
Background
[edit]The Introduction and Allegro was written in response to a request from the composer's publisher and close friend August Jaeger for a work to showcase the virtuoso playing of the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). In a letter dated 28 October 1904, Jaeger recalled an outstanding performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 3 for string orchestra that he and Elgar had heard, conducted by Fritz Steinbach at the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in May:
Elgar accepted the challenge, and wrote to Jaeger in January 1905: "I'm doing that string thing in time for the Sym: orch: concert. Intro: & Allegro – no working out part but a devil of a fugue instead. G major & the sd. divvel in G minor".[2] He later wrote of the piece:
Premiere
[edit]
The premiere took place at the Queen's Hall, London, on 8 March 1905, conducted by the composer. The work was an immediate success. The Times said, "Never has the composer given us work of finer quality … When it is as familiar as the spirited Cockaigne and the beautiful Variations, there is little doubt that it will rank as high as they".[4] The Manchester Guardian said, "The workmanship is very elaborate, and the scoring shows the highest kind of skill, the effects produced by the opposition and combination of the solo quartet and the orchestra being highly original and full of interest, while the whole is transfigured by a very beautiful touch of imagination".[5] The Observer commented that the piece "has about it a degree of breadth, solidity and brilliance that stamps it at once as made for popularity".[6] The Western Mail said that the work was "hailed with enthusiasm by the critics and public alike ... destined to rival in popularity any of the other efforts from his pen and at the same time appeals very strongly to the cultivated musician".[7] After Walter Damrosch conducted the American premiere on 26 November 1905 the reviewer in The New York Times, calling the work "of more than ordinary interest and importance", focused on its modernisation of the 18th-century concerto grosso form, and judged the music "sound and substantial in its fibre, without great distinction in its thematic invention" but with "a quite remarkable richness and variety of color".[8]
The work, dedicated to Samuel Sanford of Yale University, quickly entered the British concert repertoire. Sir Henry Wood programmed it twice during the 1905 Proms season, and it was given in more than half the Proms seasons over the next hundred years.[9] The piece was less enthusiastically received in Manchester: the Elgar scholar Andrew Neil records that when it was first performed there, by the Hallé Orchestra, on 7 December 1905, "Hans Richter, in his first concert with the orchestra, "seized on the tepid applause and conducted the work again, much to the surprise of the audience and, no doubt, the Hallé players".[10] The work is much less frequently played in concerts outside Britain,[11] although in Italy, Arturo Toscanini toured it along with the Enigma Variations.[12] The BBC broadcast the work for the first time in 1928.[13]
Structure
[edit]
The piece opens with a tutti descending fanfare, which segues into a major-key moderato section, interspersed by an Allegretto e poco stringendo section two bars in length. A slow, lyrical theme is played by the solo viola and then Elgar switches between soloist and orchestra by use of echo. A romantic section leads into a recapitulation of the opening fanfare and Welsh theme, ending the Introduction and moving into the Allegro.
The Allegro begins with a theme in G major built around a crotchet – quaver – quaver motif. 21 bars of non-stop semiquavers build from piano to a powerful forte as the piece arrives at a hemiola-infused G major restatement of the Introduction's opening fanfare. Instead of a development section as would be expected in traditional sonata form, a new theme is introduced, a vigorous fugue in which the piece returns to the opening key of G minor. After the fugue concludes, the piece's themes are all recapitulated in G major, initially begun by a unison orchestra before dividing across echo between orchestra and solo quartet. The Welsh theme is repeated, ending in a triple forte, on which the orchestra is in unison again. It is this time echoed by the solo quartet, by contrast with the rest of the piece. The Welsh theme appears in a coda for the fifth and final time, before ending with a ternary perfect cadence followed by a G major chord in which the whole orchestra plays pizzicato, except for the double basses, who play with their bows.
Difficulty
[edit]Opinions have varied about the difficulty the work presents to the players. The conductor Sir Andrew Davis observed, "As a violinist himself [Elgar] knew how to write both what sounded impressive but lay comfortably under the fingers and also what would truly test the mettle of the players and push them to their limits. As any performer of the piece knows, he chose the latter course. In all the string orchestra repertoire it is, in my opinion, by far the most demanding".[14] The conductor Sir Mark Elder takes a similar view: "The biggest challenge is its difficulty. No matter how many times you play it you still have to focus on it, for it does not come easily".[15] By contrast, Claire Parfitt, a member of the LSO's violin section, has said, "Many say it is incredibly difficult, but it isn't – provided you are a reasonably proficient player – a good amateur orchestra will cope more than satisfactorily".[16] The violist Chris Yates has said "In the Introduction and Allegro the parts are challenging but they are so well written that a player fresh to the work will soon work out how they are going to play their part and obtain great satisfaction thereby".[17] An earlier violist, Bernard Shore, who considered the piece "a masterpiece for strings, still unchallenged by any other work in this field for its mastery of string writing", commented that "40 or 50 virtuosi here have to play as one and only magnificent leadership and training can bring this off to perfection. Played for safety, the whole of this opening becomes flat and stodgy".[18]
Recordings
[edit]Although he conducted recordings of most of his other major orchestral works, and many of the minor ones, Elgar never recorded the Introduction and Allegro. After hearing John Barbirolli's 1929 recording, the composer commented, "I'd never realised it was such a big work".[19] He was content with Barbirolli's recording, commenting, "Mr Barbirolli is an extremely able youth and, very properly, has ideas of his own".[20]
The orchestra that premiered the work in the concert hall – the LSO – did not record it until a hundred years had passed.[21]
- Source: Naxos Music Library and WorldCat
References
[edit]- ^ Moore (1987), p. 595
- ^ Moore (1987), p. 607
- ^ Quoted in Grimley, p. 124
- ^ "Concerts", The Times, 9 March 1905, p. 11
- ^ "Music in London", The Manchester Guardian, 9 March 1905, p. 9
- ^ "The Musical World", The Observer, 12 March 1905, p. 6
- ^ "Wales Day by Day", The Western Mail, 14 March 1905, p. 4
- ^ "New Work by Elgar", The New York Times, 27 November 1905, p. 9
- ^ "Elgar: Introduction and Allegro", Proms Performance Archive, BBC. Retrieved 26 October 2025
- ^ Neil, p. 24
- ^ Neill, pp. 34 and 36
- ^ Moore (1999), p. 626
- ^ "National Symphony Concert", Radio Times, 25 March 1928, p. 622
- ^ Neill, p. 25
- ^ Neill, p. 42
- ^ Neill, p. 31
- ^ Neill, p. 33
- ^ Shore, Bernard. "Edward Elgar", The Gramophone, June 1957, p. 3
- ^ March, Ivan. " Elgar Symphony No 1; Introduction and Allegro for Strings", Gramophone, May 2003
- ^ Day, p. 192
- ^ Stuart, Philip. "LSO Discography", London Symphony Orchestra, 2025
Sources
[edit]- Day, Timothy (2004). "Elgar and Recording". In Grimley, Daniel; Julian Rushton (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Elgar. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-19-284017-7.
- Grimley, Daniel M. (2004). "A Smiling With a Sigh: The Chamber Music and Works for Strings". In Grimley, Daniel; Julian Rushton (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Elgar. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-19-284017-7.
- Kennedy, Michael (1987). Portrait of Elgar (third ed.). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-284017-7.
- Moore, Jerrold Northrop (1987). Elgar and His Publishers: Letters of a Creative Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 1056822803.
- Moore, Jerrold Northrop (1999). Edward Elgar : A Creative Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816366-5.
- Neill, Andrew (April 2022). "Majestic but Fiendishly Demanding: Interpreting Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings". The Elgar Society Journal. 23 (1): 24–44. ISSN 0143-1269.
External links
[edit]- Introduction and Allegro: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
- Recording by the Gardner Chamber Orchestra from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format
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