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June 2, the day of City Choir’s concert featuring The Music Makers, is Edward Elgar’s birthday—his 167th!
Elgar fans will spot a number of “Easter eggs” in The Music Makers (Op. 69; 1912). Elgar liberally sneaks in quotes from his own works including Sea Pictures (Op. 37; 1899), The Dream of Gerontius (Op. 38; 1900), Symphony No. 1 (Op. 55; 1908), Violin Concerto in B minor (Op. 61; 1910), Symphony No. 2 (Op. 63; 1911), and most famously, “Nimrod” from the Enigma Variations (Op. 36; 1898-99).
Elgar may be the most played composer in the US during the months of May and June: he wrote the “Pomp and Circumstance” march heard at just about every graduation ceremony in America. Elgar originally wrote the marches (with words!) for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1901; the now ubiquitous first march was played in an instrumental arrangement when Elgar received an honorary doctorate from Yale University in 1905. Princeton used it, then the University of Chicago and Columbia, and its use continued to spread until it is now the de rigeur processional for commencement ceremonies. In England, however, the piece is synonymous with the last night of the BBC Proms and is not played at graduations.
Elgar could not resist setting the Ode of Victorian poet Arthur O’Shaughnessy with its first, famous line: “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” The phrase “movers and shakers” also originated with the poem.
The iconic first two lines were quoted in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!
Arthur O’Shaughnessy was a Pre-Raphaelite poet who counted Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Algernon Charles Swinburne among his circle of friends – unlike the more well-heeled members of his cohort, he had to work for a living. O’Shaughnessy’s day job? He was a herpetologist at the British Museum and described six new species of reptiles! (Rossetti, however, was known for his pet wombat…)
Ralph Vaughan Williams was the grand-nephew (on his mother’s side) of Charles Darwin! Vaughan Williams’s mother purportedly told a young Ralph, "The Bible says that God made the world in six days. Great Uncle Charles thinks it took longer: but we need not worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either way."
Composer Reena Esmail’s (b. 1983) “When the Violin”—set to a beautiful translation of “The Gift” by Hafiz, a 12th century Persian mystic poem—is scored for chorus and solo cello, with nary a violin to be heard.
Robert A. Harris (“How Can I Keep From Singing”), professor emeritus at Northwestern University, was Erin Freeman’s professor (known to all as "Doc") when she was an undergraduate. Erin recalls, “we sang this song in my sophomore year [of college], in January term. It was so cold, and I was so stressed out, but this song kept me going.”
