Beschreibung:

Series of over eighty autograph letters signed, a few typed or on cards, to Edward and Antonia Speyer (principally Edward), together with a few letters by Alice Elgar, the series beginning shortly after their first meeting in the autumn of 1901, and continuing until Elgar's death in February 1934, the last letter being dictated from the nursing home of Marl Bank on 27 December 1933; the great bulk of the correspondence dating from the period 1901-1919, and before his wife's death, c.250 pages, folio, 4to and 8vo, with autograph envelopes, letters and envelopes stitched into files, Craig Lea, Plas Gwyn, Severn House, and elsewhere, 1901-1933 AN EXTENSIVE AND EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT SERIES FROM ELGAR TO ONE OF HIS CLOSEST MUSICAL FRIENDS. Only six, out of the eighty or so letters, appear to have been published in full: see Jerrold Northrop Moore, Edward Elgar: Letters of a Lifetime, 1990 (who prints the letters dated 21 December 1902, 15 December 1909, 20 January 1912, 10 November 1912, 23 September 1918, and 31 December 1919; another, of 13 March 1916, is quoted in his Edward Elgar: A Creative Life, 1984, p.23). Among the published material, is one of the greatest letters Elgar ever wrote, prompted by the gift of Beethoven Quartets from the Speyers: "Thanks to you & Tonia a thousand times: the books are a delightful possession & I renew my youth in reading some of the old dear things I played when a boy - when the world of music was opening & one learnt fresh great works every week - Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Nothing in later life can be even a shadow of those 'learning' days:- nor, when one knows all the music & all the mechanism of composition, the old mysterious glamour is gone & the feeling of entering - shy, but welcomed - into the world of the immortals & wandering in those vast woods - (so it seemed to me) with their clear pasture spaces & sunlight (always there, though sometimes hidden), is a holy feeling & a sensation never come again, unless our passage into the next world shall be a greater & fuller experience of the same warm, loving & growing trust - this I doubt" (15 December 1909). But the unpublished remainder has great riches, and the series deserves to be studied in its entirety. The tone is set early in their friendship, when Elgar gives Speyer some music (most probably the Enigma sketches), telling him: "I send you some first sketches which my wife religiously keeps - I do not know in the least if this is what you would like & I feel frightfully conceited in thinking you may like to have some of my scrawls. When I have learnt to write plainly & prettily I must send you a real M.S. - but I fear I am too dreadfully old..." (13 Nov 1901). That December, Elgar was in Germany for the first performance there of Gerontius. Already, the formality of "Dear Mr Speyer" has been abandoned: "My dear Friend: It was most kind of you to write about Gerontius: I wish you & Mrs Speyer could have been present, the performance was moving & Dr Ludwig Wüllner splendid, - absolutely overpowering. All the papers were very kind & for once, took an Englishman seriously and wrote most enthusiastically about the work... Buths conducted the whole thing con amore and made the success sure by his 'enlightened' direction and artistic enthusiasm... We are glad to hear that Rd Strauss proposes to perform the Overture & we thank you for helping that on. On Tuesday we return home to work & (I fear) to teach again as composition does not very well bring anything except esteem & one does get fearfully hungry sometimes!... may I say that on reviewing the past year, which has now only two days more left, we count amongst the happiest things that have happened to us, our introduction to your family & our very happy days at Ridgehurst..." (29 December 1901). The following summer, the second German performance of Gerontius took place, prompting the famous toast from Speyer's friend Richard Strauss to "Meister Elgar". Elgar sent Speyer a postcard: