Falstaff, Symphonic Study in C Minor

Before the First World War, Worcester-born composer Edward Elgar enjoyed especially enthusiastic championship from German musicians, most notably the composer and conductor Richard Strauss. Elgar in turn admired Strauss’s celebrated tone poems, with their vivid depictions of the quotidian and of literary characters such as Don Quixote. Elgar applied both qualities to his one true narrative tone poem, Falstaff (1913). This brilliantly orchestrated work depicts Shakespeare’s gross and cowardly drunk and regular companion of Prince Hal—the future Henry V who, when crowned, betrays and disowns Falstaff. Though in many respects far from Falstaff’s salty character, the then 56-year-old Elgar—for all his success with the Establishment—felt something of an outsider, very conscious of his humble origins and all too wary of being dumped by his social superiors when he no longer suited their purposes. His tone poem, with its vivid characterisation and moments of tumult such as the battle scene, to an extent, recalls Strauss’ mischievous Till Eulenspiegel, though Elgar’s Falstaff strikes a disenchanted note by comparison. Where Elgar reveals more tender feelings are in the interludes in which Falstaff sleeps, and dreams of his childhood, when he was a page to the Duke of Norfolk.