ELGAR, THE MUSIC MAKERS

Sir Edward Elgar, by Rothenstein

Επιμέλεια: De Profundis Ya

12//11/2014

"The Music Makers", είναι μια Ωδή του E. Elgar για κοντράλτο ή μέτζο σοπράνο, χορωδία και ορχήστρα, που γράφτηκε το 1912 μετά από παραγγελία του Birmingham Festival. (Για το ίδιο φεστιβάλ συνέθεσε τα έργα: "Dream of Gerontius", "The Apostles", και το "The Kingdom").

Είναι γραμμένο πάνω στην "Ωδή" (1874) του Arthur O’Shaughnessy, η οποία δεν έχει θρησκευτικό θέμα όπως τα θέματα των προηγούμενων έργων του Έλγκαρ. Εδώ απεικονίζονται οι μουσικοί, ή οι καλλιτέχνες και όχι μόνο ηγέτες του κόσμου και δημιουργικές δυνάμεις, αλλά όπως λέει το ποιητής, “world-losers and world-forsakers, forever and ever.”

Σε ρομαντικό ύφος, είναι ημι αυτοβιογραφικό και περιλαμβάνει πολλά αποσπάσματα παλιότερων έργων που τον έκαναν διάσημο. Π.χ. στη λέξη dreams παραθέτει ένα θέμα από το "The Dream of Gerontius", στη λέξη sea- breakers από το "Sea Pictures". Επίσης από τις 2 Συμφωνίες του, το κονσέρτο για βιολί, από το Αίνιγμα και Παραλλαγές, Rule, Britannia & La Marseillaise. Η πρεμιέρα του δόθηκε στο Birmingham Triennial Music Festival το 1912 με τον ίδιο στο πόντιουμ και την Muriel Foster (κοντράλτο).

  London: Novello & Co., 1912. Original 8vo edition. .

Υπογεγραμμένο,, "Edward Elgar, Hereford, Vasa House 1927

 Arthur O’Shaughnessy
"Ωδή"

 We are the
 music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

We are the music-makers,
A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming...
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.

And therefore today is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.

With our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing;
O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry…
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams.
Arthur O'Shaughnessy