Dan Glaister in London
It was, to borrow a phrase, better late than never: 66 years after it was originally commissioned and 64 years after his death, Elgar’s unfinished Symphony No 3 received its world premire. The work, finished – or “elaborated upon” – by the composer Anthony Payne, received an ovation from a packed audience at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
Payne said he was exhilarated by the performance. “There was a real sense of occasion. Things happened which hadn’t happened before. It just took off like a greyhound.”
Alongside him, Andrew Davis, who conducted the performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, admitted that it had been strange playing a new piece by a composer who has been dead for more than 60 years.
“It is the weirdest feeling. It’s like playing the music of a ghost except that he’s alive.”
Nicholas Kenyon, controller of BBC Radio 3 said: “In the end it doesn’t matter if it sounds like Elgar, or who wrote which bit. The question is, does it work as a piece of music, and it most emphatically does.”
The triumphant performance may finally put to rest a dispute that has disturbed the calm of Elgar enthusiasts. Some thought that Elgar’s last reported wishes about the work – “Don’t let anyone tinker with it” – should be respected. But the Elgar Trust agreed to allow Payne to finish the symphony.
In 1932 Elgar was commissioned by the BBC, at the urging of George Bernard Shaw, to write a symphony. The first performance was scheduled for May 1934 but Elgar died in February that year, leaving only sketches for the work.
Although he had expressed a wish for these to be kept private – he even told one acquaintance that they should be burned – they found their way into the public domain.
In 1993 Payne was approached by the BBC to put some form to the sketches for a workshop. Inspired by the original material, he saw a way of putting a structure to the fragmentary sketches left by Elgar, and eventually completed the first and third movements.
The obstacle to completing the work – the objections of the Elgar family – was eventually overcome when it was realised that copyright would lapse in 2005 and anyone would be able to tinker with the surviving sketches. So in 1995, the family commissioned Payne to complete the symphony.
The Elgar-Payne Symphony No 3 now joins the ranks of the other great completed unfinished works including Puccini’s Turandot, Mozart’s Requiem, Mahler’s 10th Symphony and Bartk’s Violin Concerto.