When I think of the Edwardian age, the first image that comes readily to mind is the elaborately decorated Royal cipher of King Edward VII which adorns the red pillar boxes of his reign. Its confident swagger seems to be symbolic of the characteristics of an era that, though long gone, still survives in the physical world around us and in the memory of a nation. The reign itself was actually quite short – from January 1901 (with the Coronation in 1902) to May 1910 – short, that is, in relation to its historic image and its legendary impact. Simon McVeigh is careful to emphasise that what he takes to be the ‘Edwardian’ period in his study of its music in London needs a bit of adjusting: back, perhaps, to the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in June 1897 and forwards, certainly, to the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. This extension makes perfect sense and it can also be bookmarked very evocatively by two of Elgar’s shorter works: the Imperial March, which was written to celebrate the Jubilee, and Sospiri, first heard just 10 days after war was declared.

It is natural to think of Elgar here because he is virtually synonymous with this period – for Edwardian read Elgarian – and McVeigh is both comprehensive and sensitive in his handling of the way in which Elgar came to dominate his era. He is careful to point out that the ‘stiff-collared’ composer was not born to such a legacy but that his very difficult and idiosyncratic journey to the heart of the Edwardian establishment was somehow symbolic of the contradictions inherent in the decade itself. The underprivileged outsider – Catholic son of a shopkeeper with no formal musical education – eventually becomes the insider and almost assumes caricature characteristics of the ruling class. McVeigh plots this dramatic ascent against the wide-ranging panorama of the era’s other composers: from Sullivan, Parry, Stanford and Mackenzie via Delius, Bantock, Smyth and German through to Vaughan Williams and Holst, Bridge, Holbrooke, Coleridge-Taylor and Howells … and many more too numerous to list. But that such a diverse grouping was active during the broader period under study is in itself remarkable testimony to the flourishing of British music in these years and especially to the growing impact of the Royal Academy and even more so the emerging Royal College of Music as established in 1883.

One of McVeigh’s great strengths is his forensic examination of the infrastructure of Edwardian musical life in London and a delineation of the driving figures behind its scenes – impresarios, publishers, promoters – a veritable gallery, some rogues as well as several philanthropists. Social, political, educational and broader cultural undercurrents are well painted in passing and he outlines in detail how the two major concert venues – St James’s Hall (opened 1858, demolished 1905) and the Queen’s Hall (opened 1893, destroyed 1941) – developed and supported the emerging network of professional orchestras. We follow the convoluted history of opera and operetta, music hall and musical theatre and realise why aspirational opera composers – like Stanford and Smyth – were often forced to look abroad for opportunities. The spectacular success of Richard D’Oyly Carte’s Savoy operas is traced sympathetically (Sullivan didn’t always enjoy writing them), just as is the huge vogue for Hans Richter’s Wagner and eventually his triumphant ‘English Ring’ at Covent Garden – along with the stubborn subsequent refusal of its establishment to allow the Hungarian maestro’s dream of a wider operatic provision in English. There are contradictions everywhere in Edwardian life and McVeigh happily covers the musical manifestations of these – from top to bottom, from the lowest of the lowbrow (as we might have put it once) to the highest of the high – and without undue prejudice in either direction.

There are inevitably some gaps in covering such a potentially vast field. As a Welshman, I especially missed any mention of the thriving London Welsh musical community, which sustained an intricate network of chapels, choirs, concerts and competitions while also supporting talented young composers and performers such as the ill-fated star of the RAM Morfydd Owen. The National Eisteddfod of Wales itself even came to the Royal Albert Hall in 1908! Such lacunae, however, can only underline the book’s main thesis that the British capital was a remarkable musical melting-pot that represented many cultures and many societies. London was also the capital of a global empire and this reality is reflected upon with meaning and understanding in the context of today’s revisionist thinking. But in cultural terms, and in the fullness of time, any great era will ultimately be remembered only by its greatest creations – and so I naturally come back to Elgar. From Enigma and Cockaigne through the Introduction and Allegro and In the South to the two symphonies, the Violin Concerto and Falstaff – these are the finest fruits of an exceptional period. That the anguished Cello Concerto of 1919 is testimony to just what he realised had gone with the passing of the Edwardian age – and his unique genius with it – only deepens the poignant magic of his living legacy. 

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