Cockaigne (In London Town)

Cockaigne (In London Town) (op. 40) is an overture by Edward Elgar . It was composed from 1900 to 1901 and premiered in London on June 20, 1901 . The playing time is approximately 14-15 minutes.

Emergence

Elgar told one of his friends that he had the idea of ​​the piece on a dark day in the town hall when he saw "all the memorials of the great past of the city" and their history, a melody coming from the gloomy ceiling be.

Elgar began composing after the premiere of his oratorio The Dream of Gerontius in the autumn of 1900 and finished his work on the score on March 24, 1901.

Music and theme

As indicated above, Cockaigne (literally: Cockaigne ) a tribute or a portrait of London shows, while also addressing the Beititel the overture to explain. Almost programmatically , city life is the focus of the work: city life with whistling street boys at the beginning of the play, followed by a lyrical interlude , then a second theme that symbolizes a couple in the park, and finally next to a passage that like a military band, memories of the festive atmosphere in a church. At the end, the theme is repeated once more and magnificently executed.

Elgar himself described Cockaigne (In London Town) as “cheerful and London-like; sincere, healthy, humorous, strong, but not vulgar ”.

literature

• Harenberg, cultural guide concert . Meyers Lexikonverlag, Mannheim 2006, ISBN 978-3-411-76161-6 .

Web links

• Cockaigne (In London Town) : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project