Elgar’s Aberdeen connection

August 2007

Palace Hotel: Banquet on 22 October 1909 in honour of C.S. Terry. In the back row (standing), are Mrs Johnston of Newton Dee, Prof. Baillie, Lady Fleming, Dr W.G. McNaught, Bishop Chisolm, Lady Elgar, Prof. Terry, Lord Aberdeen, Sir Edward Elgar, Mrs Rowland Ellis, Sir John Fleming, Sheriff Crawford, Mrs Dunn, and Bishop Rowland Ellis.

by Alison Shiel

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of that most English of composers, Edward Elgar. His music has retained its popularity and today is heard more than ever. A pity, therefore, that the Bank of England has chosen this year to remove his picture from its £20 note.

The son of a piano tuner and largely self-taught, Elgar spent his early career as a peripatetic violin teacher. His wife Alice Roberts, the daughter of a major-general, was considered well above his station; but through her contacts, and her belief in him as a composer, he gained access to Edwardian society and earned a reputation as the finest English composer of his day.

Elgar travelled far and wide, both in Europe and the United States, and – yes – he even made it to Aberdeen a couple of times. The instigator of both visits was his close friend Charles Sanford Terry, Professor of History at Aberdeen University and an enthusiastic amateur musician. The two men met regularly at the various English music festivals, including the famous Three Choirs Festival which was so closely bound up with Elgar and his music.

Since arriving in Aberdeen in 1898 as the university’s first lecturer in history, Terry had been making his mark on the musical scene in the city. He conducted the University Choral and Orchestral Society (UCOS), and under his leadership the society’s concerts, thankfully, lost their reputation as ‘The Students’ Howl’ and became one of the highlights of Aberdeen’s musical life. Elgar became patron of the UCOS in 1908, no doubt to the quiet satisfaction of Prof. Terry.

When plans were being made for the university’s quatercentenary celebrations in September 1906, Terry suggested that Elgar should be one of the recipients of an Honorary LL.D.

Elgar accepted the invitation, and travelled to Aberdeen after fulfilling conducting engagements in Manchester. He was to stay with the Terrys at their home, Westerton of Pitfodels.

Terry wrote to Lady Elgar explaining the arrangements, and added: “…apart altogether from the gratification of entertaining him, there are general reasons why I do most earnestly hope that he will be able to come. In the first place, the university is most anxious to confer the degree of LL.D. upon him… Sir Edward will be the first musician on which we have conferred a degree. In the second place his presence will gratify and encourage a large body of local enthusiasts.

“Music is having a hard struggle in the region – but at length we begin to mark progress… To have Sir Edward among us and to enable the university to laureate him will be of the highest stimulus.”

The lavish quatercentenary celebrations were reported by Elgar to his wife in some detail, judging from her diary entries (quoted by permission of the Elgar Will Trust):

Wed. 26 Sept 1906: E. arrived all safely with Cousins [his valet] at Aberdeen. Professor S. Terry met him & took him home to Cults, then they returned to Aberdeen – E. had on his booful [beautiful] robes, and the Degree was conferred on him. He found all very pleasant & beautifully organised & arranged. Splendid spectacle & weather.

Thurs. 27 Sept 1906: E. at Aberdeen – Day of the King’s visit [King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra opened the impressive new buildings at Marischal College, at the time the largest granite building in the world]. Lovely weather & magnificent spectacle.

Elisabeth Christie Brown, organist of King’s College Chapel at the time, provides in her memoirs a delightful cameo from the event. She writes: “I and my choir, gradually improving under [Terry’s] influence, were forced into the limelight and had the luck to be included in all the events. I can see him, as we came into the quadrangle after the ceremony, calling me up to be introduced to Sir Edward Elgar and how encouragingly he spoke to me for a few minutes.”

This small gesture was typical of Terry, whose warmth and congeniality endeared him to all. And Elgar would surely, in the midst of much academic pomp and ceremony, have been equally pleased to meet and offer encouragement to a young musician.

Elgar’s first visit to Aberdeen was evidently to his liking; in July 1908 he wrote petulantly to his friend Ivor Atkins: “How horrid of you to be in Cults when I am not!” and “Think of me when you wield the teapot”.

Atkins, who was organist of Worcester Cathedral, was visiting Prof. Terry to talk about the music of JS Bach, on which Terry was to become a worldwide authority. Meanwhile Terry had turned his attention to another aspect of music in Aberdeen; inspired by his attendance at competitive music festivals in England, he decided to start such a festival in Aberdeen. The first North East of Scotland Choral and Orchestral Competition Festival took place in 1909 and was the first of its kind in Scotland.

Terry, the organising secretary, was able to inspire huge local support for the festival, and it was such a success that it was decided to hold a banquet in his honour in the Palace Hotel on 22 October 1909. Sir Edward and Lady Elgar agreed to attend.

Elgar had just undertaken a gruelling concert tour with the London Symphony Orchestra; no doubt the prospect of spending a few days in Terry’s congenial company was an attractive proposition.

The banquet was chaired by Lord Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an enthusiastic champion of Terry’s work. Terry was greatly moved by the presence of the Elgars; in his speech he referred touchingly to Elgar as ‘one who yet living has his niche among the immortals’. It was surely no coincidence that both Terry and Elgar spoke on the subject of municipal aid for musical events, and about the importance of educating audiences as well as musicians. These were issues about which Terry had been campaigning in Aberdeen for many years.

The Elgars travelled to Aberdeen by train from Newcastle, where Elgar had been conducting. Lady Elgar’s diary again gives an illuminating account of events:

Thurs. 22 Oct 1909: Arr. at Aberdeen about 7.30am. Slept splendidly. Prof. Terry met us & motored us out to Westerton. Breakfasted, bathed, etc. E. for walk after lunch – then the great banquet in the evening. Prof. Terry spoke splendidly & said beautiful unforgettable things of E., & E. made a noble speech. Lord Aberdeen very nice.

Fri. 23 Oct 1909: At Cults. Started, E & A & Prof. & Mrs Terry, about 11 in car for Ballater. Cloudy but kept fine. Lovely drive. Petrol leaked & we walked about while it was mended, lunched at Ballater & then back. Very nice expedition.

(Terry is believed to have owned one of the first cars in the university; Elgar, by contrast, did not own a car until 1920).

Despite the pleasures of a journey through Royal Deeside, the day, alas, was not entirely perfect for Lady Elgar, who wrote in her diary that there were ‘dull people at dinner’! The evening guests on Sunday 24 October were much more to her liking:

Very wet and wild all day. Nobody out for walk. Prof. and Mrs Bailey [Baillie] came to dinner – liked Prof. Bailey.

The Baillies may indeed have been more to Lady Elgar’s taste than the uninspiring guests of the previous evening. They were neighbours of the Terrys, living in grand style at Norwood, Cults (now the Norwood Hall Hotel). Prof. (later Sir James) Baillie is believed to have been ‘one of the few philosophers in Christendom to arrive for his lectures in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce; and many a student will recall the panic of being disrobed by the butler in the entrance hall of Norwood’.

All in all, the visit did much to strengthen the friendship between the Elgars and the Terrys. As Lady Elgar records in several places in her diaries, the departure from Terry was a reluctant one:

Mon. 25 Oct 1909: E & A left Cults about 9. Prof. Terry motored them to station. Sad to part. Lovely journey to York all down coast. Splendid sea waves & spray on rocks. Over the wonderful Tay and Forth Bridges.

In 1909 Elgar’s friendship with Charles Sanford Terry was, in a sense, just beginning. There was much still to come. Terry was to give significant help to Elgar during the composition of his Violin Concerto the following year; and by 1911 he had become involved ‘unsparingly’ with the English translation for the new Elgar-Atkins edition of Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

Terry went on to even greater musical work in Aberdeen. The competitive festivals were to run annually until the outbreak of World War I, and were the forerunners of today’s Competitive Music Festival; Aberdeen Bach Society (now Aberdeen Bach Choir), was formed in 1913 through Terry’s influence as a Bach scholar of growing reputation; university music was to go from strength to strength and was eventually to become a subject in the Arts degree programme.

Terry gave unstintingly of his time and talents to the City of Aberdeen, and in his 1909 banquet speech expressed his gratitude “that Providence should have directed my steps to a city where such generous instincts abound”.

Through his friendship with Edward Elgar and his circle, and the inspiration he gathered from it, music in Aberdeen became, and remains, much the richer.

ALISON SHIEL (née Maitland) was brought up at Balhalgardy, Inverurie. She is a music graduate of Aberdeen University, where she was an Honorary Research Fellow in Music 2000–2006. Since 1980 she has lived and worked in Newcastle upon Tyne, where she is an Honorary Geordie.

This is an article from the August 2007 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.