An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy , "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead".
17-444: An elegy is a poem of mourning. Elegy , Elegie , or Elegies may also refer to: Elegy The Greek term ἐλεγείᾱ ( elegeíā ; from ἔλεγος , élegos , ‘lament’) originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also included epitaphs , sad and mournful songs, and commemorative verses. The Latin elegy of ancient Roman literature
34-423: A matriarch of the prominent Cornelian family . Ovid wrote elegies bemoaning his exile , which he likened to a death. In English literature, the more modern and restricted meaning, of a lament for a departed beloved or tragic event, has been current only since the sixteenth century; the broader concept was still employed by John Donne for his elegies written in the early seventeenth century. That looser concept
51-444: A type of musical work, usually of a sad or somber nature. A well-known example is the Élégie, Op. 10, by Jules Massenet . This was originally written for piano, as a student work; then he set it as a song; and finally it appeared as the "Invocation", for cello and orchestra, a section of his incidental music to Leconte de Lisle 's Les Érinnyes . Other examples include Gabriel Fauré 's Elegy in C minor (op. 24) for cello and piano,
68-880: Is 21 seconds quicker than the remake. Barbirolli had a particular fondness for the piece, and recorded it three times: with his Hallé Orchestra in 1947 and 1957 and with the New Philharmonia in 1968. Boult had a tangential personal connection with the work, as he had been an apprentice to its dedicatee, Hadden, at the time of the latter's death. Boult recorded the Elegy with the London Philharmonic in 1975. Other versions on record include those conducted by Neville Marriner (1968), Ainslee Cox (1975), Daniel Barenboim (1975), Norman Del Mar (1980), Leonard Slatkin (1997), Richard Hickox (1998), David Lloyd-Jones (1999) and Sir Andrew Davis (2012), and
85-522: Is especially evident in the Old English Exeter Book ( c. 1000 CE ), which contains "serious meditative" and well-known poems such as " The Wanderer ", " The Seafarer ", and " The Wife's Lament ". In those elegies, the narrators use the lyrical "I" to describe their own personal and mournful experiences. They tell the story of the individual rather than the collective lore of his or her people as epic poetry seeks to tell. By
102-646: The Enigma Variations ) the previous month. Michael Kennedy describes the Elegy as "wonderful in its unheroic devotional expression of grief – personal, intimate and beautifully proportioned in a long arch of melody". The first recording of the work to be issued was by the London Philharmonic Orchestra , conducted by the composer in the Kingsway Hall on 29 August 1933. It was the last music Elgar conducted: his health
119-509: The Elegy Op. 58 of Edward Elgar , the Elegy for Strings of Benjamin Britten , and the first movement, "Elegy", of Pēteris Vasks 's String Quartet No. 4. Though not specifically designated an elegy, Samuel Barber 's Adagio for Strings has an elegiac character. Elegy (Elgar) Elegy , Op. 58 is a short piece for string orchestra by Edward Elgar , composed in 1909. It
136-608: The Worshipful Company of Musicians . The junior warden of the company, the Rev Robert Hadden, died suddenly of a heart attack in the street near his church in Mayfair on 11 June 1909. After Hadden's funeral Elgar's publisher, Alfred Littleton, a fellow member of the company, suggested to the composer that he might write a short "musician's dirge" for use at such occasions in the future. Elgar agreed, composed
153-529: The cathedral, at the company's annual evensong service, in memory of members who have died during the preceding year. The piece is for traditional string orchestra . It is a short work: on record, conductors have typically ranged between a duration of 3 minutes 25 seconds ( Sir Adrian Boult ) and 4 minutes 20 seconds ( Sir John Barbirolli ). The composer's own timings when conducting the work were between those two figures. The work opens in E ♭ major. The commentator Jerrold Northrop Moore writes that
170-454: The elegy. Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone or absent and future. A famous example of elegy is Thomas Gray 's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1750). In French, perhaps the most famous elegy is Le Lac (1820) by Alphonse de Lamartine . In Germany, the most famous example is Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (1922). In the Islamic world—namely Shia Islam,
187-566: The most famous examples are elegies written by Sachay Bhai on the Battle of Karbala . Elegies written on Husayn ibn Ali and his followers are very common and produced even today. In Spain, one of the capital works in Spanish is Coplas por la Muerte de su Padre (Stanzas About the Death of His Father), written between 1460 and 1470 by Jorge Manrique . "Elegy" (French: élégie ) may denote
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#1732798832092204-479: The opening transmutes the falling seconds of Elgar's part-song "The Angelus" (1909) to a meditative sequence. As the work progresses, the key switches to C minor, and the piece ends on a chord of C major. Several commentators, including Anthony Burton, Colin Clarke and Jonathan Harper-Scott , have connected the "restrained grief" of the music with Elgar's reaction to the death of his friend August Jaeger ("Nimrod" of
221-545: The piece within a week, and sent the score with a note: "Here is the little Elegy you asked for – if it will not do, never mind – tear it up. It is not very original I fear, but it is well meant." The work is dedicated to Hadden. It was premiered privately at the Mansion House , London on 13 July 1909, and was first given in public in St Paul's Cathedral on 22 November 1914. It is still (in 2024) played annually in
238-403: The time of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others, the term had come to mean "serious meditative poem": Elegy is a form of poetry natural to the reflective mind. It may treat of any subject, but it must treat of no subject for itself; but always and exclusively with reference to the poet. As he will feel regret for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love became the principal themes of
255-513: Was declining and he died the following February. That recording was issued by HMV shortly after his death. It was not, though, the first recording made of the piece: the composer had recorded it on 11 April 1933 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at EMI's Abbey Road studios . This version was thought to be lost until a test pressing came to light and was issued in a CD transfer in 2017. The earlier version, at 4 minutes and 4 seconds
272-420: Was most often erotic or mythological in nature. Because of its structural potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, and satirical subject matter. Other than epitaphs, examples of ancient elegy as a poem of mourning include Catullus 's Carmen 101 , on his dead brother, and elegies by Propertius on his dead mistress Cynthia and
289-417: Was written in response to a request for a short piece to commemorate deceased members of the Worshipful Company of Musicians . The work was composed within a month of the death of his close friend August Jaeger and may reflect Elgar's grief at his loss. By 1909 Elgar had achieved success as a composer after years of obscurity. He had been knighted in 1904 and among other honours he was an honorary freeman of
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