Beskrivelse
‘I have dreamt of you all my life…I must see you as much as possible…what lovely eyes you have…I have never had anyone in my life who could share everything as you can…aren’t you divine…what music I would write if I could have you near to me always…I am not lonely today, we are together, I am so happy…’ Thus the seventy-four year-old Elgar, ever the passionate Romantic despite the bluff country-gentleman image of his later years, to Vera Hockman, the young violinist whose understanding, love and devotion inspired the composer to begin his Third Symphony – a work now widely familiar in Anthony Payne’s celebrated completion – after years of virtual creative silence. Characteristically Elgar enshrined his new Muse in ‘V.H.’s Theme,’ the lyrical second subject of the first movement. Elgar in Love offers a moving account of this poignant, little-known relationship, and includes the first publication in full of The Story of November 7th, 1931, Mrs Hockman’s own vivid and revealing description of her first encounter with the composer at the Croydon Triennial Festival, and their subsequent early meetings. As well, Elgar in Love sets Elgar’s love for Vera in the wider context of the whole of his final period, shedding new and unexpected documentary light on the often interwoven lives and thoughts of characters already familiar from the composer’s dramatis personae.
