Elgar's Harmony Music for Woodwind Quintet

In addition to playing bassoon in a woodwind quintet (two flutes, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon) with his brother Frank, the young Edward Elgar wrote seven pieces of "Harmony Music" beginning in 1878, seven years before the publication of his Opus 1. John Morrison has collected and edited these pieces, and has given this introduction to his edition that can be found in the IMSLP:

Elgar’s seven works titled Harmony Music (from the German Harmoniemusik, music for wind ensemble) were among the pieces he wrote between the years 1878 and 1881 for the wind quintet he played in with his friends. Other works for the quintet included sets of Four Dances, Five Intermezzos, and Six Promenades, an Adagio Cantabile (subtitled Mrs Winslow’s Soothing Syrup) and an Andante con Variazioni (Evesham Andante). The Harmony Music shows the self-taught composer’s development in the use of form as well as his enjoyment of experiments with harmony. The first four works are single movements, the lengthy No.5 is a carefully crafted little symphony with four movements, and the Nos. 6 and 7 with two movements each show on-going maturity.

The players for whom Elgar wrote the quintets were his young friends, who met regularly for music on Sunday afternoons. He wrote for the instruments available and to suit the capabilities of their players. The players were The group played in a garden shed behind the shop, explaining the curious sub-title ‘Shed.’

The Leicester brothers worked in the family’s printing business in Worcester High Street, with William as apprentice to his father. The music group was led by Hubert, then a chartered accountant, who kept the instrumental parts assembled into part-books, being choirmaster at St. George’s Church at the time Edward was assistant organist to his father William Elgar. Hubert Leicester became Mayor of Worcester (several times) and wrote a book called ‘Forgotten Worcester’ in 1930.

The second flautist, Frank Exton, was a surveyor and lived near Worcester in the village of Claines, close to the home of Will Grafton who in 1879 married Elgar’s sister Pollie.

Helen Weaver, daughter of shoemaker William Weaver whose shop was opposite the Elgars, must have been interested, for Harmony Music No. 2 is subtitled ‘Nelly Shed’. It was a sign of the start of the serious relationship between Edward and Helen which ended in 1884 with heart-breaking separation after a short engagement. Helen Weaver played the violin, and for Harmony Music No.7 the wind quintet was joined by a violinist: but it was Frank Elgar’s friend, Karl Bammert, a German watchmaker then lodging at the Elgar music-shop.

The part-books were kept by Hubert Leicester before being taken back by Elgar, who wanted to ‘recycle’ some of the music in later works. The books then joined the collection of John Parr, a bassoonist and instrument collector, and were eventually acquired by the British Library.

You can find the scores to this set of seven by way of this page of the IMSLP, and you can listen to them here: