# Enigma estimate



## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

On last night's BBC Antiques Roadshow, a first edition full score of Elgar's Enigma Variations, autographed by the composer, together with substantial compositional sketches of the work, were estimated by the show's expert to be worth between £80,000 and £100,000 if placed in auction. Does this represent the current status of the composer or are there other factors at work?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

A major piece - probably his most popular - by a nationally (at least) adored composer? Priceless. I don't know what similar documents from more universally loved composers fetch from collectors (a Mahler symphony?) but a price of £100k for Elgar's most famous work doesn't seem excessive. Wish I'd found it in my attic.


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## Guest (Jul 9, 2018)

Yeah but this is a full, published score rather than a manuscript. I wouldn't take more than 500 quid for it if it were mine to sell. 488 for the signature and 12 for the score.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

shirime said:


> Yeah but this is a full, published score rather than a manuscript. I wouldn't take more than 500 quid for it if it were mine to sell. 488 for the signature and 12 for the score.


There were numerous manuscript pages containing Elgar's first thoughts and later revisions. This was the rare material that bumped up the estimate.


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## Guest (Jul 9, 2018)

David Phillips said:


> There were numerous manuscript pages containing Elgar's first thoughts and later revisions. This was the rare material that bumped up the estimate.


Hmm, it still seems a couple of tens of thousands _too_ high, unless Brits really love Elgar _that_ much!


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

This is a report of an auction earlier this year -

'Pick of the 50 or so Elgar lots from the collection of Peter and Anne Duckers in a January 31 sale held by Dominic Winter (20% buyer's premium) was a 7pp autograph "clean copy" of O Hearken Thou for chorus and orchestra that made £6000. It was written for the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary and first performed in Westminster Abbey in June ...'

In 2003 Bonham's sold 'Autograph working full score of the 'Interlude: Gloucestershire, Shallow's Orchard' from his Falstaff - symphonic study, Op.68, headed "Interlude - from Falstaff op.68", signed and inscribed at the end "Edward Elgar/July 1913/to Edward Speyer", marked on the first page "N.B. The Allegretto to inclusive, should be played by a small orchestra" and scored for strings alone after page one, eight leaves written on one side only, on printed 28-stave MS paper, with extensive revisions and deletions, original ring-binder holes, attached with red white and blue ribbon, large folio, [Severn House], July 1913'

Estimate £8000 - 10,000 - no idea what it made. If these scraps can make fancy prices it is not surprising a major score can fetch more.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

The market for antique books etc. is very skewed toward the most famous and popular works.



shirime said:


> Hmm, it still seems a couple of tens of thousands _too_ high, unless Brits really love Elgar _that_ much!


Oh but we do!


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## Guest (Jul 9, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Oh but we do!


He's like, the _least_ British of all your composers!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

shirime said:


> He's like, the _least_ British of all your composers!


Maybe (although I'm not sure what you mean) and many of us wonder why he has had such a difficult history outside of Britain. I do like quite a bit of Elgar but don't think of this as a British or English thing. Access aside, what has nationality got to do with music? I rankle a bit at the idea of there being British (or, worse, an English) music fans. Some musical traditions can be a bit difficult to start with but western classical is a big basket that it makes little sense to divide into nationalities.


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> Maybe (although I'm not sure what you mean) and many of us wonder why he has had such a difficult history outside of Britain. I do like quite a bit of Elgar but don't think of this as a British or English thing. Access aside, what has nationality got to do with music? I rankle a bit at the idea of there being British (or, worse, an English) music fans. Some musical traditions can be a bit difficult to start with but western classical is a big basket that it makes little sense to divide into nationalities.


Elgar did have a high reputation in Germany prior to 1914. Gerontius was a failure in Birmingham but a massive success in Germany. He had many German admirers including Richard Strauss. Then politics intervened and his reputation took a long time to recover, almost certainly because he wasn't played but to some extent he also went out of fashion, even in the UK. In the past couple of decades Elgar seems to have gained an international reputation.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

For years it was pretty universally held that Elgar was the first internationally reputed British composer since Purcell. That's a pretty long time.


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2018)

Biffo said:


> Elgar did have a high reputation in Germany prior to 1914. Gerontius was a failure in Birmingham but a massive success in Germany. He had many German admirers including Richard Strauss. Then politics intervened and his reputation took a long time to recover, almost certainly because he wasn't played but to some extent he also went out of fashion, even in the UK. In the past couple of decades Elgar seems to have gained an international reputation.


@Enthusiast: this is what I meant when I said 'least British'


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

A mini sensation. A piece in today's 'Times' claims that Jude Hooke, the lady who featured in the 'Antiques Roadshow' was not the rightful owner of the Enigma score and original MSS. After the programme was recorded last year she approached Christie's with a view to selling the material. The experts there were enthusiastic, predicting the items could make even more than the 'Roadshow' estimate. It was then discovered that the score, bequeathed to the Elgar Foundation by the composer's daughter, had gone missing from the Elgar Museum in 1994. And, presumably, they'd like it back.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I'll have to remain content with my EMI Classics ‎CD 0777 7 64748 2 3 copy of the _Enigma Variations_ conducted by the inestimable Sir Adrian Boult. A disc I purchased for little more than a handful of American dollars some while back. And I _will _be content with it. It's a wonderful performance. And a lot easier to listen to than some dusty old damp and moldy manuscript that wouldn't even play in either my turntable _or_ my CD deck!


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## LP collector (Aug 6, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> Maybe (although I'm not sure what you mean) and many of us wonder why he has had such a difficult history outside of Britain. I do like quite a bit of Elgar but don't think of this as a British or English thing. Access aside, what has nationality got to do with music? I rankle a bit at the idea of there being British (or, worse, an English) music fans. Some musical traditions can be a bit difficult to start with but western classical is a big basket that it makes little sense to divide into nationalities.


You are right in theory but for fact, I'm not so sure. French music, Czech, Russian, Soviet all have their own tradition and it is convenient for collectors of recorded sound to bracket them in such a way. Debussy and Elgar were only separated by a few miles of the Channel and yet their music are poles apart. If you listen to say, Fauré or Franck the music is so French and by the same token with Elgar and Vaughan Williams the music is so English. What is odd, an English composer who lived in France, Delius, to my ears has little French influence, his music retains his roots and yet he had little time for the country of his birth. As orchestras possessed a national identity of sound fifty years ago and now all sound the same, I would not like music to travel the same path.


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## Chromatose (Jan 18, 2016)

Seems far too overpriced for Elgar..


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2018)

David Phillips said:


> A mini sensation. A piece in today's 'Times' claims that Jude Hooke, the lady who featured in the 'Antiques Roadshow' was not the rightful owner of the Enigma score and original MSS. After the programme was recorded last year she approached Christie's with a view to selling the material. The experts there were enthusiastic, predicting the items could make even more than the 'Roadshow' estimate. It was then discovered that the score, bequeathed to the Elgar Foundation by the composer's daughter, had gone missing from the Elgar Museum in 1994. And, presumably, they'd like it back.


Oohhh theftery. I saw the programme too. Preferred the Chinese vase


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

dogen said:


> Oohhh theftery. I saw the programme too. Preferred the Chinese vase


Me too. It was rather lovely.


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## Edward William Elgar (Jul 14, 2018)

Biffo said:


> This is a report of an auction earlier this year -
> 
> 'Pick of the 50 or so Elgar lots from the collection of Peter and Anne Duckers in a January 31 sale held by Dominic Winter (20% buyer's premium) was a 7pp autograph "clean copy" of O Hearken Thou for chorus and orchestra that made £6000. It was written for the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary and first performed in Westminster Abbey in June ...'
> 
> ...


Dear all,

I wrote my Offertory "O hearken thou" (Op.64) in March, 1911.Written on the back of my Second Symphony, this short gem continues the new chromatic and searching qualities apparent in Op.63. Like certain passages heard within the Symphony, the Offertory is elusive, from another world if you will. A beautiful supplication, the work lays bare my inner spirituality.

The autograph manuscript score of "O hearken thou" sold at auction in January is in fact my last word on the work before I sent it to the publishers. A clean copy it is - written out to save the publishers time while I was working abroad it stands as the autograph manuscript vocal score, superseding the autograph manuscript held at the British Library which pre-dates it. I am saddened to learn that 107 years after writing this beautiful work the autograph manuscript vocal score can be considered by some as mere 'scraps'. Note to self - 'must try harder' !

Kind regards,

E.E.


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