Back to the 1890s: Dinis Sousa & the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment move out of their comfort zone reveal magic moments in Elgar

Elgar - Dinis Sousa, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Queen Elizabeth Hall

Elgar: In the South, Sea Pictures, Enigma Variations; Frances Gregory, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dinis Sousa; Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed 4 June 2025

Far from an exercise in academic completism, OAE's exploration of the sound world of Elgar's 1890s helped us view familiar music in new ways and brought a subtly different palate of colours and approach, moments of sheer magic.

Elgar's Enigma Variations premiered in 1899 and the composer went on to record it twice, acoustically in 1924 and electrically in 1926. A lot happened to orchestral sound in those intervening 25 years with technological and stylistic developments that would lead to the modern orchestral sound. As something of an end of term experiment, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's last orchestral concert of the 2024/25 season at the Southbank Centre featured the ensemble moving out of their comfort zone and explore the sound world of Elgar in the 1890s. They were joined by conductor Dinis Sousa, who in an engaging post-concert speech admitted that the concert was pushing the envelope for him too, and mezzo-soprano Frances Gregory. 

So, on 4 June 2025, Dinis Sousa conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Elgar's In the South, Sea Pictures (with Frances Gregory) and Enigma Variations at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Elgar: Sea Pictures - Frances Gregory, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Queen Elizabeth Hall

Premiered in 1904, In the South is the product of Elgar's holiday in Italy with his wife and daughter. Though he called the work a concert overture, in reality it is a full-blown tone poem of a style rarely attempted by English composers of the time. We sometimes forget that Elgar had a Continental reputation and that he and Richard Strauss had high regard for each other.

The work's explosive opening introduced us to the sound world of the period orchestra, French bassoons, narrower bore brass, strings playing on gut strings at somewhat lower tension than modern orchestras and an overall sense that each instrument had an individual colour, creating a mix that was far less a single unified sound than the modern orchestra. Instead, with Elgar's dextrous orchestration, what we heard tended to be individual instrumental colours and timbres flashing in and out of the mix.

The work's opening was taken at quite a pace, full of vigour, strong rhythms and instrumental colours flashing in and out of the texture. The strings brought a lovely hazy feel to the slower section, swaying gently and much of the writing felt really descriptive, whilst there was gentle magic to the viola solo over harp and strings, the period colours and timbres really contributing to the atmosphere. But then the opening material returning and Sousa whipped things up to a vivid finale.

Clara Butt in 1898

Elgar's Sea Pictures was premiered at the Norwich Festival in 1899 with Clara Butt as the soloist. Elgar had written them originally for soprano and piano, but the orchestral version was put into lower keys for Clara Butt. Only 26 at the time of the premiere, she was a long way from the almost caricature of her later life, well over six foot and wearing a dress covered in scale patterns, without a corset (!), she must have cut a figure vocally and physically. 

Here we had Frances Gregory who had, perhaps, a somewhat lighter voice than the distinguished operatic mezzo-sopranos were are used to hearing in the piece, but Gregory's performance proved to be warmly engaging and highly communicative and there was never any sense of her voice being overwhelmed. Whilst she didn't over-dominate her voice was distinctly primus inter pares in the mix.

'Sea Slumber-Song' was intimate with a sense of civilised melancholy and ultimately rather touching. Magical colours in the orchestra mixed with Gregory's gently mellow voice. 'In Haven' had a sense of impetuousness in the orchestra with nice touches of colour, and Gregroy expressive and affirmative, with soft-grained tone. 'Sabbath Morning at Sea' was serious but not overdone, and the second verse was wonderfully impetuous. The result was subtler than might have been expected, touching yet avoiding sentimentality, with an affirmative end where Gregory's voice carried along with the orchestra. 'Where Corals Lie' had a suggestion of skittishness to the orchestra, yet Gregory was almost confiding, with impetuous moments, and there were some lovely transparent colours from the instruments. Finally, 'The Swimmer', the strength of Gregory's tone complemented by the feeling of waves in the orchestra, as the drama developed Gregory combined animation with trenchancy. The orchestra was full of vivid character rather than sheer volume as things built to the triumphantly affirmative end.

With Enigma Variations you felt that not only were Sousa and the orchestra exploring the sounds of the instruments of Elgar's era, but they were rolling back preconceptions too. Whilst Sousa's interpretation did not lack weight, you felt it less weighed down by preconceptions of what the music came to mean in the 20th century, and there was a nice mobility, almost skittishness, to the overall piece.

The theme was taken slowly, and rather touching. Here as elsewhere you noticed the strings use of portamento, more as a colour than as a stylistic device and certainly not overdone, whilst the lovely variation in tone quality from tone to note added an element of magic. 'C.A.E.' had a gentle ebb and flow to it, almost a flowing dance, 'H.D.S-P' was by contrast urgent and light, all eagerness and character. 'R.B.T' was perky with a lovely contrabassoon, and 'W.M.B.' came over with vigorous gusto and a lovely palate of orchestral colours. 'R.P.A.' was rich and serious, the strings portamenti to the fore, with lightly engaging woodwind. 'Ysobel' was elegantly characterful whereas 'Troyte' mixed vivid gusts of energy with real humour. There was a quiet elegance to 'W.N.' with characterful oboes and woodwind, then 'Nimrod' began with the hushed magic of the melody on gut strings. This grew in strength and resonance yet never became bombastic, remaining an intimate portrait until the final statement. 'Dorabella' was light and delicate, yet perky, again with such variety in orchestral colour, and 'G.R.S.' began with vivid scurry, all gusts of sound, timbre and texture. 'B.G.N.' was lovely with a tender cello solo including expressive portamenti, then '***' had an elegant wistfulness and strange hints of melancholy with the solo clarinet moment being quietly mesmerising. The Finale 'E.D.U.' began quietly, full of detail then erupted towards a terrific conclusion.

As Dinis Sousa introduced the encore, he explained that whilst modern orchestras might explore period sounds, their working methods remained modern, they agreed on their approach. Late 19th century orchestras were more free form, with individuals tending to do their own thing. So, for an encore we had Chanson de Matin performed without the players agreeing on a common approach. A fascinating exercise and musically rather intriguing.

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