Gramophone, May 1935, by Compton Mackenzie

One Saturday afternoon in the old Savile Club at 107 Piccadilly, some 10 years ago, I had been sitting next to Elgar at lunch and he had been assuring me with a good deal of emphasis that he no longer took the slightest interest in music. We had moved to the billiard room after lunch and had been discussing the pleasures of the microscope. Presently WJ Turner, who was at the other end of the long settee, got up to leave the club and happened to observe to his neighbour that he was going to Queen's Hall to hear Symphonie fantastique. That may have been the beginning of WJ Turner's devotion to Berlioz which culminated recently in that fine life and study of the composer's work. As the door of the billiard room swung to behind Turner, Elgar turned sharply to me, 'Where did he say he was going?' 

I told him, and he asked me if I had ever heard Symphonie fantastique. 

'No.'

'You ought to hear that. Of course, a good deal of it may not be of much account, but that march to the gallows is one of the most tremendous things in music. Look here, go to the porter and tell him to telephone through to Queen's Hall for a couple of seats for me, and I'll take you.' 

We left the club at 10 minutes to three, took a taxi to Queen's Hall, and while Elgar was waiting in the vestibule I went over to the box-office to get the seats. 

'I think you have two seats for Sir Edward Elgar?'

'24 shillings,' said the clerk.

'But they are for Sir Edward Elgar,' I reminded him. 

He looked at me blankly, and repeated the price. Not liking to tell Elgar that his name was apparently unknown to the box-office clerk, I paid for the seats myself. I remember being particularly struck by the clerk's crassness, because as it happened the vestibule was full of bills announcing a forthcoming Elgar concert at which the composer was to conduct. 

Our seats were in the fourth row of the grand circle on the right-hand side. I do not remember who the conductor was that afternoon, but the concert opened with Strauss's Don Juan, by which Elgar seemed bored. When the Symphonie fantastique began, however, he sat up and took notice, and by the time the march to the gallows had been reached he was sweating profusely and muttering to himself, 'Oh, my God! my God!' so loudly once or twice that some serious-minded young women in front of us turned round and hushed him. 

'Now, Mackenzie,' he said, when the march began, 'I am going to mark the rhythm for you on your knee.' 

As a matter of fact he marked it on my knee, my ribs, and on the arm of the stall, sweating more and more and mopping his forehead with a large handkerchief. Then he got worried by the way the cymbals were being played.

'Not like that!' he exclaimed, clapping his hands in the style of the cymbalist. 'Like this, you fool!' putting his left arm over his right and playing on my right thigh the cymbals as he wanted them played. By this time most of the people in front were turning round to glare at us and hushes came from all along the line. 

At the end of the march there is a sudden stillness, and then the motto theme is played on a solo clarinet which is cut short by the fall of the knife of the guillotine. I think the clarinet player must suddenly have caught sight of Elgar and recognised him, for the expression on his face as he played that brief solo was that of a man who was about to be executed himself. Then the crashing separate chords marked the end. Elgar, still mopping his brow, rose. 

'You are not going to wait and hear Rachmaninov play his concerto?' 

'No, no, no. I told you that I do not take the least interest in music now.' 

With this he plunged out up the stairs of the circle, followed by the indignant glances of the serious-minded young women, as the Witches' Sabbath began. 

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