Almonte Lecture Series Friday Jan. 26
The 2007 January New Year's Almonte Lecture: The Imperial Mystique
On Friday, January 26, 2007, meet Carleton University Professor emeritus and award-winning teacher and lecturer, Alan Gillmor. Alan is discussing The Imperial Mystique: Sir Edward Elgar and the Twilight of Empire and also presenting a slide show and a 15 - 20 minute piece of Imperial-era music. The lecture takes place as usual at the Almonte United Church Social Hall, Elgin Street, Almonte, at 7:30 pm.
This might seem like a dry subject but... Gillmor has the following to say about Sir Edward Elgar and this lecture - and there's a twist (read on below!): "Elgar was forty years old in 1897, the year of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and he saw himself then as a musical laureate, summoned by destiny to hymn Britannia's greatness. Between 1897 and 1898 he wrote three celebratory works: the cantata called The Banner of St. George, with a grand finale glorifying the Union Jack; the Caractacus, predicting out of its ancient context the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the British; and an "Imperial March," played first by massed bands at the Crystal Palace, and later, by special command of the Queen, at a State Jubilee Concert. Then in 1901, came the first Pomp and Circumstance march, whose trio section, later set to the famous words, "Land of Hope and Glory," gave Britain a virtual second national anthem. In short, Elgar became the musical laureate of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, expressing the mixture of idealism and imperialism prevalent during those years."
HOWEVER - here's the twist (and yes, it might be "reaching" to characterize this twist as "exciting" vs dry but really I don't know much - it probably will be very "exciting"!) - Alan's talk will demonstrate that this popular view of Elgar as the very musical incarnation of British Imperialism is seriously unbalanced, for there is another side to Elgar - in his greatest music many hear the funeral march of a great civilization...
A native of Fort Frances, Ontario, Alan Gillmor is an excellent ("exciting") speaker and was educated at the University of Michigan (B.Mus., M.A.) and the University of Toronto (Ph.D.). He taught at McGill University and Carleton University, from which he retired in 2003. Alan's scholarly publications have appeared in journals both in North America and Europe, and his book on the French composer Erik Satie (1988, 1990) was short-listed in 1990 for the Ottawa-Carleton Book Award for non-fiction.
The Almonte Lectures are offered free of charge. (Although a free-will donation is much appreciated and goes toward hall rental and advertising the series.) For further information, please phone Don Wiles at 256-4376. The Almonte Lectures (www.almontelectures.ncf.ca) are affiliated with the Mississippi Mills Residents' Association (www.mmra.ca) and Carleton University, Ottawa.
see you at the Lecture,
Jill