Exceptional Elgar collection arrives at new home in Manchester

Tue 29 Sep

Written by The Hallé

National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Hallé are delighted to announce that an exceptional archive of the world and work of composer Sir Edward Elgar has safely arrived in Manchester from the USA.

Journey from the USA to Manchester

The Hallé is the proud new custodian of the archive which was flown from New Jersey to London, driven up to Manchester and finally carried through the doors of The Bridgewater Hall in a 3,500 mile journey funded by the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

Built over six decades by Arthur Reynolds, a New Jersey-based businessman and Chairman of the North American Branch of the Elgar Society, the archive brings together around 1,500 meticulously catalogued Elgar-related artefacts and has now been donated to the Hallé.

The National Heritage Memorial Fund awarded the Hallé nearly £105,000 to support the legal aspects of the donation and enable its transport to the UK – a vital piece in the puzzle to save the archive and prevent it from being split up.

Spanning autographed manuscripts, first-edition scores, correspondence with his contemporaries and personal items that reveal glimpses of Elgar’s everyday life, the collection offers an unrivalled insight into the world and work of one of the UK’s most celebrated composers.

The archive also shows how Elgar was one of the first composers to embrace new sound recording technology – going on to play at the openings of both the first HMV retail store and what would later become Abbey Road Studios.

Arthur Reynolds was keen that the archive remained together in full and become publicly accessible. Reynolds donated the archive to the Hallé in recognition of their historic connections with Elgar – the composer was friends with the Hallé’s second Principal Conductor Dr Hans Richter and the Hallé orchestra premiered Elgar’s Symphony No 1 in 1908 at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.

In more recent years, during his 20 years as Music Director at the Hallé, Sir Mark Elder worked to make the Hallé synonymous with Elgar, including award-winning recordings, ongoing exploration of his music throughout the orchestra programme and featuring his work at key moments in the orchestra’s history. Sir Mark also has a reputation as one of the best living interpreters of Elgar’s work.

The archive will be housed in the Hallé’s current archive facilities in The Bridgewater Hall and will be available for the public to view, by appointment, from September. Mr Reynolds’ detailed catalogue will be added to the orchestra’s online resources on the Connecting Manchester’s Music Archives website, enabling everyone to explore what the archive holds. Some items from the collection will be included in future exhibitions and the Hallé aims to create a permanent new, fully accessible archive in the future.

Essential parity funding was also provided by long term Hallé Patron and generous philanthropist, Carole Nash, to help bring the Arthur Reynolds Elgar Collection back to the UK.

Inside the archive

Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of the archive is the light it sheds on Elgar’s perspective on changes within the music industry, particularly the impact of the invention of the gramophone. He was widely thought of as the first composer to take the new invention seriously and he was then a quick adopter of electronic recordings when the electronic microphone was invented in 1923.

In 1921, in Oxford Street, he opened HMV’s first store. According to the Guardian, at the opening he spoke about how the gramophone would enable music to be heard by more people and provide musicians with a wider audience, going so far as to say he would ‘like to see a gramophone with a selection of good music in every school’. He continued to champion new technology and in 1931 conducted the London Symphony Orchestra for the opening of EMI Studios – now known as the world-famous Abbey Road Studios.

Elgar’s recordings of his own works are widely regarded as among the finest in classical music. Beginning with acoustic sessions for HMV in 1914, Elgar embraced the emerging technology despite its limitations: orchestras were reduced to around 30 players, strings were difficult to capture, and complete works often had to be abridged. He went on to make 55 recording sessions for HMV between 1914 and 1934, many of which are represented in this collection, including early sessions and later re-recordings made after the invention of the electric microphone in 1923. Many discs are one-off test pressings from unreleased sessions, complete with Elgar’s handwritten notes marking flaws such as a cough in one take or dismissing another as “bad” and not to be used.

Elgar’s compositions are core to the collection; it contains a first edition of the score of his orchestral masterpiece Enigma Variations and a significant number of autograph manuscript scores, many heavily annotated, offering a remarkable insight into the composer’s mind.

The archive also includes many items of correspondence with Elgar’s contemporaries in the arts and classical music. These include letters to the artist John Singer Sargeant and a long series of letters between Elgar and the pianist Fanny Davis.

Beyond his work, the archive sheds light on the personal and day to day life of Elgar, from photographs to his shaving bowl and family recipe book.

For further information, images or interviews contact Rebecca Harris, Media and PR Manager at the National Heritage Memorial Fund on 07514989903 or at Rebecca.Harris@heritagefund.org.uk

Simon Thurley
Chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund

“This remarkable archive offers a rare and deeply personal insight into Sir Edward Elgar’s life, work and pioneering role in the history of recorded music. The National Heritage Memorial Fund exists to help save the UK’s most outstanding heritage at risk of being lost, dispersed or taken out of public reach, and we are delighted to have supported the Hallé in bringing this exceptional collection to Manchester, where it will have a fitting new home that shares such important historic connections with Elgar. By helping to keep the archive together and make it accessible to researchers, musicians and the public, this grant will ensure Elgar’s legacy continues to inspire and inform future generations, while strengthening Manchester’s musical heritage offer and its place in the story of one of the UK’s most celebrated composers. ”

David Butcher
Hallé CEO

“We are honoured to be welcoming this incredible collection to its new home with us at the Hallé. We are so grateful to Arthur Reynolds for entrusting us with its care, to Carole Nash and the National Heritage Memorial Fund for their crucial support, and to all involved for their shared commitment to making this collection available to the public. Elgar’s work is inextricably woven throughout the Hallé’s history, and it is a privilege to be able to bring this incredible legacy to life through this diverse and fascinating archive. The Hallé Archive already holds some of the most exciting artefacts in musical history, and the addition of this extraordinary collection marks an important step in our ambitions to opening up public access to these treasured items and the stories they hold.”

Arthur Reynolds

“Edward Elgar’s music offered me sensations of reverence to the United Kingdom. When I came to study there in the mid 1960s, I was surprised to find my admiration for Britain’s greatest composer unshared by my contemporaries whose interest in Elgar’s music had reached a nadir of negativity. One consequence was a neglect that threatened to consign Elgar memorabilia to an undeserved oblivion. I decided then and there to make it my life’s work to prevent the disappearance of material related to Elgar’s creative life. The result is the archive that has now reached its final resting place with Hallé.”

Baroness Twycross
Heritage Minister

“This remarkable collection offers a fascinating insight into the life and work of one of Britain’s most celebrated composers, and I am delighted that it has found a fitting new home with the Hallé in Manchester. Thanks to support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, this important archive has been brought back to the UK, kept together and made accessible for future generations. From Elgar’s handwritten scores to material revealing his pioneering use of early recording technology, the collection will help bring his extraordinary legacy to life for musicians, researchers and audiences for years to come.”

Acoustic recording. Photograph of Elgar conducting an early recording session for Gramophone, 1915. (Reproduced with permission from The Hallé Archive)
Elgar taking a break. Elgar has left a luncheon to take a break on the steps, 1906, after a new piece from The Kingdom has been performed for his friends. (Reproduced with permission from The Hallé Archive)
Malvern Festival just a few months after Elgar’s death, signed by famous people of the festival: Barry Jackson, George Bernard Shaw, Errol Flynn, John Drinkwater, Basil Radford, Reginald Tate, Joyce Bland, Scott Sunderland, Patricia Burke, Stephen Murray, Hal Burton, Reginald Gatty, Hilda Sims, Wilfrid Caithness, Mavis Walker, Vernon Harris, William Heilbronn, Stewart Cooper, Curigwen Lewis, Geoffrey Toone, Stanley Lathbury and others. (Reproduced with permission from The Hallé Archive)
Piano Quintet. Manuscript dated January 21, 1919, of passages and queries about the work, consisting of questions from Elgar addressed to Harold Brooke [Jaeger’s successor at Novello], both as printer and as pianist. JNM's comment: “This half-sheet of music paper, filled on both sides, shows more clearly than anything known to me the working relationship between the two men, especially close over this work." (Reproduced with permission from The Hallé Archive)

About the National Heritage Memorial Fund

The National Heritage Memorial Fund was set up in 1980 as a fund of last resort to save the most outstanding parts of our heritage, to create a timeless and publicly accessible collection as a memorial to those who have given their lives for the UK.

The Memorial Fund receives annual grant-in-aid of £5million from the UK government to help save some of our most-loved treasures such as paintings, natural heritage, maritime and industrial vessels, and historic houses, from being lost forever. Any funds remaining from the Memorial Fund’s annual allocation at the end of the financial year remain available to the Memorial Fund to award grants to exceptional heritage treasures such as the Portrait of Mai (Omai), The Artist Rooms, Titian’s Diana and Acteon, the Honresfield Library, Tyntesfield Estate, Wentworth Woodhouse Estate and Wentworth Woodhouse.

The National Heritage Memorial Fund has supported a number of significant musical heritage projects. These include the c.1620 Lute Manuscript from the Arnold Dolmetsch Collection, which was export stopped and acquired by the University of Edinburgh in 2022. The manuscript contains around 320 pieces, some of which were later performed in concert.

Other supported acquisitions include My Ladye Nevells Booke, a landmark collection of 16th-century keyboard works by composer and musician William Byrd; an exceptionally rare harpsichord by Joseph Mahoon, acquired by Gainsborough House in 2019; and the Bryson and McAdam Collection of Gaelic Manuscripts, the most important collection of Irish-language manuscripts in Northern Ireland, which includes folk songs and was acquired in 1998 for Belfast Central Library and the Linen Hall.