August Jaeger
August Johannes Jaeger (18 March 1860 – 18 May 1909) was an Anglo-German music publisher, who developed a close friendship with the English composer Edward Elgar. He offered advice and help to Elgar and is immortalised in the Enigma Variations.
Biography
August Johannes Jaeger was born in Düsseldorf, Germany.[1] He came to London in 1878, where he first worked at a map-printing firm.[1] In 1890 he joined the London music publishing company[2] Novello as a music reader.[3] He became head of the publishing office.[1]
Elgar's relationship with Jaeger is documented in Percy M. Young's book showing eleven years of correspondence, Letters to Nimrod. Jaeger met Edward Elgar in late 1897, when he was publishing office manager at Novellos,[4] and their first correspondence was regarding the publication of Elgar's Te Deum and Benedictus.[2] His advice, friendship and encouragement became invaluable to Elgar, for example causing the composer to rework many famous musical passages, including the finale to his Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma Variations) and the climax of The Dream of Gerontius. Jaeger has been immortalized in the famous ninth variation "Nimrod" from the Variations,[5] recalling a conversation on the slow movements of Beethoven (Nimrod was a Biblical hunter, a pun on the German word for hunter, Jäger).
Jaeger championed the work of the young composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, claiming to Elgar that Coleridge-Taylor was "a genius".
In 1898 Jaeger married Isabella Donkersley of Magdale, Honley near Holmfirth in West Yorkshire, an accomplished violinist and pupil of Henry Holmes in the Royal College of Music, and they had two children.
At the beginning of 1905 Jaeger was ill with tuberculosis and went to Davos in Switzerland,[6] but he was still receiving a pension from Novellos. After the long and depressing illness, during which he and Elgar still corresponded about musical matters, Jaeger died in Muswell Hill on 18 May 1909 aged 49.[7]
The family later changed their name to the anglicized "Hunter" after World War I.
Works
- Analytical and descriptive notes for works by Elgar: The Apostles (1903); The Dream of Gerontius (1904); The Kingdom (1906); Falstaff
- Notes for Queens Hall concert programmes (1903-1906)
References
- ^ a b c Kennedy 1985, "Jaeger, August".
- ^ a b Young 1965, Preface, p.xv.
- ^ Kennedy 1970, p. 38.
- ^ Kennedy 1970, p. 39.
- ^ Elgar 1898.
- ^ Young 1965, p. 247.
- ^ Young 1965, p. 278.
Bibliography
- Elgar, Edward (24 October 1898). "Letter from Elgar to Jaeger (1898)". Letter to August Jaeger. British Library. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
- Kennedy, Michael (1970). Elgar: Orchestral Music. London: BBC. OCLC 252020259.
- Kennedy, Michael (1985). The Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-311333-3.
- Self, Geoffrey (1995). The Hiawatha Man. Scolar Press. ISBN 0-85967-983-7.
- Young, Percy M., ed. (1965). Letters to Nimrod. London: Dobson Books Ltd.
External links
- Works by or about August Jaeger at the Internet Archive
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- Diarmuid and Grania (1901)
- The Crown of India (1911–12)
- The Starlight Express (1915–16)
- The Sanguine Fan (1917)
- Symphony No. 1 (1907–08)
- Symphony No. 2 (1909–11)
- Symphony No. 3 (1932–34; completed by Payne in 1997)
- The Wand of Youth (1869–1907)
- Powick Asylum Music (1879–1884)
- Sevillana (1884)
- Froissart (1890)
- Sursum corda (1894)
- Serenade for Strings (1894)
- Three Bavarian Dances (1898)
- Enigma Variations (1899)
- Cockaigne Overture (1900–01)
- Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1901–30)
- Dream Children (1902)
- Introduction and Allegro (1904–05)
- In the South (Alassio) (1904–05)
- Elegy (1909)
- Falstaff (1913)
- Sospiri (1914)
- Carillon (1914)
- Polonia (1915)
- Une voix dans le désert (1915)
- Le drapeau belge (1917)
- Nursery Suite (1930)
- The Severn Suite (1930)
- Violin Concerto (1901–10)
- Romance (1910)
- Cello Concerto (1918–19)
- Duett for trombone and double bass (1887)
- Idylle (1883)
- Salut d'Amour (1888)
- Chanson de Nuit (1897)
- Chanson de Matin (1899)
- Violin Sonata (1918)
- String Quartet (1918)
- Piano Quintet (1918–19)
- Organ Sonata (1898)
- Concert Allegro (1901)
- The Black Knight (1889–93)
- From the Bavarian Highlands (1895–96)
- The Dream of Gerontius (1899–1900)
- The Kingdom (1901–06)
- Coronation Ode (1902)
- The Apostles (1902–03)
- The Music Makers (1912)
- The Spirit of England (1915–17)
- "The Language of Flowers" (1872)
- "The Self Banished" (1875)
- "A War Song" (1884)
- Seven Lieder
- "Like to the Damask Rose" (1892)
- "Queen Mary's Song" (1889)
- "A Song of Autumn" (1892)
- "The Poet's Life" (1892)
- "Through the Long Days" (1885)
- "Rondel" (1894)
- "The Shepherd's Song" (1892)
- "Is she not passing fair?" (1886)
- "As I laye a-thynkynge" (1888)
- "The Wind at Dawn" (1888)
- "After" (1900)
- "A Song of Flight" (1900)
- Sea Pictures
- "Sea Slumber Song"
- "In Haven"
- "Sabbath Morning at Sea"
- "Where Corals Lie"
- "The Swimmer" (1897–99)
- "Dry those fair, those crystal eyes" (1899)
- "Always and Everywhere" (1901)
- "Come, Gentle Night!" (1901)
- "In the Dawn" (1901)
- "Speak, Music!" (1901)
- "There are seven that pull the thread" (1901)
- "In Moonlight" ((1904)
- "Follow the Colours" (1907)
- "Pleading" (1908)
- "A Child Asleep" (1909)
- "Oh, soft was the song" (1910)
- "Was it some Golden Star?" (1910)
- "Twilight" (1910)
- "The Chariots of the Lord" (1914)
- "Fight for Right" (1916)
- "Inside the Bar" (1917)
- "The Blue Mountains" (1924)
- "The Immortal Legions" (1924)
- Pageant of Empire (1924)
- "XTC" (1930)
- August Jaeger
- Alice Elgar
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