Falstaff (Elgar)

Falstaff is scored for an orchestra of two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and cor anglais, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (side drum, triangle, tabor, tambourine, bass drum, cymbals), two harps (second harp ad lib), and strings.

The Gadshill section (from Henry IV, Part 1) shows him attempting a gold bullion robbery but being himself attacked and robbed by the disguised Hal and his companions.

After Falstaff's summons to court and commission to raise soldiers for the King's army, there is a battle scene and then a second interlude, an English idyll in a Gloucestershire orchard.

The Times said of the London première that it was played to "a not very large but very enthusiastic audience"[8] and subsequently Falstaff has remained less popular than other major Elgar works, though much loved by aficionados.

"[9] Even during Elgar's lifetime, the musical scholar Percy Scholes wrote of Falstaff that it was a "great work" but "so far as public appreciation goes, a comparative failure.

[12] Bernard Shaw wrote that "[Elgar] made the band do it all, and with such masterful success that one cannot bear to think what would have been the result of a mere attempt to turn the play into an opera.

"[15] The well-known Elgarian writer Michael Kennedy criticised the work for "too frequent reliance on sequences" and an over-idealised depiction of the female characters.

[6] The composer's own 1931–1932 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, produced by Fred Gaisberg of His Master's Voice, was widely praised both at the time of its release and when it was remastered for LP and then for CD.

[22] In 1978, Vernon Handley and the London Philharmonic Orchestra recorded a version for Classics for Pleasure that Gramophone praised for its "spacious yet purposeful conception" and "meticulous fidelity to the letter and spirit of the score and architectural splendour.