A double birthday across the centuries

Outspoken conductor Mark Elder will be letting the music do the talking at tonight's celebration of Elgar, he tells Arminta Wallace

Mark Elder is a man who speaks his mind. At last year's Last Night of the Proms- that bastion of middle-English respectability - he went off like an early Hallowe'en firecracker. Fulminating against the overwrought "security" restrictions which have seen many musicians cancel international tours rather than have their instruments chucked into the hold along with the oversized hand baggage, he declared that if things don't improve, the musical future may be packed with such premieres as Concerto for Laptop and Orchestra.

The comment hit the headlines in a major way - and it wasn't the first time Elder's outspokenness had attracted attention. So when, eight years ago, he took the helm of the Hallé Orchestra, many of its musicians must have been wondering just how bumpy a ride was in store. The Manchester-based orchestra, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, is the oldest in the UK. When Elder was appointed, it had been quietly stagnating for decades. But its new artistic director turned its fortunes right around; nowadays, the Hallé Orchestra is regarded as one of the most dynamic ensembles you're likely to hear.

I have to ask, therefore: was it something he said? On the phone from New York, where he's conducting Madama Butterflyat the Metropolitan Opera House, Elder is in robust form.

"I made it clear to them very early on," he says in his famously plummy tones, "that I thought they sounded OK and that it was all fine. Except that it didn't interest me." Ouch. "And I said," continues the polite but remorseless voice, "people won't come out on a wet November night to listen to us unless there's going to be something at the end of that journey to the Bridgewater Hall that they're going to remember. That's going to - in however small a way - change their lives."

Ah. Now, speaking of a wet night in November, Elder is bringing the Hallé to the National Concert Hall in Dublin this week as part of this season's international orchestral series. So why should Irish music-lovers leave their nice, cosy houses to come and hear them play? Well, for a start, because they've shied away from the old favourites which are often trotted out on such occasions - Dvorak's anything-but-new New World Symphony, say - and are offering instead the big, chunky, wintry, satisfying Second Symphonyof Edward Elgar.

THERE'S CONSIDERABLY MORE to Elgar than the kind of amiably batty Britishness which marks the Last Night of the Proms. "Everybody thinks of his moustache and Land of Hope and Glory," says Elder. "But that was a tiny part of his musical life. As well as being a very famous public musical figure, he was a very nervous, introverted, apprehensive, unsure, private man; and these qualities are side-by-side in this symphony. There's music of confidence and energy, of joy in life - like the very opening passage, for instance - but there's music, also, of doubt and darkness and shadows. Music that's very, very hard to understand how it fits in to the broader picture. And that's why I love it - because it's a work of such character and depth."

One of Elgar's most intensely personal works, the Second Symphonyis - along with the Violin Concertoand The Music Makers- one of a trio of pieces written in the middle of Elgar's life which were inspired by his relationship with Alice Stuart Wortley. "I think they were deeply in love," says Elder. "She and her husband were great friends of Elgar and his wife." Who was also called Alice?

"Yes. We all call Alice Stuart Wortley 'the other Alice'," comes the prompt reply. Living next to door to Alice, you might say.

In all other respects, Elgar's life was blamelessly upright. Born into the lower reaches of English country society, he never lost his love for the Malvern Hills - or his West Country burr. He was sensitive and shy; but also, in an odd way, vain.

"He loved having his photograph taken in profile on his bicycle - he did, really," says Elder. "He also had very strong views, which he sometimes expressed, to people's surprise and astonishment. He was very sensitive as to whether he had a public for his music and whether or not, after the first World War, people would be interested in what he was writing."

The truth seems to be that Elgar's music has matured as well as a good wine. "Now that so much time has elapsed we're able to see his music in a broader perspective," says Elder. This is, he says, is a special year for both of them. "It's his 150th birthday this year. My birthday falls on the same day as Elgar's, and of course our names are quite similar. It's one of those little connections in life that have come to mean so much to me."

DURING THE SUMMER, on the occasion of Elder's 60th birthday and Elgar's 150th, the Hallé performed the Second Symphony. "One of the best birthday presents a conductor could ever have," he declares stoutly. "It's also a great thing for the orchestra to play. It's very difficult, very demanding - but they have it in their hearts now." Meanwhile, now that he's 60 - a slip of a lad, in conducting terms - will Elder be giving vent to his opinions with even greater abandon?

"Well, I say what I think, sometimes," he says. The difficulties-of-travelling story, he points out, is still a big topic - it was mentioned recently in an article in the Washington Post- and at the time, he felt it would be wrong not to speak out. Does he plan his outbursts, or just give vent to whatever is on his mind? "It depends," he says. "I think about the topics I cover very carefully, and I think how much weight to put on them. But how I say it, I leave to the moment."

Why, after a hugely successful stint at the English National Opera and a brace of other conducting jobs, including a principal guest position at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, did Elder take charge at the Hallé? Wasn't he dismayed by the fact that it was in bad shape?

"It was the very fact that there was so much to achieve in Manchester that attracted me," he says. "And there were some crucial elements. Lyn Fletcher, the leader of the orchestra, was somebody I'd worked with for many years in Birmingham, and we'd always got on very well. The fact that the board and the top management was also going to change meant that it was the beginning of an era in Manchester - and it coincided with the confidence that Manchester, as a city, is now showing.

"So it was a fresh start, and I felt that what I could bring to the orchestra at that time was what they needed at that point in their history. I'm a great believer in the connecting energy in our lives, and I think that I was meant to do this job. It's important work."

The Hallé has, he notes, been in operation twice as long as the London Philharmonic, which is currently celebrating its 75th. "But the 1990s were not a happy period for them. Somebody needed to take them to his heart, and take them by the scruff of the neck, and do whatever was needed to make them sound absolutely wonderful. And they are a wonderful orchestra - a very, very fine group of musicians who have a very fine contact with each other. Which," Elder adds, "isn't always the case. It's perfectly possible, as an orchestral musician, to come in and just take your trombone out of its case, or take your fiddle and play the notes in front of you, and then go away again."

A good time to close the conversation, perhaps - in case he says something he shouldn't.

Mark Elder conducts the Hallé Orchestra at the National Concert Hall tonight. Besides Elgar's Second Symphony No 2, the programme will feature Mendelssohn's overture The Fair Melusine, and Mahler's Rückertlieder with the English mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly