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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
A man to leave Italy and not to write a book about it!
Was ever such a thing heard of?
Walter Savage Landor, High and Low Life in Italy, 1831On 21 November 1903 Elgar and his wife left London for Italy. The composer hoped to take advantage of the warmer climate, and to develop a symphonic project for the forthcoming Elgar Festival at Covent Garden, planned for March 1904. After a brief stay in Bordighera, the Elgars moved on to the Villa San Giovanni at Alassio, where they remained from 11 December until 30 January 1904; their daughter Carice, accompanied by Rosa Burley (who published an entertaining account of the Italian trip), joined them just before Christmas. The symphonic project foundered – a creative block associated in Elgar's mind with the disappointing weather:
This visit has been, is, artistically a complete failure & I can do nothing: we have been perished with cold, rain & gales – five fine days have we had & three of those were perforce spent in the train. The Symphony will not be written in this sunny(?) land. You must understand that when a wind does come – & it is apparently always on – it is no bearable, kindly east wind of England – but a tearing, piercing, lacerating devil of a wind: one step outside the door & I am cut in two, numbed & speechless: I have never regretted anything more than this horribly disappointing journey: wasting time, money & temper.
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