Why Kipling Scuppered Elgar's Sea-Songs

A lost work by Elgar resurfaces on a new recording

by Tom HigginsMonday, 09 November 2009

The Fringes of the Fleet: the cast of the 1917 premierePhoto by courtesy of the Elgar Museum

Elgar’s flag-waving nautical song-cycle The Fringes of the Fleet was performed to packed houses up and down the country in 1917, then sank virtually without trace for the next 90 years. As the work receives its first professional orchestral recording since Elgar's own, Tom Higgins, the conductor of the recording, explains how the work came into being, and why Rudyard Kipling had it banned.

In October Kipling learnt that his only son was missing in action. He apparently took the view that he did not want his war-poetry portrayed in the music hall

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