A piano work composed by Edward Elgar in 1905.

In 1904, the year before this piece was composed, Elgar had become one of Britain's leading composers, recognized for his musical achievements such as Pomp and Circumstance, and had been knighted. As a prominent social figure, Elgar embarked on a month-long cruise around the Mediterranean, including Greece and Turkey, in the autumn of 1905, thanks to the good offices of Admiral Charles Beresford, Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet. One of the ports of call on that cruise was "Smyrna" (present-day Izmir), which also became the title of the piece.

Smyrna (Izmir) is said to be the third-largest city in present-day Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire) and a major port city second only to Istanbul. It has flourished through Mediterranean trade since ancient times and has been praised as the "Pearl of the Aegean" for its beauty. The deep blue sea and shining sun, beautiful minarets and Islamic mosques adorned with colorful stained glass and tiles, and bustling souks (markets) where various people and goods flowed between West and East... Everything that met his eyes was exotic, and the scenery of Smyrna must have felt very fresh to Elgar, who was born and raised in the small island nation of Britain, on the edge of Europe. Based on the impressions of Smyrna's exotic atmosphere, Elgar composed In Smyrna aboard the cruise ship.

Next, let's delve into the details of the piece.

Details of the Piece

Quasi Andante, 4/4 time, G major. The piece opens with a pianississimo sixteenth-note figuration in the right hand. Following this ripple-like passage, a leisurely theme emerges, seemingly representing the calm, vast Mediterranean Sea. While an Arabesque exoticism occasionally appears, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade or Balakirev's Islamey, depicts the scene of a leisurely sea voyage and the Mediterranean breeze using impressionistic techniques. In the subsequent transitional passage, phrases repeat with alternating accelerations and decelerations, like waves breaking and receding, depicting the sea gradually becoming more agitated from a calm state. The surging waves gradually subside after reaching a climax at the sforzando in measure 28, passing through a tempo, più lento in measure 30, and returning to Tempo I from measure 32, leading back to the main theme. In the recapitulation, where the sea returns to its calm state, the waves are expressed by changing from sixteenth notes to triplets. From measure 42, an Arabesque cadenza gracefully adorns the end of the piece, and the sea, having regained its tranquility, quietly diminuendos, gently bringing the work to a close.

The year 1905, when this piece was composed, was a time when Elgar's popularity was at its peak, and it can be said to be the period when he was at the height of his powers as a composer. This work is one of the few precious pieces that Elgar, in his mature period, composed purely for piano.