Sir Edward Elgar would have been horrified by all the current political shenanigans over Brexit – in both Britain and Europe – and undoubtedly would have been vehemently opposed to any idea of Britain exiting the EU.

He had strong connections with Europe. As Roland Peelman and Marilyn Chalkley noted in a piece intended for the Canberra International Music Festival program booklet, “Elgar loved German music and found the war with Germany (WWI) difficult. They went on to quote Julian Rushton, an English musicologist and Elgar scholar, who argued that Elgar was in fact “quintessentially European”, and “the only reason his music sounds English is that it sounds like Elgar, whom we know to be English.”

On the other side of the channel, there is composer, teacher and performer, César Franck. He was born in what is now Belgium to German parents and spent his adult life working in Paris. Had he lived through WWI he doubtless would been have been just as conflicted as Elgar.

The Brodsky Quartet at the Canberra International Music Festival. Photo © Peter Hislop

So this concert was a kind of cross-channel debate with works by Elgar performed by the...