SOMM Recordings is thrilled to collaborate once again with the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman piano duo following their highly praised six-volume recording of the nine symphonies by Beethoven arranged for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka-about which International Piano says, "These readings afford unmitigated pleasure... The articulation and voicing of the players persuades us into thinking we're in the middle of an unleashed virtuoso orchestra." Now, these award-winning South African-born artists present music for two pianos and piano duet from their adopted country, highlighting works by Gustav Holst and Edward Elgar. In the early 1910s, Holst became interested in astrology, and he conceived the idea of a suite for orchestra based on the solar system's individual planets. Originally, he composed�The Planets on the piano, using the instrument in his newly-built, sound-proofed room in the music wing at St Paul's Girls School as well as the piano at his home in Thaxted. This version for four hands, two pianos was scored by two of his colleagues at St Paul's, Vally Lasker and Nora Day, who acted as amanuenses, because Holst suffered intermittently from painful neuritis in his right hand. Following the resounding success of the orchestrated version of The Planets, the original piano duet score was overlooked, though it was eventually published separately in 1949-51. In 1979, Holst's daughter, Imogen, reissued the complete two-piano arrangement in one volume, and Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform this version here. Elgar's renown was such that, at the height of his fame, several established musicians were commissioned by publishers to make piano transcriptions of his orchestral music. This was no mean feat, given that Elgar's scores are scrupulously marked as to how he wanted every phrase-sometimes even every bar or note within that phrase-to be played. It was the composer, arranger, and conductor, Otto Singer II, who made the transcription for piano four-hands of Elgar's 1905 Introduction and Allegro, scored originally for solo string quartet and string orchestra. Singer's insight and skill are evident in techniques like transferring string double-stopping to spread keyboard chords, and his piano four-hands version is admirably true to Elgar's evolving contrapuntal and harmonic ideas. In Victorian England, the marriage of a tradesman's son to the daughter of a Major-General in the British Army, who was eight years his senior, might not have appeared a perfect match. Yet, the marriage of Edward Elgar and Caroline Alice Roberts turned out to be a love-match. In 1888, as a wedding present, Edward presented to Carice, as he called her, Salut d'Amour. This enduring melody has inspired numerous arrangements for widely varying instrumental combinations, including this one for piano duet.

Elgar: Cello Concerto - Tchaikovsky: Rococo Variations

Daniel Barenboim and Decca Classics continue their acclaimed Elgar series, recording Sea Pictures again after four decades and paired with the symphonic poem Falstaff. Recorded live in the winter of 2019, the album features the Staatskapelle Berlin and mezzo Elina Garanca in her first recording of Sea Pictures.

The newest release from SOMM Recordings is an unusual but exciting pairing of two string quartets by British and French contemporaries Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) and Gabriel Faure (1845-1924). Also included is a collection of shorter gems transcribed for string quartet by the British composer, arranger, and pianist Iain Farrington. These comprise Elgar's Carissima (originally composed for small orchestra) and selections from Faure's Piano Preludes: Nos. 4, 8, and 9, this last described by Aaron Copland as being "so absolutely simple that we can never hope to understand how it can contain such great emotional power." This recording features the Eusebius Quartet, formed in 2016 out of a passion for the extraordinary music written for this instrumentation, and praised as "excellent" by The Sunday Times. Their debut CD for SOMM of the Korngold Piano Quintet & Quartet (SOMMCD 0642) received critical acclaim: "Wit and clarity abound in the Quartet's Viennese-sounding performances, " The Strad; "The musicians seem to feel the music just as it is, complex on the surface, but direct and straight from the heart, " BBC Music Magazine. Elgar and Faure met once at the time of the London premiere of Elgar's First Symphony in 1908. Although Faure spoke no English and Elgar's French wasn't exactly conversational, it's fascinating to compare the musical language of their two quartets, both in the key of E minor, and written late in the composers' lives. Edward Elgar was a more than competent violinist, and he made several attempts throughout his career to write a string quartet. Finally, ill and depressed by war-time London in 1918, he completed his String Quartet, Op. 83. It is cast in three movements, the outer Allegro movements bookending one marked Piacevole (poco andante). This slow middle movement, which contains a�quotation�from Elgar's�Chanson de Matin, was a favourite of Lady Elgar, who described it as "captured sunshine." It was played at her funeral in 1920. Gabriel Faure composed his only String Quartet, Op. 121 in 1924, shortly before his death at the age of 79. By this time, he had been totally deaf for some years, and the quartet suggests a mind driven within itself in a way that hints at Beethoven's Late String Quartets. This final work of Faure presents an extraordinary duality, which masks the romantic ideas of his earlier music with what the English composer and writer Robert Matthew-Walker calls "a soft steely twilight that at times appears almost menacing." As with Elgar's quartet, the central Andante movement particularly captures the imagination with it's musical colouration suggesting a world of half-lights.

Recorded in the recently restored 1875 Victorian Theatre at Alexandra Palace, Crouch End Festival Chorus and David Temple present Elgar's The Kingdom. Joined by London Mozart Players the soloists include Francesca Chiejina, Dame Sarah Connolly Benjamin Hulett and Ashley Riches. Arguably Elgar's least well-known choral work, The Kingdom is a mixture of gentle conversational sections and astonishing dramatic passages, and David Temple believes it is the quality of the orchestral writing that elevates it to justifiably sit alongside Elgar's other notable works. "I am so taken with it It is a gem from the first note to the last, and my desire to share this as widely as possible is reinforced by the present recording One thing that cannot happen in a concert performance is 'repeated listening'. A recording, by contrast, holds an open invitation at the end to return to the beginning! This drip-feed allows the music to be deeply absorbed, and it is this which I believe will enable The Kingdom's true quality to be more widely appreciated" - David Temple.

...an abundantly characterful, often exquisitely observant reading of the Enigma Variations set down at Walthamstow towards the end of 1954... Beecham sifts Elgar’s textures with rare mastery, and there are some delectable sounds throughout from his RPO wind principals (above all, Jack Brymer’s wonderfully hushed solos in the ‘Romanza’). Elsewhere, ‘Troyte’ fairly tears out of the blocks (distinctive, gun-shot timpani), and the finale struts with an irresistible physicality and unbuttoned thrust. By contrast, ‘Dorabella’ skips along in a more leisurely fashion than usual, and I love the tender intimacy Beecham imparts to ‘Ysobel’. A pity about the botched opening of ‘RPA’; otherwise, an Enigma to savour, if not quite ousting such legendary near-contemporaries as the evergreen Monteux or Barbirolli’s inspirational 1956 Halle account from the head of a very long list. It’s preceded by a terrific, swaggeringly exuberant Cockaigne (whose ripe coda heralds a startling change in both ambience and perspective) and a wholly disarming, gently affectionate reading of the Serenade for Strings.

-- Gramophone [8/2001]

REVIEWS:
BBC Music (3/98, p.74) - "Du Pré's...1977 Elgar Cello Concerto recording....is compelling and richly Romantic....Ormandy and the Philadelphia's 'Enigma' is warmhearted and virtuosic....Davis's 'Pomp and Circumstance' Marches are bold and beefy."

"The Enigma Variations, Froissart, Cockaigne, and In the South (a thrilling performance) all benefit from Slatkin's keen musical insight and impeccable execution. The London Philharmonic, long experienced in this music, provides its usual enthusiastic and authoritative performances."

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com [6/15/2004] Reviewing RCA 60389

THE HEIFETZ COLLECTION VOL 7 -

Classical Music

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.



ELGAR (completed/orch Payne) Symphony No. 3. So many true princesses who have gone. 1 Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6 • Richard Hickox, cond; Adrian Partington Singers; 1 BBC Natl O of Wales • CHANDOS 5057 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 70:18)


I never thought it would come to this, but I am beginning to think of Anthony Payne’s realization of Elgar’s sketches for a Third Symphony as my favorite among the three. This didn’t happen suddenly, but over time, and largely thanks to Paul Daniel’s recording—to me the best of the three readings of Andrew Davis, Daniel, and Colin Davis—I have come to realize the enormous fertility of ideas that Elgar packed into those sloppy scraps of manuscript. Payne has worked a wonder, maybe the best reconstruction of a work in the last 100 years, and while we still fight over the inclusion of Mahler’s 10th in the canon, this Elgar No. 3 seems to have been accepted almost from the beginning.


So what has Hickox done to change the landscape? Quite a lot, actually. Though the Colin Davis recording had the wonderfully rejuvenated LSO at its disposal, I have never been happy with the sound that LSO Live conjures up for their releases, though there are certainly some outstanding recordings in that estimable series. It is true that their SACD issues help with the sound somewhat, but not terribly much. Davis’s reading is a good one, convincing to be sure, but not I fear as good as the excellent Daniel, who seems to me to galvanize his forces in a more solid and coherent presentation. (For a pro and con opinion on the Colin Davis, see Peter J. Rabinowitz and Bernard Jacobson in Fanfare 26:2.) But now we have Hickox, whose credentials in Elgar are formidable, even though he has been accused of soft-pedaling the emotional core of the composer. He gives us a performance nearly as adept and astute as the Daniel, and in superior, excellently recorded DSD surround sound (though the Naxos issue is nothing to sneeze at). While I think the BBC Orchestra of Wales a fine band, they don’t quite come up to the finesse of Daniel’s Bournemouth Symphony, which in turn doesn’t quite match Colin Davis’s LSO. But all three are close enough, and the BBC Welsh put on quite a show here, especially in the haunting and ruminative third movement.


So, there you have it. I would not sacrifice Daniel, but I have a feeling that this Chandos may become my recording of choice because of the superior soundstage and beautiful depth and richness of the recorded image. I find myself paying more attention to this work while listening to this recording than any of the others, and Hickox conjures up some magical playing, virile, sensitive, robust, exciting, and all of those other contradictory terms we can apply when listening to almost any Elgar symphony.


But there is a little more; we know that Elgar planned a series of six Pomp and Circumstance marches, yet the sixth was locked away in sketches found both in the British Library and the Royal School of Church Music. The Elgar Will Trust asked Payne to assemble and complete the work in 2005, and it was premiered in 2006 by the BBC Symphony under Andrew Davis. It is a bit of a strange bird in its melodies, but definitely Elgarian, and those fans of the composer will have to have this release, the first recording ever. So many true princesses who have gone is a memorial ode by Poet Laureate John Masefield, originally set to music for the Sir Alfred Gilbert monument to the Queen Mother, Queen Alexandra. The music was meant for band, but all that survives is a sketch for voices and piano. Payne set this piece for orchestra at the 2002 Aldeburgh Festival. It is an interesting work, though by no means the greatest Elgar you may ever hear.


But this Third Symphony just might be. Highly recommended.


FANFARE: Steven E. Ritter

Johannes Moser's acclaimed interpretation of Elgar's profoundly elegiac and lyrical Cello Concerto and of Tchaikovsky's elegant Rococo Variations returns to the market in an affordable stereo edition. The programme also contains Tchaikovsky's Nocturne and Morceau de Concert for Cello and Orchestra, as well as an arrangement of the famous Andante cantabile from his First String Quartet. Performed together with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the baton of Andrew Manze, Moser's rendition was praised by Gramophone as "one of the finest we've had in years."

This is the best of me wrote Edward Elgar in 1900 at the end of the manuscript of The Dream of Gerontius. This impressive and modern new recording of Elgar's magnum opus by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon features alongside mezzo-soprano Christine Rice, tenor John Findon and baritone Roderick Williams, singers from five different choirs: Helsinki Music Centre Choir, Cambridge University Symphony Chorus, Dominante, Helsinki Chamber Choir and Alumni of the Choir of Clare College Cambridge.

Includes work(s) by Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Charles V. Stanford. Ensemble: Cambridge Trinity College Choir. Conductor: Richard Marlow.

This 2010 release coincides with the 100th anniversary of the premiere of Elgar’s Concerto for Violin in B minor. In this performance, Nikolaj Znaider plays the Guarnerius “del Gesu” 1741 violin, which Fritz Kreisler (to whom the concerto was dedicated) played in the concerto’s 1910 premiere in London, with Elgar conducting.