Classical Music

Classical Music

This release is a unique opportunity for the listener who has interest in historical performance. This four-disc set contains virtually the entire 1928 Elgar studio sessions of the Cello Concerto, as well as several unused takes of major orchestral works and miniatures- pressings which have hitherto been unheard. These pressings are from Elgar’s own private library by way of Arthur Reynolds, a keen collector of original Elgar photographs and recordings. The only person to whom Arthur Reynolds granted access to this treasure trove was master recording engineer, Lani Spahr. In his work, Lani Spahr was able to synchronize the various sides into a stereo image through hours of painstaking effort. This provides insight into the sessions themselves, along with astonishing sound quality.

This fourth album by philharmonie zuidnederland includes works by Darius Milhaud, Charles Koechlin, Duncan Ward and Edward Elgar. Principal conductor Duncan Ward takes you on a symphonic journey with Darius Milhaud’s La Création du monde for small orchestra, after which we fly to the stars in Charles Koechlin’s mysterious Vers la voûte étoilée — Koechlin had first intended to become an astronomer. We then travel further afield with Ward’s own Fumes; Ward had studied in India with sitar legend Ravi Shankar before joining him in California. The album ends with Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Elgar portrayed fourteen of his closest friends in this enigmatic, humorous and moving work.

The years 1898-1900 for Elgar saw the composition of The Dream of Gerontius which represented a new style of oratorio in which a continuous musical flow replaced the customary division into separate arias and choruses. He embarked seriously on The Apostles in 1902 and the first performance took place in October of the following year at the Birmingham Festival conducted by Hans Richter. Elgar himself conducted performances in 1914 and again in 1922 in Canterbury Cathedral where this performance was given. As with Handel's Messiah Elgar's work was to have been in three parts, though it soon became apparent that it was going to be far too long for one oratorio, and the third part became the starting point for The Kingdom. This piece grew in its turn and the project became one for three oratorios; the first The Apostles, concerned with the apostles' relationship with the earthly Jesus, the second, The Kingdom, with the period after the crucifixion and the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the third, which never came to be written, on Judgment and the Life Everlasting. Another influence is to be found in Wagner who built up his scores from a pattern of leit-motifs. In his analysis of The Apostles, Jaeger identified and named about sixty such themes, though he came under criticism from Ernest Newman (a leading Wagner authority) for being too obsessional in this respect, and even Elgar himself felt that Jaeger had taken this aspect of the work further than was really justified, since the themes, while being a strong structural element in the music, lacked the immediately identifiable symbolism of Wagner's motifs. The two composers' compositional methods were very different: Wagner completed his libretto first, allocating fragments of melody to particular ideas and incorporating them into the score at significant moments, for Elgar the musical development was pre-eminent he was by nature a symphonic, rather than an operatic composer.

Edward Elgar, the most prominent representative of the British Empire in music, completed his violin concerto, which was commissioned and premiered with great enthusiasm by Fritz Kreisler, in 1910. It is said that Elgar never spoke emotionally about his own music – with the striking exception of this one work, about which he uttered the words “I love it“. Violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger from Salzburg, Austria, presents this popular work here with the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of James Judd in a particularly beautiful interpretation, which pays special attention to the tempo indications noted on Elgar’s score. In addition, Elgar’s sonata for violin and piano will be heard on this release, also featuring Irnberger in collaboration with the great German pianist Michael Korstick.

Classical Music

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

Classical Music

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

Recorded in: St George's Church, Bloomsbury, London 6,7 January 1984 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Brian Couzens

Recorded in: All Saints' Church, Tooting, London 1-3 February 1993 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Peter Newble (Assistant)

Childhood-related but mature and attractive music, well performed and recorded.


Bryden Thomson had something of a reputation for slowish tempi, savouring the music a little too much as he went along. I find this less irksome in his performances of Bax, for example, than some reviewers, and it is not too much in evidence here. He is often faster than Boult; only rarely is he slower.

The Slumber Scene (track 6) is one exception: here, at 4:27, he is exactly a whole minute slower than Boult’s 3:27. EM, who has already reviewed this recording – see review – also noted that Thomson takes whole minute longer over this movement than Handley – at least, I think he meant to say that Thomson was slower, not shorter.

Not recalling that I had thought this movement at all slow in my first run-through, I let several days elapse before listening carefully to the Boult version, fully prepared to think his timing too rushed. It was no such thing – he captures the spirit of the piece perfectly. Having put on the Boult recording in order to check the one track, I just couldn’t resist playing the whole thing. This is a wonderful recording and EMI should urgently consider reissuing it, perhaps more appropriately coupled – the music and performance are even worthy to sit alongside the Enigma Variations. I note that JQ welcomed its most recent appearance on EMI British Classics with enthusiasm.

Then I played the Thomson again and derived equal pleasure from it. At first I thought the recording not quite as full as the Boult – EMI’s ADD sound is very good for its age – but that is an aural delusion resulting from the fact that the EMI transfer is at a slightly higher rate: turn up the Chandos a notch and the illusion disappears. Both performances and recordings deliver plenty of power where it is need.

Did Thomson’s Slumber Scene sound too slumberous? Only marginally – heard on its own, without comparison, it’s perfectly fine. I’ve said so often that tempo indications don’t always tell the full story that it’s time that I got it into my own noddle. I do think, however, that the March which begins the second suite (tr.8) is a touch slow at 4:58 against Boult’s 4:26.

The Nursery Suite and Dream Children also receive fine performances – the latter from Norman del Mar, always idiomatic in English music – well recorded. At its new price, this recording is very welcome. In the absence of the Boult (temporary, I hope) this will do very nicely.

If you enjoy these pieces, you will probably react favourably to Elgar’s other piece of childhood-related music, The Starlight Express, Op.78 - not to be confused with the West End musical of that name; there’s a wonderful budget-price Vernon Handley version on Classics For Pleasure 5859072.

-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Following a highly praised recording of Symphony No. 1 last year, Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony present here an electrifying interpretation of Elgar’s Symphony No. 2, with the addition of one of his most performed works: the Serenade for Strings. Having now become experts in British repertoire with highly lauded series of Walton and Britten, they reveal all the aspects of Elgar’s masterpiece in this surround sound recording. Symphony No. 2 is richly orchestrated and skillfully constructed, drawing on hugely varied resources of harmony, rhythm and melody, and making considerable use of thematic transformation as a unifying technique. While the Symphony No. 2 is one of the greatest products of Elgar’s maturity, the Serenade in E minor for Strings is perhaps the most charming product of his youth. In this three-movement piece dominated by a deeply passionate Larghetto, the strings of the BBC Symphony superbly encapsulate all the emotions offered by this graceful work: tender lyrical and intense.