{"title":"Weekend Spotlight: The Elegance of Elgar","description":"\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWeekend Spotlight\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e celebrates the timeless elegance of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEdward Elgar\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e with \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTHREE remarkable new releases\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, featuring performances by \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eKinga Augustyn, the Symphony Orchestra of Radio Leipzig, The Hallé Orchestra,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHertschorus\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. From soaring choral works and expressive violin writing to sweeping orchestral grandeur, these recordings capture the lyricism, drama, and unmistakable spirit of Elgar’s music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen, continue the journey with an \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOutlet collection of titles\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e featuring Elgar alongside composers of his era and tradition, including \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e and more—all \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e50% OFF\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e for a limited time!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"shopify-section-template--18107431616746__blocks_hpEaLT\" class=\"shopify-section\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"shopify-block-ARk1HUVd2TGNpVktaW__ai_gen_block_00051a3_B6TAYk\" class=\"shopify-block\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"ai-section-header-ark1huvd2tgnpvktawaigenblock00051a3b6tayk\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"ai-section-header__container-ark1huvd2tgnpvktawaigenblock00051a3b6tayk\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"ai-section-header__description-ark1huvd2tgnpvktawaigenblock00051a3b6tayk\"\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShop the sale before it ends at\u003cstrong\u003e 9:00am ET, Monday, August 17th, 2026\u003c\/strong\u003e. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"vaughan-williams-grieg-violin-sonatas-635212073421","title":"Vaughan Williams \u0026 Grieg: Violin Sonatas \/ Ciem, Golan","description":"\u003cp\u003eCharlie Siem returns with a new recording of Violin Sonatas, accompanied by his regular recital partner Itamar Golan – featuring Vaughan Williams' Violin Sonata in A Minor and Grieg's Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, Op. 13. Charlie Siem is one of today’s foremost young violinists, with such a wide-ranging diversity of cross-cultural appeal as to have played a large part in defining what it means to be a true artist of the 21st century. Siem has appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the Bergen Philharmonic, Camerata Salzburg, Czech National Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, London Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked with top conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Edward Gardner, Zubin Mehta, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Roger Norrington, Libor Pešek and Yuri Simonov. International festival appearances to date include Spoleto, St. Moritz, Gstaad, Bergen, Tine@Munch, Festival Internacional de Santa Lucía, and the Windsor Festival.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012467773674,"sku":"635212073421","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4170016-2951456.jpg?v=1786636334"},{"product_id":"vidi-speciosam-sacred-choral-music-bevan-family-consort","title":"Vidi Speciosam - Sacred Choral Music \/ Bevan Family Consort","description":"\u003cp\u003eSoprano Mary Bevan writes: In 1975, the original Bevan Family Choir released their debut album on vinyl, featuring an eclectic programme of sacred choral works, Welsh folk songs, and piano music. The Choir consisted of 11 of the 14 Bevan siblings and was conducted by their father, Roger. Later on the Choir was taken over by the second eldest son, David, who was to go on to become Assistant Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral. The musical tradition continued to flourish within the family until, in 2013, some of the second generation of cousins decided to create their own version of the family choir, naming themselves the Bevan Family Consort so as to distinguish them from their parents’ generation. The Consort has since ranged in size from 15-22 of the 53 first cousins. To honour David and the influence he had over us all as musicians, this disc consists of music that was introduced to us by him during his years at the Holy Redeemer Church and that have since become beloved by us as a choir.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell2_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003eThe Bevan Family Consort are particularly good at strongly textured works such as Croce’s \u003cem\u003eIn spirito humilitatis\u003c\/em\u003e, tinged with Venetian monumentalism, or Holst’s \u003cem\u003eNunc dimittis\u003c\/em\u003e with its ecstatic ending. This last piece was not discovered until 1979, some 45 years after Holst’s death. Other rarities include the \u003cem\u003eDignare me\u003c\/em\u003e by Fernando de las Infantas, apparently a Spanish nobleman working in Rome – so obscure as to be practically confidential. The works with intricate polyphony are pleasingly performed, though in the Kyrie and Gloria of Victoria’s \u003cem\u003eMissa Vidi speciosam\u003c\/em\u003e the upper voices are a little sharp and the overall acoustic seems rather distant. Breath control and phrasing is always musical and is apparent even in the plainsongs (Ave Maria). The most beautiful work here is Alonso Lobo’s \u003cem\u003eVersus est in luctum\u003c\/em\u003e. The voices of the Bevan Consort are slightly too disparately coloured to match the magical poise of this work achieved by the group Tenebrae (also on Signum) which shares an album with Victoria’s Requiem. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003e-- BBC Music Magazine\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012476948714,"sku":"635212074626","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4202510-2979917.jpg?v=1786635749"},{"product_id":"britten-finzi-gurney-quilter-vaughan-williams-the-english-tenor","title":"The English Tenor - Songs of Vaughan Williams, Quilter \u0026 More \/ Shaw","description":"\u003cp\u003eScott Robert Shaw's debut \"The English Tenor\" takes us on a beautifully performed journey through a who's who of great English composers and their vocal works. The names Ivor Gurney, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi and Roger Quilter are synonymous with English Song, and a Golden Age of British music. The wide variety of accompanying instruments and artists, the broad range of text settings and the mix of cornerstone works of the repertoire alongside lesser-known cycles make \"The English Tenor\" a thrilling debut album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA product of the English church music tradition, Australian born Scott Robert Shaw has been performing works in this oeuvre since childhood. Whether on the operatic or oratorio stage, as an ensemble singer or soloist, his deep cultural roots to the British music world are laid bare for all to see. This deeply personal album stands as testament to his background, and as a homecoming to his earliest steps as artist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeginning his career and training as a boy soprano at the St George’s Cathedral Perth Choir, Scott attended the McDonald College of the Performing Arts in Sydney, studying music and acting in the Stanislawksy\/Laban tradition, awarded a full scholarship for Excellence in Performance. He then attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and was given the Most Exceptional Contribution to the Arts award from Wesley College, University of Sydney. In London he continued his studies with the English National Opera’s Baylis Programme for young performers and was regularly engaged to perform as a recitalist and operatic tenor in festivals and opera companies in both the United Kingdom and France. He then completed his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague where he studied Early Music and Classical Singing, and now based in Düsseldorf, is regularly engaged as a soloist in The Netherlands and Germany, with a particular focus on Bach oratorios and Evangelist roles in the Passions.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Divine Art","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012483404010,"sku":"809730111020","price":10.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4235496-3144061.jpg?v=1786633141"},{"product_id":"shadow-dances-british-works-for-flute-adam-walker-huw-watkins","title":"Shadow Dances - British Works for Flute \/ Walker, Watkins","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor his second album for Chandos, the flute virtuoso Adam Walker explores the music of British composers with pianist Huw Watkins. Vaughan Williams’s Suite de ballet was commissioned by the French flute virtuoso Louis Fleury (who had given the première of Debussy’s Syrinx). The work uses eighteenth-century French dance forms, a common practice in ‘neo-classical’ composition. Bax’s Four Pieces rescue music from an abandoned ballet originally conceived for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Sir Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina was originally written for treble recorder; James Galway’s championship of the piece made it a staple of the flute repertoire. Howard Fergusson’s Three Sketches were composed intermittently over a period of twenty years. The theme of the third piece is a Hindu melody, ‘Koyalinya bole ambuvan’ (Cuckoos sing in the mango tree). Sonatas by York Bowen and William Alwyn complete this varied and engaging program.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"c-product-review--quote\"\u003eSeventy-seven minutes of British music for flute and piano might at first glance seem like 40 minutes too much. But that ’s without taking on board the nimble and dazzling skills of flautist Adam Walker, or the individual strengths of the works presented...a new pleasure is never far away in this most accomplished recital, full of the sounds of spring.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"c-product-review--quote\"\u003e-- BBC Music Magazine\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012487663850,"sku":"095115226520","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4201660-3140395.jpg?v=1786672847"},{"product_id":"music-on-christmas-morning-vasari-singers","title":"Music on Christmas Morning \/ Vasari Singers","description":"\u003cp\u003eVasari Singers is one of the UK’s leading chamber choirs with a series of acclaimed albums released on Naxos. Music on a Christmas Morning presents an uplifting seasonal programme including the world premiere recording of Helena Paish’s beautiful setting of words by the youngest of the Brontë sisters. Vasari Singers’ previous Christmas release A Winter’s Light is available on Naxos 8.573030.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012488614122,"sku":"747313454273","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4246508-3143533.jpg?v=1786635429"},{"product_id":"the-christmas-album-phoenix-chorale","title":"The Christmas Album \/ Phoenix Chorale","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is a Christmas album that has a sense of place; clearly identifying the Chorale as both American and from a border state with Mexico; and something for everyone whether they prefer serious or light festive fare. There is Mexican influence in the repertoire choices; which include Catalan folksongs as well as Hispanic Renaissance music. It includes a commission by Cecilia McDowall; written for Christmas 2021; new arrangements of all tracks and also some contemporary Christmas favourites such as Sleigh Ride and Jingle Bells.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis marks the Chorale’s return to recording following an 8-year hiatus; and their first album with Signum Records. “Festive repertoire plays an important role in the performance cycle of every choir; and it felt fitting to begin our journey with a Christmas recording that established a sense of place for the ensemble: we chose to record repertoire that is all American or Hispanic in origin; save for the newly-commissioned piece by Cecilia McDowall that was written to mark the centenary of our home in Phoenix; Trinity Cathedral. Our aim is to translate the warmth of Arizona into our sound; to convey the rhetoric of every text; and celebrate the good health of the American Choral Tradition.” - Christopher Gabbitas\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012490875114,"sku":"635212076224","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4391627-3304415.jpg?v=1786671867"},{"product_id":"elgar-the-dream-of-gerontius-polish-national-youth-choir","title":"Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius \/ McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar is a two-part work for voices and orchestra composed in 1900 to text by John Henry Newman. Widely regarded as Elgar's finest choral work, and by some his masterpiece, Gabrieli’s first-class performance, and McCreesh’s superb interpretation demonstrate why their recordings are seen as some of the best in classical music today.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/b\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis strong performance is apparently the first to use historically appropriate instruments. The trombone, just to give the listener an idea, was owned by Elgar. Tenor Nicky Spence, in the lead role, offers a rich, serious performance. McCreesh’s interpretation focuses on the chorus, placing the work in the grand English oratorio tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e— AllMusic.com (James Manheim)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012511551722,"sku":"635212078525","price":16.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4313845-3142379.jpg?v=1786633227"},{"product_id":"earth-sea-air-british-music-for-cello-orchestra","title":"Earth, Sea, Air - British Music for Cello \u0026 Orchestra","description":"Laura van der Heijden joins the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ryan Wigglesworth for this album of British cello concertos. Frank Bridge's Oration, composed in 1929 - 30 was intended as an outcry against the inhumanity of warfare, and a tribute to the victims of the First World War. It's arch form single continuous movement exhibits the intense chromaticism typical of Bridge's output from this era. Commissioned by the Ukrainian-born cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, Walton's Cello Concerto suffered a number of difficulties with regard to first performances (Piatigorsky suffered a mental breakdown; Walton missed the UK premiere because of a nasty road accident) but it has nevertheless become a staple of the repertoire. It was with this concerto that Laura van der Heijden won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, in 2012. The young British composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and then the University of Cambridge and King's College London, and rapidly established herself as one of the most talented and prolific composers of her generation. Earth, Sea, Air was written for van der Heijden, who gave the work's premiere in Glasgow in 2023, a week before making this recording with the same forces.","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"SACD","offer_id":46012587442410,"sku":"095115534625","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4335074-3177894.jpg?v=1786654335"},{"product_id":"sirens-song-christophers-sixteen","title":"Sirens' Song \/ Christophers, The Sixteen","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat would singing be without words? When you combine wonderful poetry with exquisite music, the result is magical. In a rare break from the sacred collections they are famed for, this album from The Sixteen features a whole program of secular music devoted to English partsongs. From Stanford’s cycle of Eight Partsongs based on the sparing yet infectious poetry of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge to Bridges’ lyrically descriptive writing in Finzi’s Seven Poems of Robert Bridges and Imogen Holst’s six idyllic partsongs Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow using verses by John Keats, each setting captures the mood of the poem brilliantly.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Coro","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012600123626,"sku":"828021619823","price":10.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4235490-3144389.jpg?v=1786635698"},{"product_id":"70-a-life-in-music","title":"70 - A Life in Music","description":"Harry Christophers has been at the forefront of choral music for the last 45 years and this album, in celebration of his 70th birthday, demonstrates the breadth of his musical passions and the wealth of repertoire he has recorded over the years.     Featuring 39 tracks hand-picked by the conductor, the works on this collection document Harry Christophers' life in music-from his early years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, through his time at Magdalen College, Oxford, and subsequent founding of The Sixteen, to more recent years as Artistic Director of America's renowned Handel and Haydn Society.     This collection charts his discovery as a boy of Purcell and Poulenc to his enduring love for the music of Victoria and Handel and his celebrated partnership with James MacMillan. Each track holds special significance and the stories behind the choices are documented in notes especially written by Harry Christophers for this album.","brand":"Coro","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012605464810,"sku":"828021620621","price":16.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4335078-3177936.jpg?v=1786668059"},{"product_id":"a-vaughan-williams-anthology","title":"A Vaughan Williams Anthology","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eRalph Vaughan Williams is one of Britain’s most illustrious composers, and this specially curated selection of works demonstrates the sheer breadth of his achievement. As a major 20th century symphonist he is represented by four of his nine symphonies, all in critically acclaimed recordings (‘A clear top recommendation’ wrote \u003cem\u003eGramophone\u003c\/em\u003e of \u003cem\u003eA Sea Symphony\u003c\/em\u003e). Popular orchestral works such as the celebrated \u003cem\u003eTallis Fantasia\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Lark Ascending\u003c\/em\u003e are also included. Vaughan Williams’ chamber works are performed by the Maggini Quartet, his greatest contemporary champions; while the sublime \u003cem\u003eMass in G minor\u003c\/em\u003e shows the composer’s high standing in the English choral tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell5_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003eMore Vaughan Williams—and very welcome, too. While admirers may favour other performances, every take here on the composer’s exquisite scores is more than competitive. This curated selection of works is a measure of RVW’s achievements. As a major 20th-century symphonist he is represented by four of his nine symphonies, all in much-praised recordings, while winning orchestral works such as the celebrated Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending are also included. Vaughan Williams’ chamber works are performed by the Maggini Quartet, his greatest contemporary champions; while the sublime Mass in G minor is a solid addition.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003e-- Classical CD Source (Barry Forshaw)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012643770602,"sku":"747313802135","price":28.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4069370-2824367.jpg?v=1786640165"},{"product_id":"vaughan-williams-r-mass-in-g-minor-silence-and-music","title":"Vaughan Williams, R.: Mass in G Minor \/ Silence and Music \/","description":"Vaughan Williams, R.: Mass in G Minor \/ Silence and Music \/","brand":"SWR","offers":[{"title":"SACD","offer_id":46012849127658,"sku":"4010276022411","price":10.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1471811.jpg?v=1786684128"},{"product_id":"elgar-violin-concerto-bach-violin-concerto","title":"Elgar: Violin Concerto - Bach: Violin Concerto","description":"Pinchas Zuckerman is the featured soloist on this disc of live recordings from the archives of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Zubin Mehta leads the orchestra in performances of violin concertos by Bach and Elgar, recorded in 1986 and 2006.","brand":"Helicon Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012855320810,"sku":"7293627965521","price":9.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2001995.jpg?v=1786043815"},{"product_id":"elgar-an-introduction-to-095115202128","title":"Elgar (An Introduction to)","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012918563050,"sku":"095115202128","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/954880.jpg?v=1786627382"},{"product_id":"elgar-the-starlight-express-manahan-thomas-williams-115338","title":"Elgar: The Starlight Express \/ Manahan Thomas, Williams, Davis","description":"This fairytale melodrama was adapted from a book by Algernon Blackwood A Prisoner in Fairyland for a West End theatre production staged during World War 1 with music by Elgar. Based on a new score which has been adapted by Sir Andrew Davis who also here conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra this is the most comprehensive recorded version to date. The two-disc set includes the incidental music with narrative by Simon Callow and an extended suite of freestanding orchestral movements and songs.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \"Those who love this score as much as Elgar did - and I do - will welcome this new recording. ... All Elgarians must hear this superb set.\" – Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \"Performance: ***** Recording: **** This is a very valuable addition to the Elgar discography.” – Calum MacDonald, BBC Music [1\/2012]\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  “[L]ovingly played by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and features the excellent baritone soloist Roderick Williams.” – Andrew Clark, Financial Times [12\/8-9\/2012]\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  “Elgar’s score is enchanting – and Davis and the SCO deliver it with evident affection.” – Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times (Culture Magazine) [11\/11\/2012]\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  “Davis secures absolutely first-rate results from the Scottish CO. Elin Manahan Thomas’s light silvery soprano could hardly be more suited to the parts of the laughter and Jane-Anne, while Roderick Williams is in glorious voice throughout. Everything has been captured by the microphones with ingratiating amplitude, bloom and glow.” – Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone [11\/2012] \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \"[T]he songs are delivered with just the right lightness of touch by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and baritone Roderick Williams. ***\" – Andrew Clements, The Guardian [10\/26\/2012]","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"SACD","offer_id":46012921577706,"sku":"095115511121","price":21.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2067855.jpg?v=1786679753"},{"product_id":"christmas-songbook-the-kings-singers-98090","title":"Christmas Songbook \/ The King's Singers","description":"This new release is the Christmas equivalent of The King’s Singers’ recent release, Great American Songbook. Paying homage to the a capella group’s heritage while still acknowledging their modern passion for swing, the group mixes Christmas classics like “In the Bleak Midwinter,” and “The Holly and the Ivy,” with modern tunes such as “Winter Wonderland,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “Sleigh Ride.” The group’s favorite arrangers have reworked all of these tunes specifically for the ensemble- Berty Rice, Keith Roberts, and Alexander L’Estrange.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  The latest King’s Singers CD, a seasonal celebration from Signum Classics, mixes well-known American carols with some from “the other side of the pond.” The result is a blend that... is every bit as smooth as a perfectly prepared cup of hot cocoa, and just as warming.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  The exceptional adaptability of the King’s Singers is shown in the handling here of songs as different as  \u003ci\u003eSanta Claus Is Coming to Town\u003c\/i\u003e and  \u003ci\u003eWhite Christmas\u003c\/i\u003e, either of which could easily be a throwaway and neither of which is. The group’s beautiful melding is apparent in different ways in numbers such as  \u003ci\u003eThe First Nowell\u003c\/i\u003e and  \u003ci\u003eSilent Night\u003c\/i\u003e. The King’s Singers simply have a way of bringing joy to the world.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  – Infodad.com","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012968501482,"sku":"635212045923","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3437249.jpg?v=1786642551"},{"product_id":"elgar-piano-quintet-sea-pictures-orch-fraser-83166","title":"Elgar: Piano Quintet \u0026 Sea Pictures (Orch. Fraser) \/ Woods","description":"It's an initially disorientating experience to hear Sea Pictures in a version with choir. The Rodolfus Choir are an elite SATB group and have a wonderfully smooth and often lulling sound; there's a lot of that mood in Sea Pictures. The choir's diction is a marvel although the sung words are in any event at the back of the booklet. The singers are attentive to dynamic contrast and register some superbly poetic effects. Open-minded Elgarians who can get over the heresy of unfamiliar forces will find much to enjoy here. Where Corals Lie is a delight and works exceptionally well with choir.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  A lazy unobservant glance at the details of this disc had me assuming that the Piano Quintet had been re-engineered into a Piano Concerto to join the Elgar\/Walker. No such thing. What we have here is something of symphonic proportions and character. While there are some dark and dramatic moments and even some hints of the Second Symphony this now comes across as reflective and in the same territory as Falstaff. The first movement has an air of halting even fearful uncertainty. It's all very smooth though, suave even. A Viennese lilt at 10.00 is one of several instances where things become quite Brahmsian. The second movement is almost Finzian as details entwine much as they do in the woodland Interludes in Falstaff. The finale has its exciting moments but is overall quite nostalgic, philosophical, and regretful.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  These two works in new colors should give many more opportunities to hear this music although ironically each requires a greater number of performers than the originals. Of the two Sea Pictures strikes me as the more attractive.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  – MusicWeb International (Rob Barnett)","brand":"Avie Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012986949866,"sku":"822252236224","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3321770.jpg?v=1786702505"},{"product_id":"vaughan-williams-an-introduction-to-095115202821","title":"Vaughan Williams (An Introduction to)","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012996354282,"sku":"095115202821","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/954886.jpg?v=1786725380"},{"product_id":"vaughan-williams-the-poisoned-kiss-hickox-bbc-114863","title":"Vaughan Williams: The Poisoned Kiss \/ Hickox, Bbc National","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is the premiere recording of Vaughan Williams's opera The Poisoned Kiss. This romantic extravaganza contains some of the composer's finest music, and a sense of fun runs through the delightful score. Vaughan Williams began writing The Poisoned Kiss, his fourth opera, in 1927. He was also working on Sir John in Love and had begun sketching the first scenes of Job. he was at the height of his musical powers, yet The Poisoned Kiss has remained unperformed, unrecorded and unknown. The reason for this neglect lies mainly in the rather dated text and the lengthy sections of spoken dialogue (some of which is omitted in this recording). It did not help that the composer and the librettist were uncertain about the balance between comedy and drama in the opera, a dilema that led to major revisions of the work by Vaughan Williams in 1936 and again in 1956-57. In the final version the composer's lyricism dominates the humour and we are treated to an extraordinary wealth of expressive and heart-felt music whcih does not deserve to be ignored. Recorded in: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea 3-6 January 2003 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Matthew Walker (Assistant) \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"SACD","offer_id":46013006217450,"sku":"095115502020","price":21.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/575835.jpg?v=1786022784"},{"product_id":"delius-bax-choral-music-parris-the-carice-142414","title":"Delius \u0026 Bax: Choral Music \/ Parris, The Carice Singers","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrederick Delius and Arnold Bax both made significant contributions to the part-song repertoire, each leaving a compelling testament to his highly individual creative personality. Delius's earlier choral songs are nostalgic for the worlds of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Grieg, while the brooding contours of On Craig Ddu results in one of his most remarkable creations. The allure of landscapes and elemental forces was powerful for both composers; the subtle tensions and gorgeously layered harmonies of Bax's settings also evoking historical remoteness and other-worldly enchantment.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013025550570,"sku":"747313369577","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3609245_dc283b05-1f52-45b5-8d30-4383cd0ecc09.jpg?v=1786669027"},{"product_id":"cedille-serenely-cedille","title":"Serenely Cedille - Relaxing Rarities from Chicago's Classical Label","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Cedille","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013053894890,"sku":"735131800129","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/795855.jpg?v=1785975156"},{"product_id":"holst-an-introduction-to-095115202623","title":"Holst (An Introduction to)","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013104423146,"sku":"095115202623","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/954893.jpg?v=1786628229"},{"product_id":"recital-2","title":"RECITAL","description":"RECITAL","brand":"Gha","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013110059242,"sku":"5411707260164","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3893120.jpg?v=1786732144"},{"product_id":"flowers-of-the-field-wetton-london-mozart-217442","title":"Flowers of the Field \/ Wetton, London Mozart Players","description":"\u003cp\u003eThese composers were all affected by the carnage of World War I, and their elegiac music expresses regret and lost innocence, love won and lost, sacrifice and death. George Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, conceived as an epilogue to his Housman song cycles, encapsulates the poet’s sense of life’s transience. Ivor Gurney was both shot and gassed in 1917, and The Trumpet pleads with mankind to set aside the folly of war. Heard here in a new completion, Gerald Finzi’s Requiem da Camera mourns the death of his mentor Ernest Farrar and those of other fallen artists, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s An Oxford Elegy recalls lost friends with an intense and magical nostalgia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013176840426,"sku":"747313342679","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2804722.jpg?v=1786049121"},{"product_id":"bach-orchestral-transcriptions-by-respighi-and-elgar-94466","title":"Bach - Orchestral Transcriptions By Respighi And Elgar","description":"This exciting disc makes a very welcome return to the catalog on Naxos. The Respighi transcriptions reveal his typical mastery of orchestration, particularly in the larger pieces: the Prelude and Fugue BWV 532 and the great Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor BWV 582. The chorale transcriptions are also very lovely, and include the famous “Wachet auf” (“Sleepers Awake!”) BWV 645. In the Sonata BWV 1023, Ilkka Talvi proves a sensitive and musicianly soloist as well. However, the real treat is Elgar’s arrangement of the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor BWV 537. It’s insane. In the fugue, next to Elgar’s tambourine, glockenspiel, harp glissandos, and looney trumpet licks, Stokowski’s Bach might as well be the work of a period-instrument specialist. It’s wonderful, and Gerard Schwarz gets his players to blast their way through the piece with total conviction. The sonics also constitute one of the better efforts from this source and era (1990). Buy it and love it.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e – David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013184409834,"sku":"747313274178","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1957360.jpg?v=1786624240"},{"product_id":"the-best-of-finzi-75043","title":"The Best of Finzi","description":"Gerald Finzi made an important contribution to British twentieth-century song, choral and orchestral repertoire. His acute awareness of the frailty of existence found it's musical expression not only in his song settings, but in the Cello Concerto.","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013185556714,"sku":"730099683623","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1367466.jpg?v=1786049223"},{"product_id":"choral-concert-spiritus-chamber-choir-goodhart-a-m-so-5060113440129","title":"Choral Concert: Spiritus Chamber Choir - Goodhart, A.M. \/ So","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Toccata","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013201645802,"sku":"5060113440129","price":10.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1511391.jpg?v=1786737810"},{"product_id":"elgar-cello-concerto-arlia-sollima-orchestra-948759","title":"Elgar: Cello Concerto \/  Arlia, Sollima, Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom Arturo Toscanini and Sir John Barbirolli to Riccardo Muti and Antonio Pappano in our own time, Italian-heritage performers have often brought special qualities of sympathy and understanding to Edward Elgar’s (1857-1934) music. Now comes a new recording made in the ‘boot’ of southern Italy, lending Mediterranean warmth and passion to a trio of Elgarian masterpieces. The Sicilian-born cellist Giovanni Sollima has made well-received albums for Brilliant Classics of music by Offenbach (94475) and by his father Eliodoro Sollima (96287). His latest recording, made at the Teatro Politeama in the one-time ‘lace capital’ of Europe, Catanzaro, illuminates one of the core works of the cello literature with an affecting sense of line and sensitivity to the melancholy introversion which colors every bar of the Concerto composed by Elgar in the wake of the First World War. Twenty years earlier, Elgar’s reputation was secured with audiences across Europe and America through the whirlwind success of his “Enigma” Variations. The stoic beauty of ‘Nimrod’, the gentle wit of ‘Dorabella’ and the nervous excitement and pride of the autobiographical finale spoke directly to listeners who would never know the composer or his ‘friends pictured within’. The agitated, impassioned voice of Elgar in the Variations belonged to its end-of-Empire time and place, orchestrated with a mastery which would soon draw the admiration of Richard Strauss and many more musicians on the other side of the English Channel. Even that quintessential expression of Englishness, the first of five marches which Elgar collected under the Shakesperean banner of “Pomp and Circumstance” and later repurposed to set ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ for the finale of his Coronation Ode, won the composer standing ovations when he conducted it in concerts across mainland Europe. Under the affectionate baton of their music director Filippo Arlia, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria interpret Elgar’s music with a sensitivity and extroversion worthy of the composer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Brilliant Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013215375594,"sku":"5028421960395","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4007924-2774012.jpg?v=1786694599"},{"product_id":"the-leaves-be-green","title":"The Leaves Be Green","description":"This new recording from the Vida Guitar Quartet continues to highlight Vida’s passion for ground-breaking arrangements. Mark Ashford’s version of the English Folk Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams is just one example of the quartet’s ability to re-work established masterpieces with breathtaking virtuosity. The Vida Guitar Quartet brings together four guitarists of exceptional artistry and “unerring musical instinct.” (Gramophone) Vida’s ability to “conjure up an orchestral palette of color and effects” (Classic FM) combined with their “exquisite tonal and dynamic control” has firmly established them as a passionate and masterful ensemble who sparkle with “vitality and spontaneity” (Acoustic) Vida’s seemingly effortless sense of ensemble and their broad range of timbres and dynamics evokes “listening to an entire orchestra and note merely to four guitars. There’s only one word for it: magic.” (Gramophone)","brand":"BGS Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013244309738,"sku":"634158504037","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2825778.jpg?v=1786698924"},{"product_id":"the-evening-hour-british-choral-music-from-139547","title":"The Evening Hour: British Choral Music from the 16th \u0026 20th Centuries \/ Williams","description":"All of the pieces chosen for this new release center around the theme of evening time.  \u003cb\u003eMark Williams\u003c\/b\u003e and his  \u003cb\u003eChoir of Jesus College Cambridge\u003c\/b\u003e have released four prior albums with Signum, all of which have gained critical praise. The programme of this album blends ancient and modern, featuring works from Thomas Tallis, William Harris, Gustav Holst, and many more.","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013245817066,"sku":"635212044629","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3328883.jpg?v=1786650523"},{"product_id":"delius-appalachia-sea-drift-sanderling-williams-tampa-235347","title":"Delius: Appalachia, Sea Drift \/ Sanderling, Williams, Tampa Bay Master Chorale","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe orchestra relishes Delius’s contrasts. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It is a delight to welcome performances of two of Delius’s American-inspired works by forces from Florida, where Delius lived from 1892 to 1895. Although Sea Drift, a setting of a poem by Whitman, is overtly about an American subject, the music is more universal than specifically American. While the initial drafts of Appalachia were made in Paris the year after Delius left Florida - Marco Polo, Naxos’s sister label, once had a recording (8.220452) of this earlier version in their catalogues under the title of American Rhapsody - the work was very substantially expanded to the form we have it here some eight years later, long after Delius had returned to Europe.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I first heard Sea Drift in the original Beecham recording issued on a limited edition Delius Society release of four 78s (now on Naxos) - I still have them. Beecham’s account of the score remains a marvel of sympathetic identification with the spirits of both Whitman and Delius. Unfortunately all of his recordings - and there are a good many of them, from studio and live broadcasts, not all currently available - are in mono. This is a score which absolutely demands the atmosphere of stereophonic sound. Similarly Beecham never recorded Appalachia in stereo, and his last (mono) LP (reissued by Sony) suffered from a baritone who had seemingly been chosen for his ability to sing Danish for the coupled recording of the Arabesque rather than any ability to sing sympathetically in English for the closing ‘negro spiritual’ section of Appalachia. One cannot possibly accuse Leon Williams of sounding un-American, but the tone of his voice is nevertheless rather English and rather too polite. He is not helped by the rather close proximity of the microphone, which brings him closer than the rest of the performers rather than blending him into the whole. Bryn Terfel, in his Chandos recording of Sea Drift with Richard Hickox (coupled with the Songs of Sunset and Songs of Farewell), digs far more deeply into the meaning of the words than Williams does here. The emotion of the latter is too generalised, and his voice lacks the light and shade of Terfel or John Shirley-Quirk on Hickox’s earlier Decca recording.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Appalachia fares rather better in this reading. The orchestra relishes the contrasts in Delius’s set of variations, with a nicely winsome touch in passages such as the waltz variation at 19.57; Beecham allowed a very gusty breath of the ballroom to intrude here. Earlier they are beautifully atmospheric in the passage from 17.01 which recalls Delius’s Florida opera The magic fountain. The chorus is nicely distanced in their brief interjections in the earlier variations, and come into their own with the own variation at 27.50, when they appear to move closer. Unfortunately the close microphone placement given to Williams at 31.52 serves only to emphasise how precisely English is his diction, and the choir are now very far forward indeed, which brings a sense of stridency which is entirely foreign to the Delius idiom. The passage at 33.28 sounds uncomfortably like the closing titles for a Hollywood Western - not at all the area of America that Delius had in mind.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e This Naxos disc duplicates exactly the contents of one of Richard Hickox’s earliest recordings of British music, issued originally on an Argo LP in 1980, with Shirley-Quirk at the peak of his form in the baritone solos, which is certainly a reading which deserves to be in any Delius collection - it remains available from Arkiv Music . The Naxos recording is more immediate in general sound than the analogue Hickox, but the latter has plenty of atmosphere and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - many of whose members must have played this music under Beecham - respond with affection to Hickox’s somewhat slower tempos. Indeed Sanderling could sometimes be accused of hurrying, as at the baritone entry at 2.58 where the soloist sounds a bit hustled. It is important to keep Delius’s music moving, not allowing it to stagnate, but the flow can be maintained without undue haste; Sanderling shaves nearly four minutes off Hickox’s speeds in his earlier recording, almost a fifth of the whole duration of a fairly short work. Beecham, even with the constraint of 78 sides, was slower than this, and Delius always expressed his conviction that this conductor understood his music better than anyone else.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It is always a suspicion that when one knows a particular performance well one might be allowing nostalgia to colour reactions to a performance. To test this I played the recording of Sea Drift to a friend of mine who, although he knew and loved the poem, did not previously know the music at all. He like me vastly preferred Hickox, observing that although that performance was noticeably slower, it at the same time had a sense of purposeful motion that Sanderling lacked. He also actually preferred the more integrated sound of the older recording.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Naxos’s cover photograph by Giorgio Fochesato is particularly beautiful and appropriate, and the booklet commendably includes the complete texts of both works. The orchestra and chorus both perform superbly; it is nice to hear a really big choir sing this music - 137 singers are listed - as Delius would have expected in his earlier performances. They maintain pitch even in the most exposed passages of Sea Drift.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e -- Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013265740010,"sku":"747313276479","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2058876.jpg?v=1785955271"},{"product_id":"elgar-enigma-variations","title":"Elgar: Enigma Variations","description":"Elgar: Enigma Variations","brand":"SWR","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013274882282,"sku":"4010276020455","price":10.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1867689.jpg?v=1786742738"},{"product_id":"petits-fours-favourite-encores-095115170823","title":"Petits-fours: Favourite Encores","description":"\u003cp\u003eChandos Records has signed an exclusive contract with the Brodsky Quartet in time for the celebrations of its fortieth anniversary in 2012.  Formed in 1972, the Brodsky Quartet quickly emerged at the forefront of the international chamber music scene. It has performed more than 2000 concerts and made more than fifty highly acclaimed recordings. This is the Quartet’s first release on Chandos, and includes many of the encores it has performed over the years, notable for their novelty and diverse range of styles and emotions. All the pieces have been arranged by past or current members of the Quartet, and together form an entertaining and original collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013287923946,"sku":"095115170823","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1948620.jpg?v=1786705124"},{"product_id":"holst-suite-de-ballet-a-song-of-the-night-the-wandering-095115172520","title":"Holst: Suite De Ballet - A Song of the Night - the Wandering","description":"\u003cp\u003eAnother re-release from Hickox’s classic recordings finds us knee-deep in lesser-known and widely varied works of Gustav Holst. The Suite de Ballet is one of Holst’s lighter orchestral pieces, worked colorfully with a slightly French flair. Song of the Night for solo violin shows the composer in a confident and imaginative Romantic frame of mind. Finally, the comic chamber opera The Wandering Scholar was one of Holst’s latest works, stripped down to only the barest necessities. Hickox’s lively performance was hailed as inspiring “full-blooded music-making” throughout.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013302800618,"sku":"095115172520","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2017538.jpg?v=1786737551"},{"product_id":"elgar-bruch-violin-concertos-pine-litton-bbc-83169","title":"Elgar \u0026 Bruch: Violin Concertos \/ Pine, Litton, BBC Symphony","description":"Billboard chart-topping violinist Rachel Barton Pine releases her 36th album and fourth for AVIE with her first recordings of two repertory staples, violin concertos by Edward Elgar and Max Bruch. The two works – Elgar’s only concerto for violin and Bruch’s first – straddle the turn of the 20th century but have in common a Romantic hue which Rachel probes with her rich, soulful tone.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  The album is dedicated to “the memory of a musical hero and generous friend, Sir Neville Marriner,” who was to have reunited with Rachel on this album. She was fortunate to work with him on the scores, with Sir Neville vividly relating accounts of his teacher Billy Reed, former leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, who collaborated with Elgar on the creation of his violin concerto. Grammy Award-winning conductor Andrew Litton brings his own Romantic pedigree to the recording, as does the BBC Symphony Orchestra and celebrated producer Andrew Keener who himself has overseen award winning versions of the Elgar and Bruch concertos.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  -----\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Pine’s interpretation of the Elgar is as emotionally satisfying as it is dazzling. The slow movement is mysteriously veiled and luminous, providing a palpable sense of the music’s darker undercurrents. She is most impressive, perhaps, in the finale, where her easy virtuosity sends sparks flying, though never at the expense of the long line.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Her performance of the Bruch is wholly persuasive in its mittel-European heartiness. The outer movements abound with snap and spice, and the Adagio has a warm solemnity that, one might argue, offers a foretaste of Elgarian nobilmente. The recorded sound is glorious, with a near-ideal balance between soloist and orchestra.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  – Gramophone","brand":"Avie Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013330751722,"sku":"822252237528","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3741694.jpg?v=1786683846"},{"product_id":"for-queen-and-country-music-for-a-129640","title":"For Queen And Country: Music For A Royal Celebration","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn April, the United Kingdom celebrated the birthday of the longest serving monarch in British history. This release is the perfect soundtrack to the celebrations. Some of Britain’s most popular artists and ensembles have gathered together for this two-disc set, which includes patriotic anthems and popular tunes. Musicians include Russell Watson, Jonathan and Charlotte, The Band of H.M. Royal Marines, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sony Masterworks","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013332324586,"sku":"889853011520","price":7.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3335714.jpg?v=1786650660"},{"product_id":"songs-of-travel-399442","title":"Songs of Travel - Trombone Travels, Vol. 2 \/ Matthew Gee, Christopher Glynn","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis second volume of Trombone Travels (Volume 1 is on 8.574093) continues with Matthew Gee’s exploration of three great cycles of early 20th-century British song. Elgar’s Sea Pictures evoke lullaby and turbulence alike, Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel chart a wanderer’s lonely journey through the landscape, and in Songs of the Sea Stanford’s music embraces both the somber and the exhilarating, with Gee joined by a trombone chorus to emulate the male voice choir. Throughout the recital Gee lavishes coloristic effects, the use of mutes, and subtle inflections that reinforce the trombone’s unique ability to mimic vocal techniques.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013335699690,"sku":"747313908073","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3931169-2675165.jpg?v=1786672439"},{"product_id":"hamlet-as-you-like-it-095115143629","title":"Walton: Hamlet, As You Like It \/ Marriner, ASMF","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013374398698,"sku":"095115143629","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1128364.jpg?v=1786024501"},{"product_id":"the-composers-conduct","title":"The Composers Conduct","description":"The Composers Conduct","brand":"Urania Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013448225002,"sku":"8051773571022","price":16.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2435037.jpg?v=1786738364"},{"product_id":"british-enigmas-mysterious-mountain-schwarz-123761","title":"British Enigmas \u0026 Mysterious Mountain \/ Schwarz","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe All-Star Orchestra gives you a front row seat to the world’s greatest music, performed by top players chosen from over 30 great American orchestras, and conducted by Gerard Schwarz. The programs feature complete performances of popular masterpieces and world premieres of new works by leading American composers. Filmed in High-Definition with multiple cameras in and around the orchestra, the All-Star Orchestra celebrates the symphonic experience in the 21st century. The first work on this release is Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The score is dedicated to “my friends pictured within,” and each Variation represents a real person. As he was finishing the work, Elgar wrote: “The enigma I will not explain- it’s ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture.” A musical mystery of great beauty and endless fascination. The next piece is Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. The perennial family favorite showcases- one by one- all the instruments of the orchestra. Next is Alan Hovhaness’ Symphony No. 2, opus 132 “Mysterious Mountain.” The composer wrote: “Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man’s attempt to know God. Mountains are symbolic meeting places between the mundane and spiritual world.” Finally is Eugene Goossens’ Jubilee Variations. This is a world premiere video recording of this unpublished 1944 work created by Eugene Goossens with contributions from ten composer friends, including Aaron Copland, Howard Hanson, William Schumann, and more.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos AudioVisual","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":46013455597802,"sku":"747313556250","price":12.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3723987.jpg?v=1786668362"},{"product_id":"delius-a-mass-of-life-idyll-opie-204653","title":"Delius: A Mass of Life, Idyll \/ Opie, Hill","description":"\u003cimg src=\"\/graphics\/features\/misc\/edchoice2012_79.jpg\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  To witness a performance of Delius’s A Mass of Life, arguably his supreme creative achievement, is to look into the heart of the composer and his Nietzsche-inspired world. Moreover, this ravishing music, written between 1898 and 1905, represents Delius at the height of his powers, when musical ideas seemed to pour out of him at a time when he had finally learned to assimilate, in an entirely individual, not to say maverick manner, a confluence of modernist styles embracing Grieg, Wagner, Strauss, Charpentier and Debussy.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  There is no doubt from the vivid opening choruses of Parts 1 and 2 of this recording (and what openings!) that the message of the work is a life-affirming one. There is a dynamic momentum to the tempi which perfectly evokes Zarathustra’s ruling passion, the Will of Man, and there is a richness to the orchestral sound which adds to the sense of muscularity. The chorus negotiate Delius’s often awkward vocal intervals with great skill and the intonation is virtually flawless. Just occasionally the sheer weight of the orchestral sound, which is quite forward on this recording (more so than Hickox), is apt to overwhelm the voices but this is a minor distraction.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Hill brings energy and élan to the third section, ‘In deine Auge’ (for me perhaps the most exhilarating section of Part 1), where the parallel with the end of Act 2 of Die Meistersinger is almost palpable and where the most unusual example of a Delius fugue (!) is given life, vigour and meaning.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Alan Opie, who has the lion’s share of the solo music in the work, is almost Wotan-like in his performances. From his first Nietzschean dance he is majestic and brings out of the score that vibrant, heady, Teutonic contemporaneity with which Delius had clearly become enthralled at this point in his career. Opie’s singing of what is effectively the role of Zarathustra has immense authority and his impressive range (up to high G) is ideal for Delius’s onerous vocal demands.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Andrew Kennedy, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Janice Watson also offer fine lyrical interpretations of their solo parts and the choral accompaniments are allowed to intermingle subtly as an extension of the orchestra. The BSO are on fine form too, and special mention needs to be made of the haunting horn-playing in the introduction to Part 2 (‘On the Mountains’), a sound which sums up so much of Delius’s nature music.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  This is a must for any Delius Liebhaber and, with the added bonus of the late Prelude and Idyll, a marvellous starting point for anyone new to Delius’s unique but compelling art.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  -- Jeremy Dibble, Gramophone\u003cbr\u003e    \u003ctitle\u003e3622320.az_DELIUS_Mass_Life_Prelude.html\u003c\/title\u003e  \u003cmeta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"\u003e   \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eDELIUS \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eA Mass of Life. Prelude and Idyll\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"SUPER12\"\u003e1 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e David Hill, Cond; \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"SUPER12\"\u003e1\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eJanice Watson (sop); Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mez); Andrew Kennedy (ten); \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"SUPER12\"\u003e1\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eAlan Opie (bar); Bach Ch; \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"SUPER12\"\u003e1\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eBournemouth SO \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e NAXOS 8.572861-62 (2 CDs: 118:19 Text and Translation) \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eA Mass of Life\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is quintessential Delius, musically and existentially, composed over 1904–05 in the first great rush of his maturity. From the bounding affirmative choruses to the breathtakingly sustained nature contemplations, from the melancholy to the ecstatic, the \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eMass of Life\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e traces and forecasts the gamut of Delian affect with a concision, fullness, and abundance he might rival but never achieve so comprehensively again. Unless I’ve missed something, this is but the fourth recording of the work since Beecham’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003enonpareil\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e 1952 account. Though its musical demands are daunting—if nowhere near as challenging as those of Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand,” with which it invites comparison—the primary bar to frequent performance is its text, drawn by Delius’s friend Ernst Cassirier largely from the Dance Songs of Nietzsche’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eAlso sprach Zarathustra.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e For those coming in late, one recalls the oft-quoted passage in Eric Fenby’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDelius as I Knew Him:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e “When, one wet day … he was looking for something to read in the library of a Norwegian friend … and had taken down a book, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eThus Spake Zarathustra\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e—a book for all and none—by one Friedrich Nietzsche, he was ripe for it. The book, he told me, never left his hands until he had devoured it from cover to cover. It was the very book he had been seeking all along, and finding that book he declared to be one of the most important events of his life. Nor did he rest content until he had read every work of Nietzsche that he could lay his hands on”—to which Fenby, a devout Catholic, adds—“and the poison entered his soul.” For listeners and performers today it may still be something of a jolt to find, in place of the supplicating Kyrie that the unfortunate term “Mass” leads one to expect, a glowingly charged hymn to the Will, “dispeller of need, my own necessity,” followed by Zarathustra’s brief praise of laughter (“My own laughter I pronounced holy”), succeeded by Zarathustra’s love duet with Life in a meadow filled with dancing girls, an archetypal encounter transpiring in a mythical dimension “beyond good and evil,” beyond place and time, crowned by the first, murmured, utterance of the Bell Song, the work’s central mystery. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eA Mass of Life\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e may, of course, be enjoyed for its power and sensuous magic without reference to its text, but only to those nurtured on Nietzsche will it reveal its full import. Shrugging incomprehension of the text renders Benjamin Luxon’s Zarathustra, for Charles Groves (with the London Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra), merely mellifluous, while Peter Coleman-Wright’s deadpan delivery for the late Richard Hickox—with the Waynflete Singers directed by today’s conductor, David Hill, and the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra—proves anesthetically workmanlike. When it appeared in 1997, I rated that reading, on Chandos, the best since Beecham’s (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eFanfare\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e 20:6). That honor goes now to the present offering. While Alan Opie does not efface memories of Bruce Boyce, for Beecham—whose delivery resonated from the nexus of Delius’s realization of Nietzsche—he teases the text gingerly, making a credible Zarathustra. In some numbers, Delius asks the soloists to share parts, with some of Zarathustra’s lines persuasively taken by Andrew Kennedy, and a portion of Life’s happily rendered by Janice Watson, though Catherine Wyn-Rogers’s beguiling, seductive Life recalls Monica Sinclair’s divinatory geste for Beecham. The choral work is beyond praise, though in Hill’s brisk approach the melting lyricism heard \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003echez\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e Beecham tautens and leaps. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eIdyll\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a late reworking of music from \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eMargot la Rouge\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, composed in 1902 for the new opera competition offered by the music publisher Sanzogno. Though it failed to score and was not heard in Delius’s lifetime, it comes from the composer’s ripest years and contains gorgeous swaths of his richest utterance, which he salvaged in 1932, recomposing it to words by Whitman and making an extended love duet of it. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eIdyll\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e has not lacked for vocally lustrous, persuasive performances submerging Whitman’s quaintness (“Behold me when I pass, hear my voice, approach, draw close, but speak not. Be not afraid of me”) in absolute conviction. Of major interest, the lovingly lingering 1981 account led by Eric Fenby—who took down the score from dictation by the blind, paralyzed Delius—features Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen (deleted Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD 2073). Meredith Davies’s still-available 1968 tilt at \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eIdyll\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, is made memorable by the divinatory partnership of Heather Harper and John Shirley-Quirk. In keeping with his go at the \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eMass of Life\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, Hill pushes the work a bit, spurring the impassioned moments to escalate from the pervasive tone of wistful elegy. Opie, as the anonymous man, is authoritatively resonant, in response to Janice Watson’s brightly edged soprano (touched by a bit of vibrato), with its gloriously amber lower register, buxomly filling the part of the nameless woman. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOne caveat: In the headnote the title of the work is given per the album, but you will search the catalog of Delius’s works in vain for an orchestral Prelude. The work so designated is simply the first three minutes—an orchestral prelude, to be sure—of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eIdyll\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e and has never, until now, been listed separately. The fake title generates a phantom work to bedevil buyers, scholars, and connoisseurs, and detracts from—rather than adding to—the program’s generosity. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSound packs an immediate wallop making for occasional congestion. In the opening chorus, for instance, the leaping underlining of trombones and tubas becomes indistinct, overwhelmed by choral mass, and while one can pick out the glockenspiel, its function of festive accentuation is lost. In quieter passages, and in the capture of the vocalists, on the other hand, this upfront take is gratifyingly welcome. In German, Zarathustra’s pronouncements recall and parody the Lutheran Bible, in light of which the ostensibly stilted thee-ing and thou-ing of William Wallace’s singing translation—made for Beecham and used by him for all of his public performances (according to notes by Delius aficionado Lyndon Jenkins)—fall into place, if not quite into King James English. Whitman’s text is included. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn sum, a superb production and the grandest addition to the Delius discography in many years. Highest recommendation. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Adrian Corleonis \u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013463396586,"sku":"747313286171","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2002767.jpg?v=1786705606"},{"product_id":"walton-the-complete-facades-747313437870","title":"Walton: The Complete Façades \/ Falletta, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdith Sitwell’s invitation to William Walton to collaborate on an innovative, revolutionary new work came at a critical moment in the young composer’s career, and \u003cem\u003eFaçade\u003c\/em\u003e proved to be his first great success. The peerless combination of a peculiarly English dry wit, genuine pathos and superlative technical skill remains an extraordinary achievement. Sitwell’s verses conjure a satirical and poignant world of bourgeois late-Victorian England, while Walton’s settings unfailingly enhance and enrich the texts in a work in which words and music are unquestionably of equal importance. This release includes the first recording of \u003cem\u003eSmall Talk\u003c\/em\u003e (1922) and three numbers first performed in 1977 but subsequently rejected by the composer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJoAnn Falletta is to be congratulated for bringing us Walton’s revisit of the piece in 1978 when he was 76, featuring eight more poems (the work’s original subtitle, “An Entertainment,” became “A Further Entertainment:). Falletta also includes some additional material, beginning with “Small Talk” from 1922 and three numbers from 1977, “Daphne,” “The White Owl,” and “The Last Galop”—the late ones have never been recorded before.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe special charm of this release is to be found in the acting skills of the narrators, now expanded from two to three. Falletta realized that Sitwell’s poems contain actual characters who could be brought vividly to life, and she has chosen her cast well. Hila Plitman is extremely versatile, sounding at times Russian or German in her delivery (she is actually Israeli). Fred Child is a vocally nimble PBS narrator, and well-regarded bass-baritone Kevin Deas comes across richly with an arch demeanor suggestive of the childlike nature of some of the poems. The result is extremely satisfying. Of course, the performance necessarily emerges sounding less British, less reserved and less formal, but we Americans have our own silly Ogden Nash tradition, and \u003cem\u003eFaçade \u003c\/em\u003eis none the worse for a more extroverted American approach. Jo Ann Falletta and her Virginians play with sass and spark.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e-- Fanfare\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46020706566378,"sku":"747313437870","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4119044-2874462.jpg?v=1786640110"},{"product_id":"in-the-world-of-the-spirits-christmas-206681","title":"In The World Of The Spirits: Christmas Classics For Wind Band","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Emory Symphonic Winds, comprised of members of the Emory Wind Ensemble and the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony, are American leaders in the commissioning of new music. Bruce Broughton’s In the World of Spirits was dedicated to the ensemble and is a work of action, dynamism and electric physicality. Christmas carols and hymns are explored by Gustav Holst while Jennifer Higdon charts the intangible beauty of music itself. Alfred Reed’s Russian Christmas Music is a classic of symphonic band writing: rich, colorful and sonorous.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46026113450218,"sku":"747313300273","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2058886.jpg?v=1785952731"},{"product_id":"elgar-from-the-archives-vol-4","title":"Elgar from the Archives, Vol. 4","description":"From SOMM Recordings comes another release in their warmly received series Elgar from the Archives, drawn from the remarkable collection of producer and restoration engineer Lani Spahr, containing over 5,000 historic Elgar recordings. Reviewing the first volume of the series, Stuart Millson, a Contributing Editor to The Brazen Head, wrote, \"Again, sound-supremo, Lani Spahr has done a wonderful job of \"French-polishing\" this (English) music.\" Volume 4 of the series presents the Concert Overture In the South (Alassio), Op. 50 and Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 55.    The volumes in the Elgar from the Archives series feature both British artists and equally laudable performers from other countries, and In the South is a 1954 release featuring the Symphony Orchestra of Radio Leipzig. The ensemble is conducted by Gerhard Pfluger (1907-1991) who was born and educated in Dresden and had the misfortune to come to maturity during the years of National Socialism, the destruction of much of Germany, and the establishment of the German Democratic Republic. He joined the Nazi party in 1940, and from 1946, as a member of the East German communist party, he held conducting positions in Rostock and Weimar in addition to Leipzig. Against this backdrop, for an East German orchestra and conductor to issue the work of a British composer was not only rare but courageous.    Elgar was enjoying a family holiday in Italy during the winter of 1903 to 1904, and he was supposed to be working on a long-planned symphony. However, the resort town of Alassio on the Italian Riviera proved to be too alluring, and it inspired him to write a concert overture instead that captured the local atmosphere. He later recalled how, one beautiful afternoon in the Vale of Andora, \" in a flash, it all came to me. In that time I had composed the overture - the rest was merely writing it down.\"    Elgar did get around to completing his First Symphony in 1908, and it had it's premiere in Manchester on 3 December that year with Hans Richter conducting the Halle Orchestra. It was, as The Musical Times described it, an \"immediate and phenomenal success.\" On the evening of 30 January 1958, the City of Manchester celebrated the centenary of the Halle Orchestra with a concert that was both broadcast and televised, and it is this live recording that is presented here. The orchestra was led by Sir John Barbirolli, their Principal Conductor from 1943 to 1970. Michael Kennedy, biographer of Elgar and Barbirolli, said of the performance, \"In their finest hour, the Halle and it's conductor found the best in each other to do honour to their own traditions.\"","brand":"SOMM Recordings","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46128823566570,"sku":"758871504928","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4513179-3591287.jpg?v=1786631797"},{"product_id":"de-profundis-choral-works-by-parry-and-elgar","title":"De Profundis - Choral works by Parry and Elgar","description":"This album brings together major choral works by Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar, reflecting the richness of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British music. At it's centre is Parry's de Profundis, a large-scale setting of Psalm 130, widely admired by contemporaries for it's emotional depth, contrapuntal mastery, and expressive journey from penitence to hope. Parry's anthem God Is Our Hope and Strength complements it with a grand, confident vision of choral architecture and spiritual assurance. Elgar is represented by the intimate partsong The Snow and the charming Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands, inspired by Alpine landscapes and folk traditions, capturing a more personal and lyrical side of his art.","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46134608232682,"sku":"635212100523","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4513175-3591260.jpg?v=1786631917"},{"product_id":"balm-for-the-soul","title":"Balm for the Soul","description":"In a world shaped by constant motion and an abundance of sound, music that invites stillness becomes essential. Balm for the Soul was recorded as a space of restoration - a recording that does not seek to overwhelm, but to illuminate.","brand":"Centaur Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46143599313130,"sku":"044747419329","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4517509-3605759.jpg?v=1786632546"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/collections\/3_8ec31a65-bf77-4dbd-bb3b-ac74cea8f977.png?v=1786718621","url":"https:\/\/arkivmusic.com\/collections\/weekend-spotlight-the-elegance-of-elgar.oembed?page=2","provider":"ArkivMusic","version":"1.0","type":"link"}