Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius/Edward Gardner repeats Gerontius on Radio Three

[Mary Chambers]

I think Robert Murray has a beautiful voice, but he was doing this at short notice, and I agree he sounded a bit strained at times. Still enjoyed it, though I find I like the work less than I used to..

The Britten performance is my benchmark, but you will get people going on about Pears being past his best (or of course just not liking him at all ). Quite possibly, but my goodness, he's convincing, and sounds as if he knows what he's singing about, which makes up for it IMO. Nobody young can ever have quite that insight, and that goes for the conductor as well.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I agree about the Britten performance. Pears is fine too, and if he sounds less than youthful, that's appropriate too.
My only reservation is that the recording is one of Decca's few lemons, with some horrible overloading distortion in the the Demons' Chorus.

[BBMmk2]

I will catch this this weekend! Looksas though I have much to look forward to!

[Pabmusic]

I agree about the Britten performance. Pears is fine too, and if he sounds less than youthful, that's appropriate too.
My only reservation is that the recording is one of Decca's few lemons, with some horrible overloading distortion in the the Demons' Chorus.

I agree with you. I find the Britten performance a little frustrating because it should be better than it is. But the deciding factor for me is Britten's wilful re-scoring in the Prelude, when he introduces bass drum rolls during two moments of silence. There is no justification whatsoever for this, though I know Britten said the autograph score shows it. It doesn't - at least it didn't show this to me when I looked at it - and Elgar's own live recording from the RAH does show that the composer wanted two silent bars.