Elgar: Symphonies Nos 1 and 2

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Bloody hell, now there's a concert I'd like to have been at!

David Nice called it "disappointing": I found it ... well, as I've said, "overwhelming". There was a Melodiya recording of the first Russian performance that Svetlanov conducted a couple of years earlier, extracts on youTube, but this is typical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pql5mIqXfBM

Half decent singers as well, ferney?

I think it was the same quartet as featured in Moscow: Arthur Davies, Felicity Palmer and Norman Bailey - but I can't find the programme, and someone else on these Boards who was there mentioned Janet Baker. A much better performance all round than the one conducted by Rattle on my birthday a couple of years earlier: the chorus got lost in the "Praise to the Holiest" fugue!


EDIT: Wow! I didn't know ink colour spread over from quotations!

[Cheapskater]

Still no takers for these performances ?



I love them,

And so do I! Looking back at the thread I think we found a few takers. I'm not quite so keen on the 2nd where Sir Charles had a thing about portamento.

Folks may also be interest in the BAL script for Sym 1 here -

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:M0f_20bbVN0J:eprints.soton.ac.uk/184923/1/Elgar1Script.doc+hansler+profil+download+elgar&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiJaNyZFA5GdRnmpMTKhPFJWLDVZ27hjgdlY5nv8upU3nZXrcnlNearQz66-vOri1rbLGD8JMYrqEq-KBA81b2uM8vCNzdMqS5DCnUatreW7_5dskcrSXgJkQuTw6u32gCBmWlF&sig=AHIEtbSf8elGXug35MC-s4zAG48mt2geaQ

Well said, David Owen Norris (and keep up your excellent work)

[Op. XXXIX]

I would agree with you about Sinopoli's No 2, but actually his No 1 is very good - in fact it is my favourite for the work.

Thanks, I'll give it a spin this afternoon!

[Barbirollians]

1 Boult - Proms 1976

2 Boult 1944 .

My absolute favourites but I love Barbirolli's very different approaches in his Pye , EMI and BBC legends recordings . I do not have that Boston performance sadly . I should put in a good word for the late ted Downes's No 2 on Naxos and for the Hurst 1 too .

Others I have admired and am jolly glad to have the - Elder, Handley, Silvestri's No1 on BBC legends

[HighlandDougie]

Not quite OT in that it's not about a recording but one of my concert highlights of 2012 was Vasily Petrenko (standing in for Sir Colin) conducting the LSO in Elgar's 1st. A very powerful reading which brought out the lyricism of the piece while never losing sight of the overall structure. I found it thrilling (the orchestra seemed to be enjoying it, too). Possibly not surprising (cf Svetlanov) that a conductor who is so good in Rachmaninov should shine in Elgar. Alas, the BBC was conspicuously absent on the night.

[cloughie]

Sorry, I've just got to say it - this is one of the worst examples of CD artwork I've seen in many a long day

The music-making is, however, very fine

I don't know - there are far worse! In any case you don't play the cover!

[Barbirollians]

Sir Colin Davis made a recording for RCA in the mid 1980s of Elgar 1which never really grabbed me .

I cannot believe I left out Elgar's own recording ! His electrical recording of No 1 is breathtaking. I have never heard his recording of the Second.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... I do not have that Boston performance sadly...

I used to have this one, but lost it to a burglary in the 1990s. However, I understand that the BSO is not in fact the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but a European one. (Bamberg?)

[cloughie]

I should put in a good word for the late ted Downes's No 2 on Naxos and for the Hurst 1 too .

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elgar-Symphony-No-2-E/dp/B00002605I/ref=sr_1_14?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1358097207&sr=1-14

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elgar-Symphony-No-Imperial-March/dp/B00002605G/ref=sr_1_21?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1358097414&sr=1-21

..and cheap enough for anyone tempted.

[Cheapskater]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elgar-Sympho...097207&sr=1-14

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elgar-Symphony-No-Imperial-March/dp/B00002605G/ref=sr_1_21?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1358097414&sr=1-21

..and cheap enough for anyone tempted.

These Naxos CDs £3-99 delivered at Sainsbury Entertainment for those looking to acquire.

[Barbirollians]

I have played the Hurst this afternoon , prompted by this thread, there is a lovely brisk walk in the Malvern hills atmosphere about it . Not stiff upper lip but not a trace of sentimentality ( not that I dislike emotional Elgar - how could I given my moniker ) .

[Hornspieler]

I have played the Hurst this afternoon , prompted by this thread, there is a lovely brisk walk in the Malvern hills atmosphere about it . Not stiff upper lip but not a trace of sentimentality ( not that I dislike emotional Elgar - how could I given my moniker ) .

We had a wonderful honeymoon in a hotel at the foot of the Malvern Hills, close to St Anne's Fountain.

That, for me, was what Elgar was writing about in his First Symphony - and what I like about it. It is not commercial - it is music from the Heart.

HS

[salymap]

Well I didn't have a honeymoon there HS but I love the Malvern Hills and have had holidays in Malvern and Worcester with several different friends. There is a magic about them and when at the dr having my BP taken and told to relax I always think of a special day with a special friend walking along th top of the hills from the Beacon up to the British Camp [shades of Caractacus].Then lunch at the British Camp Hotel.

Can any composer belong so much to a place as EE to Malvern/Worcester ?

[MrGongGong]

Can any composer belong so much to a place as EE to Malvern/Worcester ?

I resisted commenting on this for a while but think that there are some interesting things here .........

I think the answer to Saly is YES and more so

there's little in the SOUND of Elgar (and the Symphonies are great works) that is intrinsically about that specific landscape IMV rather that it's what we imagine the landscape to be sonically in imagination.
If one played them to someone without all the stuff about bikes and Malvern etc etc and then showed images of different places I think they wouldn't necessarily match up.

I guess if one thinks of the place as being about people in a particular time then it kind of works
but compared to pieces that use the actuality of place (Chris Watson's Weather Report for example) the connection is , I think, more wishful thinking than real

it's great music nonetheless .....

[Tony Halstead]

A surprise and a shock last night when I checked the CD shelves last night and found an embarrassment of riches in my Elgar collection; many of the recordings listed here. A one-off rarity is a 2CD set, Barbirolli Conducts Elgar II, RVW VI, Purcell and Delius, from 1964 concerts with BSO. Pressings by Denon, Japan. Music & Arts, CD-251 (2). I recall finding this rarity in Newport Court (behind Leicester Sq u/g) at a giveaway price. Happy memories of rummaging those second hand bargain shops in the West End, over several decades. We covered them all in a lengthy thread on the R3 boards some years ago. This set now has precedence on my 'to be played' selection.

A further performance of Elgar II by BBC SO/Malcolm Sargent, in the BBCMM collection, Vol 15, No 10, has also been added.

I too have that Barbirolli BSO ( Boston not Bournemouth..) 2-CD set.
The VW Symphony 6 is absolutely riveting and superb.
Elgar 2 not quite so overwhelming but lovely as a 'live event'.