Elgar's Cello Concerto: Non-du Pré Recordings

[amateur51]

Have only heard the extracts on CD Review...

Sister of Josh, whom we heard (and ammy51 saw) last week live in his first concert conducting the BBCSO.

Talented family or what...

Yes that's amazing, Caliban. Josh seemed to be a self-effacing sort of chap too, faced with Petroc in full-bonhomie mode

[Barbirollians]

If I were to be deprived of the du Pre I should have to go for the Isserlis/Hickox with Clein/Handley in third.

[Stanfordian]

The newly released live Decca recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto played by Alisa Weilerstein with the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim is stunning.

[Barbirollians]

The newly released live Decca recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto played by Alisa Weilerstein with the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim is stunning.

Unfortunately it comes saddled with the Elliot Carter concerto . A composer who is the epitome of the Emperor's New Clothes to my ears .

[Pianoman]

The Carter is why the disc is worth getting imo...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Carter is why the disc is worth getting imo...

Mine, too.

A little harsh, Barbi, on those of us who love Carter's Music and are still stunned by his death. You may hate his work, but the suggestion (prompted by the "ENC" referrence) that he was a fraud is unwarranted. At the very least, his Holidays Overture and score for Pocahontas demonstrate that, had he wished to follow the popuarist path, Carter was capable of writing Music at least as bland as ... (well, I won't name names as the Thread devoted to their works suggest that it means a lot more to others in the Forum than it does to me). That he chose, instead, the more difficult route, one more true to himself and his beliefs, and producing some of the very finest Music to have emerged from the States as a result, deserves your respect for if not your admiration.

[Stanfordian]

Unfortunately it comes saddled with the Elliot Carter concerto . A composer who is the epitome of the Emperor's New Clothes to my ears .

Hiya Barbirollians,

I think the release is well worth getting for Weilerstein's wonderful performance of the Elgar cello concerto alone. I look on the Elliott Carter cello concerto as a bonus for those who like it. Personally I love the Elgar concerto and have enjoyed hearing the Carter concerto but somehow heard straight after each other their respective soundworlds feel incongruous.

[Barbirollians]

I am afraid that I find Carter's music as the antithesis of the term . I remember hearing the Piano Concerto and it sounds like a small child banging up and down on it .

He had a very long life and each to their own if you like that sort of thing.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I am afraid that I find Carter's music as the antithesis of the term .

Whilst disagreeing with your opinion, I wouldn't have objected to your expression of it ("each to their own" as you say): it was specifically the "Emperor's New Clothes" cliché that I found objectionable. Carter's life was exemplary for its integrity and honest decency - the suggestion of fraud (and the associated suggestion that Musicians of the calibre of Barenboim, Levine, Rosen to mention but three - good heavens; even Roger Scruton admires the work!!! - have been taken in by it) is what I found regrettable.


Basta: has Robert Cohen with Vernon Handley been mentioned?

[Barbirollians]

I don't regard Emperor's New Clothes as being a question of fraud . To me the lauding of the works of composers like Carter has an element of - I am told by those who know better that it is good and it is my fault that I cannot appreciate it . When in fact all I hear is noise .

I shall , however, in deference to your opinion FHGL order the disc and listen to the Carter Cello Concerto in its entirety ( the snippets on Presto etc not having impreseed ) . Who knows my ears might be opened !

[Rue Dubac]

Possibly I have missed something - like it's too dreadful to mention - but I am puzzled that no one has suggested Rostropovich's recording with LSO and Rozhdestvensky, 1965 BBC Legends. I think it was first choice in a BaL on this work a few years ago. Is it the recording? It is coupled with Haydn no. 1 and Saint-Saens 1.

[visualnickmos]

Pierre Fournier (DG) is excellent.

[ahinton]

I don't regard Emperor's New Clothes as being a question of fraud . To me the lauding of the works of composers like Carter has an element of - I am told by those who know better that it is good and it is my fault that I cannot appreciate it . When in fact all I hear is noise .

I shall , however, in deference to your opinion FHGL order the disc and listen to the Carter Cello Concerto in its entirety ( the snippets on Presto etc not having impreseed ) . Who knows my ears might be opened !

Good! - and I hope that they will be. It still may not be your cup of tea and I don't think that it's Carter's best work, but Carter is and will long remain a fundamental of American music from the 1930s up to last year when he wrote his final works - and I am personally still reeling from the fact that his presence is no longer and that there'll be no more new works from him; he's never taken the easy way out and is a composer of immense courage and patience as well as other virtues. My recommendations to get into his works are the Holiday Overture, Piano Sonata, First String Quartet, Variations for Orchestra and Concerto for Orchestra and, if you can find your way to come to some kind of terms with those, then A Symphony of Three Orchestras, the Oboe Concerto, the Violin Concerto, Three Occasions, Three Illusions (especially the aptly and perhaps amusingly named Fons Juventatis!), Dialogues I, Two Controversies and a Conversation and the work that is perhaps his most remarkable achievement of all, Symphonia: Sum Fluxæ Pretium Spei.

Good luck - and good listening!

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

Pierre Fournier (DG) is excellent.

I'm glad Pierre Fournier has received a mention. I'm spinning his recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto now (picked it up on an old DG Compact Classics release which includes Jochum's Enigma Variations and Steinberg's Boston recording of The Planets, all for 33p!). Intensely lyrical playing from Fournier and how lithe the Berlin Phil sounds (under Alfred Wallenstein). A breath of fresh air.

[Ferretfancy]

Not a huge fan of Elgar but the cello concerto does get an airing occassionally. My version is the Wispelway one that is coupled with Lutoslwski's concerto, which I bought for the latter and not the former. I quite like his version of the Elgar though because it doesn't go in for the overly passionate appraoch that is associated with Du Pre and seemingly almost all cellists since. I am I allowed to be controversial in my fifth post?

Be as controversial as you wish !

I've just found the Wispelwey version in my local Oxfam, and I like it very much. As you say, he's less passionate than du Pre, but who isn't ? It seems to me he achieves much with well nigh perfect intonation and dynamics, and in the scherzo section he is beautifully precise. I haven't yet had the chance to play the Lutoslwaski, that's something to look forward to.