Solti in Elgar

[verismissimo]

I love Solti's Elgar recordings more than anything else he did...

I think this is dead right. And to my ears, he's closer to Elgar's own recorded performances than those famous later accounts from British conductors. Nowhere near as romantic as eg Barbirolli, but filled with the sort of quicksilver quirkiness that was essential to both conductor and composer.

There. I've said it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I am not as committed to Elgar as many of you Brits, ...

You sound like Bill Bryson.

[Dave2002]

I am not as committed to Elgar as many of you Brits, but for many years my only recording of the 2nd Symphony was Solti. I finally added a Barbirolli and I always prefer the Solti, but that is probably because it was imprinted on me.

Have you tried Barbirolli in the first? Mackerras is also worthy of a listen - one of the symphonies being very deliberately performed with very obvious portamenti.

I suppose some of us are keen to support British music, though personally I'd rather support good music. Some British music is, to me at least, good, and some is very much less so. Which composers from your country would you really recommend we listen to? Are we missing out on pieces which we are barely aware of?

I suspect that, as over here, many pieces only get performed a few times, and maybe recorded once or twice and then fade into obscurity. Even amongst the "classics", there is a bias in orchestral performances in the UK, with very few performances of Tchaikovsky's symphonies 1-3, hardly any performances of Mozart symphonies before 36, and, as noted recently, seemingly fewer performances of Haydn symphonies - though his string quartets do seem popular still.

In recent years there have been just a few performances of symphonies by Myaskovsky, and I think Petrenko may have conducted one of Glazunov's symphonies. There is a vast amount of music which is good enough to be of interest for performances which is just not included in the "standard" repertoire, and hence hardly ever gets heard other than on the radio or CD. If you imagine that in the UK there are frequent and many live performances of symphonies by Bax, Rubbra, Bliss etc., you'd be wrong.

I think the situation in the US is probably similar.

PS: I like Solti's Elgar recordings a lot.