EDWARD ELGAR (1857 - 1934)
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Edward Elgar's music has featured promiently in the Beulah catalogue since we started releasing compact discs in 1993. A few tracks are currently not available but most are and many can be downloaded.
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Elgar was a self taught jobbing composer based in Worcester. His music became popular in Germany before spreading around the musical world. His muse was Alice, his wife and after her death compositions came only rarely and with much effort. The unique colour of his music reflected the English middle classes of his time although there are moments of anger and passion in his music not associated with an English gentleman, an image he cultivated to mask his working class background and insecurity.
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"You might say that Campoli's urbane and warmly felt account is the nearest thing we have to a Kreisler Elgar Concerto." Robert Cowan in Gramphone February 2006 |
Compact Discs
5PD15 Boult's Elgar
Sir Adrian Bout conducts:
BBC Symphony Orchestra
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"The greatest recording ever made" of Elgar's Second Symphony. "One of my Desert Island Discs choices" Rob Cowan BBC Radio 3 16 October 2005
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Andrew Achenbach writes of the Elgar Second Symphony in The Gramophone for May 2006 :
" This is a majestic rendering and arguably the most penetrating Elgar Second ever committed to disc. "
" The muscular suppleness of the performance may come as a surprise, leaving all others standing as Elgar resurrects the spirit of delight by strength of will. This could be Toscanini at his most energetic. ...Boult's 1944 performance, produced by Walter Legge in clean and well-balanced 78rpm sound, is still the one to combine the best performance of all worlds. It embraces passion and precision, lithe strength of line and an atmospheric delicacy epitomised by the way Sir Adrian guides Elgar's final vision softly and gently to its resting place. " - David Nice in Building A Library in BBC Music December 2005
"Boult knew the work intimately; Elgar countenanced his interpretation, critics celebrated it and there are five different recordings to choose from. This was the first and almost certainly the best, a judiciously shaped account, intensely voiced and with a luminosity of texture that recalls Toscanini in his heyday " The Independent, 1 March 1996
"No shortlist of great versions of Elgar's Second Symphony on disc is complete without this 1944 recording... Perhaps the most striking thing about Sir Adrian's performance is his justness of tempo throughout... This excellently remastered disc should find a place on every Elgar lover's shelves "Classic CD May 1996
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2PD15 Van Beinum conducts Elgar
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Eduard van Beinum (conductor)
Recorded in the Kingsway Hall, London
1949/1950
Andrew Achenbach writing in The Gramophone Magazine, September 2006:
...I thoughly enjoyed reaquainting myself with this performance of the Elgar Concerto ... its a selfless, intensely musical reading, notable for the soloist's hard working dedication and Eduard van Beinum's observant support. For once the great slow movement is not pulled around - and how instinctively these artists tap the vein of arching sorrow under those darkening skies.
Cockaigne fairly swaggers with exuberance, the LPO responding with tremendous zest and fresh-faced application for its then chief, yet there's tenderness, poetry and humour aplenty when required. even finer are the Wand of Youth Suites. Van Beinum extracts heaps of vigor, innocence, nostalgia and wit from these captivating miniatures, and I'd place his poetic and strongly characterised accounts at the top of the pile... So if you failed to snap up this valuable compilation first time round, you've no excuse now.
Rob Cowan on Radio 3 CD Review (23 September 1995) said of this performance of the Cockaigne Overture " I was bowled over...it has newsreel type excitement ". He went on to remark that Anthony Pini's performance of the Cello Concerto was "equivalent to the Albert Sammons Violin Concerto, very straightforward, very deep as an introspection, very personal but not over demonstrative. Its extremely moving. "
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The Independent 28 July 1995 wrote:
A minute or so spent in the company of Eduard van Beinum's Cockaigne is enough to lift anyone's spirits. The pace is so fast, the playing full of newsreel-style excitement and the conducting as characterful as Beecham's and as bracing as Elgar's own. Just listen to the crisply articulated woodwinds, the sharp-edged attack of the brass or the wistful but never cloying strings.
Van Beinum was the Concertgebouw's most distinguished regular maestro after Mengelberg and before Haitink: a compassionate disciplinarian who could scale Brucknerian heights or bring sunlight to Mendelssohn and Schubert. He even spent two seasons with the LPO, and when you consider that this was by no means the orchestra's best period, his achievement here seems doubly remarkable.
Anthony Pini's account of the Cello Concerto has dignity, strength and natural reserve: the first movement is outgoing and proud; the Scherzo vigorous, if fairly bland; the Adagio quietly confessional; and the finale, with its sudden rushes of melancholy, eloquent beyond words. As to the Wand of Youth, both suites are superbly done and there's some breathtaking virtuosity in "The Wild Bears". The recordings (some from original tapes, others from shellac pressings) are variable. But, that apart, this is an absolute winner.
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2PD15 retails at £9.95 (only £7.99 if downloaded from iTunes).
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4PD10 The Art of Campoli
Alfredo Campoli performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto [listen]over 900 times during his career as a soloist. On this disc we release his 1949 recording with the London Philharmonic conducted by Eduard van Beinum. It is coupled with his 1954 recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult[listen].
Rob Cowan in Gramophone for February 2006 writes:
The reappearance of the Beulah label brings with it a number of old friends, none more welcome than Alfredo Campoli's consistently sympathetic 1954 account of Elgar's Violin Concerto with the London Philharmonic under Sir Adrian Boult. You might say that Campoli's urbane and warmly felt account is the nearest thing we have to a Kreisler Elgar Concerto. The coupling is equally valuable: Campoli, the LPO and Eduard van Beinum in the Mendelssohn Concerto, a nicely transferred 1949 recording impressive as much for van Beinum's incisive conducting as for the smiling demeanor of Campoli's interpretation.
Jonathan Woolf at Music Web Internationalwrites that Campoli has withstood the ravages of time, technological advance and successive critical judgments with lasting assurance. Read his full review.
4PD10 retails at £9.95 (only £7.99 if downloaded from iTunes).
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14PD15 Visions of Elgar
4 discs for the price of 3
The four disc set contains:
- Sir Adrian Boult conducting
In the South Overture [Listen]
Symphony No 2 [Listen]
Violin Concerto with Alfredo Campoli [Listen]
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- Anthony Collins conducting
Falstaff [Listen]
Introduction and Allegro for Strings [Listen]
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- Eduard van Beinum conducting
Cockaigne Overture [Listen]
Cello Concerto with Anthony Pini [Listen]
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- Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting
Dream of Gerontius (extracts) with Richard Lewis and Marjorie Thomas [Listen]
The Kingdom (extract) with Isobel Bailie [Listen]
I Sing The Birth with the Royal Choral Society [Listen]
Imperial March [Listen]
Pomp and Circumstance Marches Nos 1 and 4 [Listen]
Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma) [Listen]
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- Plus Elgar's vision of:
Handel - Overtrue in D minor [Listen]
Bach - Fantasia and Fugue in C minor BWV 537 [Listen]
Conducted by Albert Coates
Jonathan Swain on CD Review BBC Radio Three 10 November 2007 said:
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Of Richard Lewis singing Gerontius: "Plenty of fire in this singing, fire and fear".
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Of Sir Adrian Boult conducting In The South: " The overture pretty much unknown when this performance happened in 1944, you'd never guess though from the playing here"..."the faster sections of the performance by the way were the leaping vitality an older Sir Adrian couldn't or did not want to muster."
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On Anthony Collins conducting Falstaff: "A great many details here tell of Collins the film composer. They can be very subtle though never unsubtle. The art is knowing how far to go."..."everything superbly animated. It leaps out at you."
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On Van Beinum conducting Cockaigne Overture;" What a revelation the performance still is."..." Everything here precisely articulated and has a wonderful lift to it." ..."Breezing through it." ..."It sounds live but it wasn't".
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On the Violin Concerto: "I couldn't possibly be without the Violin Concerto with Alfredo Campoli."..."To hear Campoli in this Elgar concerto alone is to sit in on a violin master class as comprehensive as it gets. The tone is sweet, the technique flawless, the imagination boundless. "..."A lucky concerto on disc but never I think graced with violin playing like that. Its con amori always bel canto, effortless, as light as air and unfailingly musical, in a word unique."
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"A very collectable four cd set"
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Robert Matthew Walker writes in an Elgar Sesquicentenary Re-issues Round Up published in International Record Collector November 2007:
The first disc is all Sargent and is a stunning reminder of just how fine a conductor he was in this repertoire. It may seem odd initially to pick out his LSO recordings of the first and fourth Pomp and Circumstance and the Imperial Marches, but I was brought up short by his spellbinding, indeed magisterial account of No.1. Here Sargent's tempos are immensely broad and entirely without the hectic 'Last Night of the Proms' hysteria... and (he) follows this with a very good Enigma. Sargent obtains fine playing. The Decca mono recordings are staggeringly good and have been superbly transferred. The all- Boult conducted CD contains his first HMV - 1944- recording of the Second Symphony...this is the best interpretation of the eventual five he made. There is an intensity here from the latter half of the first movement through to the end of the work which is utterly gripping - the slow movement is so intensely moving...there is an almost indefinable element of intense conviction which no other recording, including Elgar's, has. Boult also conducts the first Decca recording of the Violin Concerto...so admirable in many ways, to which Campoli brings warmth and genuinely expressive rubarto as well as a comprehensive technique. This is followed by Decca's earlier recording of the Cello Concerto with Anthony Pini. It remains a very fine reading. Finally two rare and important historic recordings, both Elgar transcriptions of eighteenth-century music with the LSO conducted by Albert Coates. Considering the age of the originals the transfers are remarkably vivid and make an admirable appendix to the genuine music by Elgar in the rest of the set. This is a set of considerable musical substance and one that I urge upon all serious Elgarians. I cannot urge it upon you strongly enough.
" The list of performers in itself guarantees a high standard of performance. " John Steane in Gramophone February 2008
Visions of Elgar a boxed set, four discs for the price of three. £29.85
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This album is not available for sale to North America
The following albums are only available as downloads at iTunes
2PD13 Sargent's Enigma
Sir Malcolm Sargent is remembered as a great choral conductor. Many of the older generation can recall him conducting vast choruses singing Handel, Mendelssohn or Coleridge Taylor in the Royal Albert Hall. His reputation as an orchestral conductor is marred by stories of his attitude towards the musicians in orchestras. However his recorded legacy, on this disc mainly with the London Symphony Orchestra, demonstrates a musical intellect at work. If he takes liberties then they are for justifiable musical reasons. The disc starts with a stately Overture to Handel's Messiah
[listen]and closes with the Pastorale Symphony [listen]from the same work. Between these statements are his interpretations of Elgar's Enigma Variations (a work he conducted often) [listen], a suite of dances from the dramatic music of Purcell arranged by Albert Coates [listen], Holst's Perfect Fool Ballet Music [listen]and Coleridge Taylor's Othello Suite [Listen].
The Enigma Variations and music by Purcell is presented in One Sound The brilliance, clarity and presence of these recordings made by the legendary balance engineer Kenneth Wilkinson spurred the remastering team lead by Simon Heyworth at Super Audio Mastering to reproduce on compact discs a sound which when played through a single loudspeaker either directly in front of the listener or from a corner reflex cabinet will propel the listener into the Kingsway Hall with its live acoustic, and the London Symphony orchestra of the 1950s. It sounds pretty good through two speakers, but the advantage of using a single speaker is that you will hear the original balance without any phase problems or side effects.
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"Another welcome return, Sir Malclom Sargent's EnigmaVariations with the London Symphony Orchestra, extrovert, well juddged and in Nimrod, noble, presented on a well transferred Beulah CD in company with Albert Coates' Purcell Suite and a menu of Handel, Holst and Coleridge-Taylor from some years earlier. Nostalgia with a good musical pedigree."-Robert Cowan in Gramophone December 2007
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Although no longer available on compact disc you can download the tracks for only £0.79 each or £7.99 for the whole disc from[iTunes Plus]
4PD15 Elgar's Falstaff
On this disc Anthony Collins conducts performances of Elgar's symphonic study Falstaff [Listen], Introduction and Allegro for Strings [Listen] and the Serenade for Strings [Listen], whilst Sir Malcolm Sargent conducts three marches, Pomp and Circumstance Nos 1 [Listen] and 4 [Listen] and Imperial March[Listen].
"Professional to his fingertips, Collins presides over a beautifully prepared, shrewdly paced traversal. He secures a commendably ebullient response from the LSO, and my only nagging misgiving surrounds an ever so slight want of temperament; the seam of vulnerability that surfaces with a vengeance in th epilogue is not readily quarried here. Apart from an isolated patch of pre-echo Beulah's painstaking restoration of Decca's strikingly full-bodied and crisp "ffrr" tapes must be deemed a conspicuous sucess." Andrew Achenbach Grampohone November 2007
"Collins' instinct for the dramatic from his experience in films stands him in excellent stead in Falstaff. This is a very good version indeed, worthy to stand alongside the fine accounts by Tate and Rattle. " Elgar Society Journal Nov. 1995.
"Few match Collins in the way his timing helps you visualize the story behind each incident. This is an invaluable offering to remind us of the mastery of a conductor whose achievement was never fully appreciated in this country in his lifetime. " Gramophone Feb 1996.
Jonathan Swain on CD Review BBC Radio Three 10 November 2007 said:
On Anthony Collins conducting Falstaff: "A great many details here tell of Collins the film composer. They can be very subtle though never unsubtle. The art is knowing how far to go."..."everything superbly animated. It leaps out at you."
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Although no longrer available as a compact disc this album can be downlaoded for only GBP 7.99 at [iTunes]
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