Castle Classics Elgar, Edward (British 1857-1934)

Sir Edward Elgar: Symphony No.1 - BBC National Orchestra of Wales; Richard Hickox, conductor

Label - Chandos

Cat. No. - CHSA5049

Including Symphony No. 1, Op. 55; Organ Sonata, Op. 28 (transcribed by Gordon Jacob)

Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice

Price: £13.50 (Including VAT at 15%)

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Sir Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1. The Kingdom Op. 51: Prelude - Flemish Radio Orchestra; Martyn Brabbins, conductor

Label - Glossa

Cat. No. - GCDSA922204

SACD Hybrid Recording

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Sir Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations. Introduction & Allegro for Strings (SACD Version) - London Symphony Orchestra; Sir Colin Davis, conductor

Label - LSO Live

Cat. No. - LSO0609

SACD Hybrid Recording

A high density DSD recording, live at the Barbican Centre on: 6-7/1/ 2007 Enigma; 23/9 & 9/12/2005 Introduction & Allegro

Price: £7.75 (Including VAT at 15%)

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Sir Edward Elgar: Symphony No.2. In the South - BBC National Orchestra of Wales; Richard Hickox, conductor

Label - Chandos

Cat. No. - CHSA5038

SACD Hybrid Recording

Including Symphony No.2, Op.63 in E flat major; In the South (Alassio), Op.50

An Italian trip with his wife, Alice, in the spring of 1909, and in particular a visit to Venice, sparked off plans by Elgar for his Symphony No. 2 in E flat major, sketched during 1910 and completed in full score in two months of intensive work at the beginning of 1911. On the printed score Elgar bracketed two place names,Venice and Tintagel. In April 1910 he had spent a few days in Tintagel at the summer home of Alice Stuart-Wortley. His passionate friendship with her found expression in the symphony, as did the death of King Edward VII, to whose memory the symphony was dedicated. The score is also prefaced by the first two lines of a poem by Shelley: 'Rarely, rarely comest thou, / Spirit of Delight!' The 'Spirit of Delight' can be associated with the symphony's unifying motto theme, which in the first movement forms part of a first-subject group of furious energy. The slow movement dies away amidst echoes of the motto and a funeral-march offshoot. The contrast between this movement and the scherzo 'represented the contrast between the interior of St. Mark's at Venice and the sunlit and lively Piazza outside'. The sorrow expressed in the earlier movements is 'smoothed out and ennobled' in the finale, whose last climax collapses towards a serene ending, intermingling echoes of the movement's first theme and the 'Spirit of Delight' motto.

Elgar spent the last weeks of 1903 and the first of 1904 on holiday with his wife and daughter in Alassio, in the north-west Italian region of Liguria. There he completed In the South (Alassio), which he described as an attempt to capture 'the thoughts and sensations of one beautiful afternoon in the Vale of Andora'; on the manuscript he wrote quotations from Tennyson's The Daisy and Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which indicate that Italian landscape and history were the twin sources of his inspiration. Despite its designation of 'concert overture' the work has the dimensions of one of Strauss's shorter symphonic poems, its form resembling that of Strauss's Don Juan
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Sir Edward Elgar: Symphony No.3 - Adrian Partington Singers; BBC National Orchestra of Wales; Richard Hickox, conductor

Label - Chandos

Cat. No. - CHSA5057

SACD Hybrid Recording

Including Symphony No. 3 (elab. and orch. by Anthony Payne); Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6 (compl. and orch. by Anthony Payne); So Many True Princesses Who Have Gone (orch. by Anthony Payne)

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