Elgar - Classical Music

Elgar is the Quintessential English Composer. He is Loved as Our Shakespeare of Music, and We Turn to Him at Times of Solemn Remembrance and National Rejoicing. This Edition, Released to Celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Composer's Birth, Presents all the Major Orchestral, Choral, Chamber and Stage Works, as Well as Many Lesser Pieces and Rarities, in Interpretations by the 20th Century's Finest Elgarians. All Your Favourite Elgar is Here, in Over 32 Hours of Music on 30 Cds. - $48.95
Vaughan Williams: The Collector's Edition [Box Set]
Works of Igor Stravinsky [Box Set]
Bedrich Smetana [Box] [Germany]

Sir Adrian Boult's recording of the Enigma Variations with the London Symphony was made when both he and the orchestra were at their peak. It reflects an extraordinary blend of spontaneity and the grand manner, and shows great insight into the score. Smooth, flowing, and majestic yet animated, it is a finely molded account in which every variation counts toward the whole. Boult's approach is direct and eloquent rather than rhetorical, but very expressive. The sound is closely miked and remastered at a very high level, and a little on the bright side. --Ted Libbey - $1.93
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade; Capriccio Espagnol; Russian Easter Overture
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Op35; Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Op77
Bach: Brandenburg Concertos No. 1-4; Neville Marriner; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

In 1932, Menuhin was just 16 and at the very beginning of his international career when Elgar--then a grand old man in his 70s--asked the young virtuoso to record his Violin Concerto. Elgar himself conducted, and the rehearsals went so well that the composer reportedly canceled the last of them and took the young violinist out for a day at the races. The recording that resulted from this remarkable collaboration has remained a classic from the day it was issued. Elgar's conducting is typically direct and unfussy, while Menuhin really does play the pants off of what is without a doubt the longest and most tiring concerto in the romantic repertoire. Of course, the recorded sound is rather limited and no amount of audio restoration can change that, but fans of great violin playing will still find plenty to enthuse about. --David Hurwitz - $9.26
Elgar: Pomp & Circumstance Marches; Enigma Variations; Cockaigne Overture
Great Recordings Of The Century - Brahms: Violin Sonatas nos 1 - 3 / Perlman, Ashkenazy
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Op35; Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Op77

During her far-too-brief career, cellist Jacqueline du Pré exhibited an almost oracular power of communication. Her performances bristled with the kind of brilliant electricity that could change lives and convert listeners to a lifelong love of music. Happily, it's possible to experience a sense of that power from the recordings du Pré completed before multiple sclerosis halted her career as a performer in the early 1970s. This set provides a splendid portrait--at bargain price--of du Pré's unmistakable personality: the astonishingly original yet convincing phrasing, raw energy, and ability to make her instrument sound uncannily like a human voice (du Pré was after all a favored student of Mstislav Rostropovich). Her rendition of Haydn's Concerto in C is clearly cast in a romantic--and nowadays perhaps unfashionable--mold, yet du Pré's big, bold tone carries the musical line forward with exhilarating presence. It's a demeanor that proves especially reassuring for the quirkily mercurial inventions of Boccherini. Yet du Pré most indelibly leaves her signature on the work that became her hallmark, Edward Elgar's E Minor Concerto, grafting a deeply personal level of expression onto the score's rich post-World War I melancholy. In the Schumann, du Pré makes an eloquently passionate protagonist. A similar sense of excitement is to be heard in Dvorák's Concerto--performed near the end of her career--above all in the flame of inspiration she evidently sparks from the orchestra in the serene close of its slow movement. This is a supremely rewarding collection for the beginner and aficionado alike. --Thomas May - $6.34
Jacqueline du Pré - a lasting inspiration
Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman & Jacqueline du Pré - Beethoven: Piano Trios

- $8.95
Vaughan Williams: The Nine Symphonies [Box Set]
Elgar: Enigma Variations; Cockaigne Overture
Elgar: Pomp & Circumstance Marches; Enigma Variations; Cockaigne Overture
Vaughan Williams: Fantasies; The Lark Ascending; Five Variants
Elgar: Pomp & Circumstance Marches; Enigma Variations; Cockaigne Overture
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Op35; Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Op77