COMPOSERS: Elgar
LABELS: Naxos
ALBUM TITLE: Elgar
WORKS: Froissart Overture; Three Bavarian Dances; Chanson de Matin; Chanson de Nuit; Three Characteristic PIeces, Op. 10; Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra, Op. 62
PERFORMER: New Zealand S0/ James Judd
CATALOGUE NO: 8.557577
The initial flourish over, I was
surprised by the deliberateness
of James Judd’s initial tempo in
Froissart. Chivalry here lifts a rather
ponderous lance on high. Yet he
gives Elgar’s early overture an
enhanced sense of seriousness and
nobility that gives an individual
slant to what is undoubtedly a highly
competitive performance. It’s an
interpretation that had me revising
my estimate of this well-loved piece,
hearing more clearly its pre-echoes
of symphonic mastery.
The ensuing programme of
miniatures makes for attractive
listening, expounded with affection
and a fine sense of Elgarian style.
The taste that once used to scorn
such pieces as Chanson de Matin or
Carissima or the ravishing May Song
has by now, I hope, shut up shop:
as ‘pure music’, these pieces are as
inviolable as Bach. The rarely-heard
Romance for bassoon and orchestra,
poetically expounded by Preman
Tilson, is a definite bonus, and Judd
injects the Bavarian Dances with an
irresistible joie de vivre that reminds
me of Boult’s 50-year-old recording
with the LPO. The symphonist in
the making is also there in ‘The
Marksman’. Above all Judd seems to
understand the mercurial fluidity of
rhythm and tempo that gives Elgar’s
music its distinctive life. It was an
odd editing decision that led to the
Op. 21 Minuet being infiltrated
between the first and second of
the Three Characteristic Pieces,
but neither work is done any
harm thereby.
Naxos’s recording is excellent, and
the question is really whether Judd
adds anything to Neville Marriner’s
classic account of the lighter works
(including the bassoon Romance
with Michael Chapman). Perhaps
not, but this is a splendid anthology
nonetheless, and few save the
composer and Barbirolli have
done Froissart better.
Calum MacDonald