COMPOSERS: Elgar
LABELS: Classics for Pleasure
WORKS: Falstaff; Wand of Youth Suite No. 1;Wand of Youth Suite No. 2
PERFORMER: LPO, RLPO/Vernon Handley
CATALOGUE NO: 5 73722 2 ADD/DDD Reissue (1979, 1989)
Handley’s was the performance through which I came to know and love Elgar’s melancholy Sir John, and two decades on from its LP release, it remains the handsomest of Falstaffs. Dressed in the cloth-of-gold of Elgar’s opulent scoring for lower strings and brass, this knight is a remarkably nimble turner of tight corners. He may not always share the poignant nostalgia of the lovable Barbirolli version, but the very unsentimentality of the performance can still bring a tear to the eye through the sheer refinement of distant viola-sighs in Justice Shallow’s orchard or the hazy tenderness of deathbed reminiscences. After the warmly lined woodwind colours and full-blown opulence of this stunningly engineered performance, the relative reticence of the Liverpool Wand of Youth takes some aural adjustment; but here, too, Handley’s sprightly sense of the right tempo characterises fairies, giants, little bells and tame and wild bears to perfection. David Nice
Elgar: Falstaff; Wand of Youth Suite No. 1;Wand of Youth Suite No. 2
Handley’s was the performance through which I came to know and love Elgar’s melancholy Sir John, and two decades on from its LP release, it remains the handsomest of Falstaffs. Dressed in the cloth-of-gold of Elgar’s opulent scoring for lower strings and brass, this knight is a remarkably nimble turner of tight corners.
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 1:20 pm