Search - Edward Elgar, John Barbirolli, London Symphony Orchestra :: Elgar: Cello Concerto; Sea Pictures; Overture 'Cockaigne'

5 Star For The Cello Concerto; 3.5 Stars For Everything Els

Joseph Kimsey | Pac NW | 03/02/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"To my tastes, there are some composers who basically always get everything right (Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner), a few who rarely get it right (Mendelssohn, Puccini), and some who get it right half the time. Sir Edward Elgar definitely falls in the latter category for me.



Elgar is best known, and most disdained, for his supposedly bombastic Pomp and Circumstance marches (which I happen to like a lot), but there is some truth in the statement that a lot of his music tends toward empty bombast and sentimentality. This is certainly not the case with his Cello Concerto.



Jacqueline du Pre is in incredible form on this disc, and she gives Elgar's greatest masterpiece an urgency and artistic sensitivity that electrifies. The moving Adagio is a brooding, desolate piece which seems to indicate that Elgar's usual ebullient personality was going through a dark, soul-searching period. The half-meditative, half-aggravated Second Movement is a study in eccentric lyricism, but it is merely a curious prelude to the majestic third movement. We're swimming in some deep water here - this is music of great tenderness and resigned sadness. The final movement offers an idiosyncratic commentary on all the previous moods displayed in the piece.



Unfortunately, the rest here isn't quite on the same lofty order as the Cello Concerto. The Cockaigne Overture is typical Elgar, with its mixture of genuine lyricism and empty bluster. It's compared with Wagner's Meistersinger Overture in the CD notes, but really the only obvious similarity is that both overtures are about cities (Meistersinger about Nuremberg; Cockaigne about London). Elgar's overture has little of Wagner's sweep and satisfying grandeur.



The Sea Pictures vocal pieces have some beautiful episodes, but can also veer into some banality. Janet Baker is a good interpreter, and she gives faultless performances on Sea Slumber Song, Sabbath Morning at Sea and Where Corals Lie.



Highly recommended for the Cello Concerto - but be prepared to take the not-so-great with the great, and considering the quality of the great, that's not hard at all!

"