Search - Edward Elgar, Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra :: Elgar: Enigma Variations; Introduction & Allegro [Hybrid SACD]

Colin Davis & LSO: Elgar Enigma Var.: Superb Sound, Compelli

Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 06/16/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Most of the available newish recordings in the LSO Live series are worthy additions to the catalogue. The SACD edition of the Smetana Ma Vlast cycle, the Kullervo, and the Sibelius Second Symphony are right up at the top of the fav shelves. Now, add this performance of the Elgar Enigma Variations, plus Introduction and Allegro for string orchestra. The multiple channel super audio sound is so rich and lush that it might offer you a different way of showing off your home system.



Good thing the sound is so good. You really get to hear a plausible and engaging recreation - of the venue, - and of the involved, heartfelt, and expertly gauged reading that this conductor and band bring so beautifully to life.



From the first familiar - too familiar? - phrase - a listener feels sound struck. The melody which Elgar later described as capturing the loneliness of the artist does just that, for once. It is winsome, but beneath the melody's prettiness is a darker sound of shadow. Elgar apparently suffered from a psychiatric syndrome which we today might call, Bipolar Disorder. He was up when he was having musical ideas and composing, and fell crashing down when he had setbacks in his career, or had slumped into the valleys between major musical work.



The other sections are just vivid and full of Edwardian Romance as this start. Some of the less turbulent sections remind one of how Mahler drops down to chamber orchestra ensemble proportions, although the style is always Elgar not Mahler. In the LSO Live SACD of the Shostakovich 11th Symphony under Rostropovich, I finally felt I could not deal with the extreme dynamic ranges. Quadruple p was just too dim and ineffable to keep my ear's attention, while Quadruple F was going to leave me deaf and under suspicion from the next door neighbors. Happily this outing manages better, though it does have wide dynamic range, too. But soft playing just misses being too much, and the loud playing won't have the neighbors calling the police or the city sound codes inspectors on you.



The overall interpretive style is Romantic, post-Brahms. You can tell that Elgar owes as much to Liszt or Schumann and to Mendelssohn - maybe even to Schubert - as he does to Brahms. Solo bits are wonderful, but never lost from the big musical picture by being too disconnected. When the band is playing full tilt, you get more than a taste of that empire-building pomp and circumstance which Elgar immortalized for us in a set of occasional marches for big orchestra.



While the marches are ceremonial and public, in these variations Elgar dares to get much more personal and intimate, and this reading exemplifies getting that intimate, in a reserved and understated and possibly archetypally Edwardian British manner. The profound mystery still connected with human existential loneliness, with cruel mood swings of disruptive and despairing proportions, and with enduring human friendship (especially in the face of adversity and soul-devouring success) deepen the high arts of variation to which the composer devoted himself in this work.



This one belongs right up there, then. Next to my Pierre Monteux/LSO and my Adrian Boult/LSO readings. A touch less formal-structural, and a tad warmer. Quite welcome.



The remainder of this super audio display disc is filled with a stunning string orchestra performance of Elgar's Introduction and Allegro. From low to high, the strings are simply lean and luscious, all at the same time, like an idealized torso from a Greek Golden Age. They positively glow with health and musical finesse.



Something very British about Elgar's variations points towards the future, points, say, to Britten's Purcell variations? Modernity is awaiting its entry in the wings, somehow. Even while late nineteenth century global empire thrives and people are bustling about, an immense, impending twentieth century sea change hangs over all that vitality.



Thus it makes good musicological sense for the Elgar variations to be paired with the later Britten, just as Jarvi has done on his SACD with Cincinnati. That, too, is worth your attention, and I do have it. But my tip of the bowler still goes to Colin Davis and the LSO, a band whose tradition and history include playing under the composer's direction.



Which reminds me. I would love to see this combo do a Britten disc or two, including the obvious orchestra works, plus probably the violin concerto and the tenor or soprano vocal cycles.



Hope Sir Colin is up for it. Highly recommended. A display of super audio proportions for your home system, and a musical compass rose in tribute to Elgar in all his dark and bright dimensions."