Search - Edward Elgar, Yehudi Menuhin :: Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance Marches / Cockaigne Overture / Menuhin

An outstanding recording of Elgar?s greatest hits

Matthew Hunsberger | Pottstown, PA USA | 06/30/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The trio of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March Number 1 is immediately familiar to high school graduates. It has an undeserved reputation as a pretentious, stodgy tune. Yet as this great recording shows, there is more to the march than the trio, and there are four other highly inventive, brilliantly orchestrated marches in the same group. This is fun music, yet substantial enough to reward multiple hearings.Rounding out the disc are five more marches that Elgar wrote for various occasions. These are longer and, with the exception of opus 40, more serious than the first five, but every bit as enjoyable. The Cockaigne Overture, a.k.a. "In London Town," is a whimsical portrayal of the bustling English capital. It belongs to the same family of musical travelogues as Gershwin's An American in Paris and Respighi's Fountains of Rome.Yehudi Menuhin and the RPO perform these festive pieces with precision and style. The brass and percussion sections are especially good. The digital recording is perfectly balanced."

Sloppy editing kills a great album

Rich Kokoska | Mansfield Center, CT United States | 05/15/2002

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Virgin's engineers have clipped off the first two bars of Track 1, the famous P & C March no. 1. The effect is ghastly cheap; Virgin should have the integrity to recall all copies of this edition for the crusher and reissue this otherwise magnificent album. I've played my copy on both DVD and CD players to verify that it wasn't a DVD track-marker problem, but it's just sloppy engineering. Menuhin has done some other Elgar collections and I find his directing style to be appropriately vigorous, so I would steer you to them first..."