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Daniel Hope, Zürcher Kammerorchester - Dance! (2024)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Daniel Hope, Zürcher Kammerorchester - Dance! (2024)

Daniel Hope, Zürcher Kammerorchester - Dance! (2024)
XLD | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 611 Mb | Total time: 01:55:37 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | # 028948649945 | Recorded: 2023

Daniel Hope's new album "Dance!" reflects his boundless interest in the most diverse styles and periods of music. The star violinist takes the listeners on a journey through seven centuries of music history and explores the rhythms that have set bodies in motion and lifted hearts since time began.

Neville Marriner & Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' (1997) 2CDs

Posted By: Designol
Neville Marriner & Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' (1997) 2CDs

Neville Marriner & Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' (1997) 2CD
Ralph Vaughan Williams - Peter Warlock - George Butterworth - Frederick Delius - Edward Elgar

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 630 Mb | Scans ~ 15 Mb
Genre: Classical | Label: Decca | # 452 707-2 | Time: 02:29:40

This is not strictly a compilation of what the British would term "light music," for there is music of substantial weight on these two discs: e.g., Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending, Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad, and Elgar's Introduction and Allegro, but for the most part, Marriner and his charges offer less weighty fare that is familiar to many classical music-lovers and certainly dear to the heart of Anglophiles like this writer. From Vaughan Williams's perennial favorites, Fantasia on Greensleeves and the English Folk Song Suite, and George Butterworth's nigh-ubiquitous The Banks of Green Willow to less familiar fare like Delius's Serenade (composed to honor the 70th birthday of Frederick Delius) and the suite from Elgar's incomplete opera The Spanish Lady, this compilation of recordings–originally made in 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1979–embodies the spirit of England and does so faultlessly. This is a well chosen and exemplarily executed collection of English orchestral miniatures proffered by a conductor and orchestra whose names have become synonymous with the repertoire.

Yehudi Menuhin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1998)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Yehudi Menuhin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1998)

Yehudi Menuhin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1998)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 638 Mb | Total time: 77:34+72:42 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Virgin Classics | # 5 61430 2 | Recorded: 1988, 1990

Menuhin - as is well known - recorded the Elgar Violin Concerto with the composer conducting. In many respects these recordings of the Symphonies sound as if Elgar was still standing at Menuhin's side. No other recordings come closer to the spirit and style of Elgar's own conducting of these works. But this is not mere imitation. Menhuin was a musician of the very first rank - with a remarkable ear and attention to detail. The phrasing is always beautiful and the rhythm alert and alive. These is nothing pompous about these performances - everything is full of vigour and feeling. Playing and recording are excellent.

Alisa Weilerstein; Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim - Elgar, Carter: Cello Concertos; Bruch: Kol Nidrei (2012)

Posted By: Designol
Alisa Weilerstein; Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim - Elgar, Carter: Cello Concertos; Bruch: Kol Nidrei (2012)

Edward Elgar, Elliott Carter: Cello Concertos; Max Bruch: Kol Nidrei (2012)
Alisa Weilerstein, cello; Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 279 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Decca | # 478 2735 | Time: 01:02:25

Making her debut on Decca, Alisa Weilerstein presents three major works of the cello repertoire with Daniel Barenboim leading the Staatskapelle Berlin. The star vehicle, naturally, is Edward Elgar's Concerto in E minor, which Weilerstein plays with commanding presence, rich tone, and emotional depth. Most listeners will be drawn primarily to this performance because of the piece's familiarity, and Weilerstein's charisma and passionate playing make it the album's main attraction. Yet listeners should give Weilerstein and Barenboim credit for following the Elgar with an important if not instantly recognizable or approachable modernist work, Elliott Carter's powerful Cello Concerto. Weilerstein is quite bold to play this intensely dramatic and angular composition, and while it's unlikely to appeal to the majority of fans who adore the Elgar, it deserves its place on the program for its seriousness and extraordinary displays of solo and orchestral writing. To close, Weilerstein plays Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei, a Romantic work that returns the program to a mellow and melancholy mood and brings the CD to a satisfying close. Decca's reproduction is excellent, putting Weilerstein front and center with full resonance, but not leaving the vibrant accompaniment of the orchestra too far behind her.

Sir Andrew Davis, Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Edward Elgar: The Starlight Express (2012)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Sir Andrew Davis, Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Edward Elgar: The Starlight Express (2012)

Sir Andrew Davis, Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Edward Elgar: The Starlight Express (2012)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 530 Mb | Total time: 138:08 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Stradivarius | # CHSA 5111(2) | Recorded: 2012

The Starlight Express was adapted from a book by Algernon Blackwood, A Prisoner in Fairyland, for a theatre production in the West End during the First World War, with music by Sir Edward Elgar. Combining the usually contrasting elements of fairytale and melodrama, The Starlight Express depicts the fantasy world inhabited by a group of children, who possess a magical ‘starlight’ quality that has been lost by the adults around them. This is the most comprehensive recorded version of The Starlight Express to date, based on a new score prepared by the Elgar Edition, which has been adapted by the conductor Sir Andrew Davis.

William Boughton, English SO - Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations, Cockaigne and Froissart Overtures (1989)

Posted By: Designol
William Boughton, English SO - Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations, Cockaigne and Froissart Overtures (1989)

Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations; Cockaigne and Froissart Overtures (1989)
English Symphony Orchestra, conducted by William Boughton

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 229 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 158 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Nimbus Records | # NI 5206 | Time: 01:00:26

There are basically two ways in which conductors may approach the Enigma Variations. Either they can take the music at its face value, treating the set of variations as a symphonically developed whole; or they can treat the work as a series of miniature character sketches of Elgar’s “friends pictured within”, highlighting the personalities of the miscellaneous collection of individuals involved. William Boughton in this reading opts for the second option, and the result bubbles with life.

Noel Edison, Choir of St John's, Elora - Hear My Prayer: Hymns and Anthems (2006)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Noel Edison, Choir of St John's, Elora - Hear My Prayer: Hymns and Anthems (2006)

Noel Edison, Choir of St John's, Elora - Hear My Prayer: Hymns and Anthems (2006)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 243 Mb | Total time: 69:17 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.557493 | Recorded: 2004

You might accurately describe this program as a compilation of "great hits of Christian church music", including as it does Franck's Panis angelicus, Finzi's God is gone up, Mozart's Laudate Dominum, Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine, Lotti's Crucifixus, Howells' Magnificat, and the overrated, overwrought, overlong (and usually excruciatingly-sung) Hear my prayer by Mendelssohn. We also get a couple of Purcell anthems, O God, Thou art my God and Remember not, O Lord, Stanford's glorious motet Justorum animae, Duruflé's tiny masterpiece Ubi caritas et amor, and the choral setting of Elgar's "Nimrod" orchestral variation (Lux aeterna).

Steven Isserlis, Paavo Jarvi, Philharmonia Orchestra - Elgar & Walton: Cello Concertos (2016)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Steven Isserlis, Paavo Jarvi, Philharmonia Orchestra - Elgar & Walton: Cello Concertos (2016)

Steven Isserlis, Paavo Järvi, Philharmonia Orchestra - Elgar & Walton: Cello Concertos (2016)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 279 Mb | Total time: 73:01 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Hyperion | # CDA68077 | Recorded: 2014, 2015

For this 2016 Hyperion release, cellist Steven Isserlis and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Paavo Järvi present a moving album of cello concertos by Edward Elgar and William Walton, along with Gustav Holst's Invocation and Imogen Holst's The Fall of the Leaf, a five-movement suite for solo cello. The program creates a profoundly pensive and even autumnal feeling, and Isserlis' tone is by turns reflective, lyrical, and poignantly elegiac, appropriate to the selections. The melancholy nostalgia of Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor colors the album's mood from the outset, and notwithstanding passages of intense virtuosity, the rich but subdued sonorities of his burnished orchestration contribute to its brooding quality.

Sébastien Hurtaud, Benjamin Northey, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra - Gareth Farr, Edward Elgar: Cello Concertos (2020)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Sébastien Hurtaud, Benjamin Northey, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra - Gareth Farr, Edward Elgar: Cello Concertos (2020)

Sébastien Hurtaud, Benjamin Northey, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra - Gareth Farr, Edward Elgar: Cello Concertos (2020)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 229 Mb | Total time: 59:04 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Rubicon | # RCD1047 | Recorded: 2019

New Zealand composer Gareth Farr wrote his cello concerto after discovering some family history. His three great uncles left New Zealand to fight in France in World War I. All three were killed within weeks of arrival. Farr’s concerto is instantly accessible and is a dramatic and emotional statement.

Sakari Oramo, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 2, Sospiri, Elegy (2013)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Sakari Oramo, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 2, Sospiri, Elegy (2013)

Sakari Oramo, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 2, Sospiri, Elegy (2013)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 264 Mb | Total time: 63:54 | Scans included
Classical | Label: BIS | # BIS-1879 | Recorded: 2011, 2012

The main work on the present disc is the Second Symphony – a darkly hued, powerful work lasting almost an hour. The composer apparently planned to dedicate it to King Edward VII as ‘a loyal tribute’, but the monarch’s sudden death in May 1910, led to the symphony being inscribed instead to his memory. Composed during the same years as the symphony, the two companion pieces on the disc also have a melancholy tinge: Elegy for strings, and Sospiri (‘sighs’) for strings, harp and organ.

Sakari Oramo, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1 (2014)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Sakari Oramo, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1 (2014)

Sakari Oramo, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1 (2014)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 311 Mb | Total time: 67:17 | Scans included
Classical | Label: BIS | # BIS-1939 | Recorded: 2012, 2013

Conducting this all-Elgar programme is Sakari Oramo, the Finnish conductor who has been all but adopted by English music-lovers and orchestras - for ten years he was music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and since 2013 he holds the post as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Daniel Barenboim, Staatskapelle Berlin - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1 (2016)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Daniel Barenboim, Staatskapelle Berlin - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1 (2016)

Daniel Barenboim, Staatskapelle Berlin - Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1 (2016)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 240 Mb | Total time: 51:26 | Scans included
Classical | Label: DECCA | # 436 132-2 | Recorded: 2015

Because Daniel Barenboim is so closely associated with the German orchestral repertoire, conducting the music of English composer Edward Elgar may seem a bit of a byway, though his explorations in previous Decca recordings of the Cello Concerto in E minor with Alisa Weilerstein, and the Symphony No. 2 in E flat major with the Staatskapelle Berlin, have yielded exceptional results. This performance of the Symphony No. 1 in A flat major (1908), again with the Staatskapelle Berlin, is a powerful meditation on the human drama, and while it lacks a specific program, the music evokes a mixture of bittersweet nostalgia and darker forebodings.

Richard Hickox, BBC National Orchestra of Wales - Edward Elgar: Symphony No.3; Pomp and Circumstance March No.6 (2007)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Richard Hickox, BBC National Orchestra of Wales - Edward Elgar: Symphony No.3; Pomp and Circumstance March No.6 (2007)

Richard Hickox, BBC National Orchestra of Wales - Edward Elgar: Symphony No.3; Pomp and Circumstance March No.6; So Many True Princesses (2007)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 295 Mb | Total time: 70:18 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Chandos | # CHAN 5057 | Recorded: 2007

This disc not only completes Richard Hickox’s Elgar cycle but also provides a fourth recording of the Third Symphony in Anthony Payne’s ‘elaboration’. Indeed, it collates all three of Payne’s Elgar realisations – including recorded debuts of the 1932 memorial ode for Queen Alexandria and the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6…in terms of recording, then new disc (with a succinct and informative note by Anthony Burton) is a clear winner, the SACD sound having a depth and spaciousness that does justice to Payne’s Elgarian sound-world.

Paul McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort & Players: An English Coronation, 1902-1953 (2019)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Paul McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort & Players: An English Coronation, 1902-1953 (2019)

Paul McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort & Players: An English Coronation, 1902-1953 (2019)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 662 Mb | Total time: 159:21 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Signum Classics | # SIGCD 569 | Recorded: 2018

The four coronations of the twentieth century were enormous and extravagant. Replete with festive pageantry, these ceremonies were joyful celebrations of British music, employing tremendous forces. Choirs from across London and beyond were marshalled to provide a chorus of over 400 voices; a full-size symphony orchestra was squeezed into Westminster Abbey, whilst bands of fanfare trumpeters led the pomp and celebration.

Hans-Ola Ericsson - Symphonic Organ Music, Vol.2: Respighi, Gounod, Bellini, Smetana, Elgar (2001)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Hans-Ola Ericsson - Symphonic Organ Music, Vol.2: Respighi, Gounod, Bellini, Smetana, Elgar (2001)

Hans-Ola Ericsson - Symphonic Organ Music, Vol.2: Respighi, Gounod, Bellini, Smetana, Elgar (2001)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 240 Mb | Total time: 69:15 | Scans included
Classical | Label: BIS | # BIS-CD-1102 | Recorded: 1998

Hans-Ola Ericsson was born in Stockholm in 1958. He is a renowned organist with hundreds of recitals and concerts behind him, as well as an esteemed pedagogue at several institutions and a bold composer of contemporary music.
Known for his renditions of music as diverse as Olivier Messiaen and John Cage, his interpretory range stretches between György Ligety and the ubiquitous Johann Sebastian Bach as well as many more. Among the crown jewels of the repertoire is the collected works of Messiaen and a recently finished series of Bach in chamber and organ settings.