Name: Elgar: Symphonies No. 1 & No. 2
Price: 21.75 USD
Availability: InStock

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These live performances of the composer’s two official symphonies date from 2018 and 2021. They show conductor, orchestra and music working together in perfect harmony. Obvious signs? Well,... — Sunday Times, May 2024 More…

Release Date: 3rd May 2024
Catalogue No: CDHLD7564
Label: Hallé
Length: 1 hour 58 minutes

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Elgar: Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 55

Work length54:34

Album only

Hallé Orchestra
Mark Elder

I. Andante nobilmente e semplice - Allegro

Track length21:09

Album only

II. Allegro molto

Track length7:12

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

III. Adagio

Track length13:01

$2.00

$2.80

$3.50

IV. Lento - Allegro

Track length13:12

$2.00

$2.80

$3.50

Elgar: Symphony No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 63

Work length59:33

Album only

Hallé Orchestra
Mark Elder

I. Allegro vivace e nobilmente

Track length18:22

Album only

II. Larghetto

Track length15:05

Album only

III. Rondo (Presto)

Track length8:47

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

IV. Moderato e maestoso

Track length17:19

Album only

Elgar: The Prince of Sleep (Bonus track, download only)

Work length4:48

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Hallé Orchestra
Mark Elder

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Please note, the download version of this release includes 'The Prince of Sleep' as a bonus track. This is not included on the CD.

Among the first releases on the Hallé recording label, established in 2003, were Elgar’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 2. This recording revisits those works nearly 20 years later, and mark the culmination of Sir Mark Elder’s tenure as Music Director The First Symphony was premiered in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, in 1908 by the Hallé and its Music Director, Hans Richter to whom the symphony is dedicated. It is a work of astonishing musical and structural mastery which was greeted with worldwide acclaim, receiving one hundred performances in its first year. The musical material demonstrates Elgar’s skill at melody and transformation and presents a wide emotional range. By contrast the Second Symphony, with its deeply personal ‘pilgrimage of a soul’, initially received a more muted reception. However, it came into its own after the end of the first world war when the tone of remembrance and tribute possibly reflected the national mood, in what is now considered to be one of Elgar’s finest works. The digital release of the symphonies is accompanied by a bonus track featuring Colin Matthews’ arrangement of Elgar’s partsong The Prince of Sleep (1925). Matthews presented the arrangement to Mark Elder as a gift to mark the conductor’s 70th birthday in 2017, and as a tribute to Elder’s ‘many splendid Elgar performances’. It also reflects what Matthews has described as ‘ a remarkable privilege to have been an observer of the Hallé's development over more than twenty years, watching it become, under Mark, one of the finest orchestras not just in the UK but in the world.’

Reviews

May 2024

These live performances of the composer’s two official symphonies date from 2018 and 2021. They show conductor, orchestra and music working together in perfect harmony. Obvious signs? Well, there’s the natural feel of Elder’s tempos, never forced. There’s the musicians’ punch and finesse during every emotional twist in these expansive, deeply moving works.

Elder’s seemingly faultless grasp of the symphonic architecture and his sense of where to allow the music to breathe and where to push it forward, means that the works’ very different endings are both overwhelmingly convincing. These performances, a little more spaciously recorded than their predecessors, are, I think, as fine as any currently available on disc.

1st May 2024

These live performances of the composer’s two official symphonies date from 2018 and 2021. They show conductor, orchestra and music working together in perfect harmony. Obvious signs? Well, there’s the natural feel of Elder’s tempos, never forced. There’s the musicians’ punch and finesse during every emotional twist in these expansive, deeply moving works.

Elgar: Symphonies No. 1 & No. 2

2 CDs

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