Elgar's Enigma Variations
Elgar's Enigma Variations
The Gramophone Choice
‘Enigma’ Variations*. Pomp and Circumstance Marches, Op 39**
*London Symphony Orchestra, **London Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Adrian Boult
EMI 764015-2 (55' · ADD)
Recorded *1970, **1976 Buy from Amazon
Boult’s 1970 recording of the Enigma Variations offers similar riches to those of Barbirolli (see below) with the additional bonus of a slightly superior recorded sound. Boult’s account has authority, freshness and a beautiful sense of spontaneity: each variation emerges from the preceding one with a natural feeling of flow and progression. There’s warmth and affection, coupled with an air of nobility and poise, and the listener is always acutely aware that this is a performance by a great conductor who’s lived a lifetime with the music. You need only sample the passionate stirrings of Variation 1 (the composer’s wife), the athletic and boisterous ‘Troyte’ variation, or the autumnal, elegiac glow of the famous ‘Nimrod’ variation to realise that this is a very special document indeed. The LSO, on top form, plays with superlative skill and poetry and the excellent recording has been exceptionally well transferred to CD. The Pomp and Circumstance Marches, recorded six years later with the LPO, are invigoratingly fresh and direct – indeed, the performances are so full of energy and good humour that it’s hard to believe that Boult was in his late eighties at the time of recording.
Additional Recommendations
Coupled with Cockaigne Overture, Op 40. Introduction and Allegro, Op 47. Serenade, Op 20
BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sir Andrew Davis
Warner Apex 0927 41371-2 (74' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
These are four of the best Elgar performances available. First, the recording is superb, with near-perfect balance and a really natural sound. Second, the playing of the BBC Symphony Orchestra is first-rate. Andrew Davis’s conducting of all four works is inspired, as if he had forgotten all preconceived notions and other interpretations, gone back to the scores and given us what he found there. In Cockaigne, for example, the subtle use of ritardando, sanctioned in the score, gives the music that elasticity which Elgar considered to be an ideal requisite for interpreting his works.
The poetry and wit of this masterpiece emerge with renewed freshness. As for the Enigma Variations, instead of wondering why another recording was thought necessary, you’ll find yourself rejoicing that such a fine performance has been preserved to be set alongside other treasured versions. Each of the ‘friends pictured within’ is strongly characterised by Davis without exaggeration or interpretative quirks. Tempos are just right and the orchestral playing captures the authentic Elgarian sound in a manner Boult would have recognised.
Similarly, in the Introduction and Allegro, how beautifully the string quartet is recorded, how magical are the gentle and so eloquent pizzicatos which punctuate the flow of the great melody. The fugue is played with real zest and enjoyment. This is music on a large scale and is played and conducted in that way, whereas the early Serenade is intimate and dewy-eyed and that’s how it sounds here.
Coupled with In the South, ‘Alassio’, Op 50. Serenade, Op 20
Philharmonia Orchestra / Sir Andrew Davis
Signum SIGCD168 (67’ · DDD) Recorded live 2007. Buy from Amazon
Captured on the wing at Croydon’s Fairfield Hall during Davis’s sesquicentennial Elgar series from the spring of 2007, this Enigma Variations is also, on balance, his most compelling and characterful yet, evincing an eager application, easy flow and unforced wisdom that stem from long familiarity with the score. There are highlights aplenty: both ‘Troyte’ and ‘GRS’ bound along with a trim swagger, while Davis’s ‘Nimrod’ comes close to the ideal in its humane, selfless glow. Best of all, perhaps, is ‘EDU’, an infectiously unbuttoned and finely paced culmination, with the organ adding a splendidly grandiloquent opulence to the coda.
However, the standout offering here has to be In the South, which enshrines as personable, generously pliable and lucidly integrated a conception as one can ever recall. Davis invests Elgar’s arching melodic lines with heartwarming lyrical fervour. What’s more, the (uncredited) principal viola extracts every ounce of wistfulness from the sultry ‘Canto popolare’ at the work’s evocative heart. Both In the South and the Serenade were recorded at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London – not an ideally spacious acoustic, you’d have thought, but in fact there’s little to quibble with sonically.
Elgar Enigma Variations Three Bavarian Dances, Op 27 – Lullaby. Barbirolli An Elizabethan Suitea Bax The Garden of Fand Butterworth A Shropshire Lad Ireland The Forgotten Rite. Mai-Dun. These Things Shall Be Purcell Suite for Strings Vaughan Williams Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’. Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Parry Jones ten Hallé Choir and Orchestra / Sir John Barbirolli
Dutton mono CDSJB1022 (140' · ADD) Buy from Amazon
The long-buried treasure here is Barbirolli’s very first recording of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, never previously issued. It was recorded in Manchester in May 1947, only months before Barbirolli made his first published recording at EMI’s St John’s Wood studio. This newly unearthed version narrowly becomes the favourite over the later one. Both versions are perfectly satisfying in terms of sound but, interpretatively, this unpublished version brings added advantages. The opening statement of the theme is lighter, more flowing and less emphatic, while, even more important, ‘Nimrod’ is more warmly emotional, more spontaneous in expression, and the ‘EDU’ finale, taken at a marginally slower tempo, has no hint of the breathlessness which slightly mars the October performance at the end, again sounding more warmly spontaneous. Significantly, Barbirolli’s later stereo version of Enigma also adopts the slightly broader, less hectic speed.
The two Vaughan Williams items have never appeared before on CD, and both are very welcome. They may be less weighty than Barbirolli’s stereo remakes but the Tallis Fantasia, featuring a vintage quartet of Hallé principals, separates the quartet more clearly from the main body than the version with the Sinfonia of London, and again is more warmly expressive. The extra lightness of Greensleeves, too, sounds more spontaneous. Disc 1 contains the shorter works of Bax, Butterworth and Ireland. The performances all have a passionate thrust typical of Barbirolli, with tenor Parry Jones and the Hallé Chorus matching the orchestra in their commitment.
Coupled with Pomp and Circumstance Marches
RPO / Del Mar
DG 429 713-2GGA (58’ · ADD) Buy from Amazon
The voluble expressive freedom of this interpretation owes much to the composer’s own. Similarly, Del Mar invests the Pomp and Circumstance Marches with terrific élan.
Coupled with Brahms Symphony No 1*
Czech PO, *LSO / Stokowski
Cala CACD0524 (76’ · ADD) Buy from Amazon
Stokowski’s only Elgar recording enshrines an interpetation of abundant charisma and glowing affection. The sheer energy of it all is astounding, especially when you remember that the Old Magician had just turned 90!
