With the magnificent Elgar Edition now deleted by EMI – three volumes of three discs each – it is good to have such an engaging sampling as this. It comes as a welcome supplement to the three separate discs, recently issued in the British Music series, which offer the two symphonies and other works.
In the HMV Classics series – with limited availability through HMV Shops and on the internet – this collection is designed to mark the closing of what is rightly described as the ‘most famous record store in the world’, the HMV Shop at 363 Oxford Street in London, originally opened by Elgar in July 1921. The accompanying leaflet has historic photographs taken in the 1920s, but what matters is the portrait of the composer that these generally lightweight items give.
The five Pomp and Circumstance marches are taken from recordings of different vintages. The earliest, No 3, made in 1927, is thinner in sound than No 5, recorded in 1930 when it was new, and Nos 1, 2 and 4. Those are among Elgar’s last recordings, made with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1932 and 1933. As with the Cockaigne Overture, also performed by the then recently founded BBC Symphony Orchestra, the sound as transferred is splendidly full-bodied, the Elgarian trombones rasping out wonderfully well. As for the performances, one can almost see Elgar’s great moustache bristling at the panache of the playing, and the delightful lilt he gives to such a motif as the Dvorakian theme in No 3.
Broadly, as ever, Elgar favours speeds on the fast side, here and elsewhere, but then allows ripely romantic expansion in big expressive moments, as in the dedicated account of the Gerontius Prelude. Recorded live in 1927 at the Royal Albert Hall, that comes in limited but wonderfully atmospheric sound, leading on to the tenor’s first entry. Setting the seal on this issue are two of the shortest and most moving items – one of the strangely intense piano improvisations he recorded for HMV with uninhibitedly splashy playing, and the brief account of Land of Hope and Glory he recorded with the LSO for a Pathe newsreel at the opening of the EMI Studios in Abbey Road in 1931. That brings a gruff but moving speech from Elgar: ‘Gentlemen, please play this tune as though you’ve never heard it before.’ That alone is worth the money.'