Falstaff has
been one of my favourite Elgar works
ever since I heard Elgar’s own recording
broadcast on what was then still called
the Third Programme. I am pleased to
see so many fine recordings in the catalogue.
The Enigma Variations are perennially
popular, so it is no surprise that so
many excellent versions are available,
some of which couple Falstaff
and Enigma, a practice which
I think was initiated with the Mackerras
EMI recording.
The coupling on that
deleted EMI recording, seriously under-rated
by the reviewers in my opinion, struck
me as ideal. It has since been used
for Simon Rattle’s highly-praised versions
(EMI 5 55001 2) and I am pleased to
see the pairing return with the reissue
of this Lyrita CD. I am sure, too, that
it was right to put Falstaff
first – for all my allegiance to it,
hearing it immediately after Enigma
might have been something of an anti-climax.
Davis has gone on to
record both works again, currently available
on two bargain-price Warner Apex CDs
– both offering superb value: you could
purchase both for the price of this
Lyrita disc and also have Cockaigne,
Introduction and Allegro and
the Serenade for Strings (with
Enigma on 0927 41371 2 – also
available as a Warner Classics download
for £3: 0927 41371 6) plus Froissart,
Romance and excerpts from Grania
and Diarmid (with the Falstaff
CD, 2564 62200 2). Or you could download
Andrew Davis’s versions of all the major
Elgar works, including his fine versions
of the symphonies – the equivalent of
4CDs, for just £10 (2564 62199 6).
Be aware, however,
that Warner’s downloads come as ‘locked’
wma files, which not all programmes
will play, sync to mp3 player or burn
to CD. Nor can Roxio Copy and Convert
transform them to mp3 format to play
on an ipod. The only way to sync or
burn them is to use Windows Media Player
with its annoying habit of adding breaks
between movements when the music is
continuous – unless some technically-minded
reader can make an alternative suggestion.
Davis’s tempi in Enigma
have tended to become a little broader
with the passage of time, first on his
deleted CBS version and again on Warner
– just a few seconds added to the times
of most of the variations, but nothing
hugely significant. I have made his
Warner version my standard choice for
Enigma, and I shall certainly
not be disposing of it, not least because
of the excellent couplings, including
the best Introduction and Allegro
since the classic Barbirolli. Re-hearing
this earlier account with the NPO, however,
I am inclined to prefer it marginally.
Sometimes first, fresh thoughts retain
a slight edge – Nigel Kennedy’s Elgar
Violin Concerto, for example, though
I know that I am swimming against the
tide in preferring the earlier version
– and I think this is the case here.
In the case of ‘Nimrod’
(track 14), the remake is considerably
slower than the Lyrita – 4:16 against
3:20. I have never felt that the Warner
version was too slow, so I listened
particularly carefully to this earlier
account for signs of haste. Paradoxically,
for a variation named after the mighty
hunter Nimrod – a pun on the name of
the publisher Jaeger – this variation
is marked Adagio. I suppose that
stealth is just as much a consideration
as speed for a hunter. Is the earlier
version too fast? Not at all. I am aware
that I am trying to have my cake and
eat it – sometimes you can, with different
interpretations of music – but this
earlier version sounds just as ‘right’
within its own context as the newer
version does. When the music soars -
just after 2 minutes into track 14 -
both performances do so, too.
‘Dorabella’ is one
of the few variations where the new
and the old are almost identical. In
both versions Davis’s Andante
is spot-on, but the lightness of touch
in the older account just swayed the
balance. One reviewer of Davis’s deleted
CBS version, which came between the
Lyrita and Warner accounts, found this
movement earthbound, which is emphatically
not the case here.
The Finale is marginally
faster in the new version: here, again,
I found it very hard to choose between
the two. On the Lyrita version the grand
account of the end of the movement (track
19) leads into the filler, Pomp and
Circumstance No.5 (track 20) without
too much sense of a change of gear.
Against all my self-imposed rules of
keeping only one version of each piece
of music, both Davis versions of Enigma
will be staying in my collection.
Comparisons are difficult
in the case of Falstaff, because
the Warner recording breaks the piece
into 29 tracks, as opposed to Lyrita’s
four main sections, but the tendency
here, too, has been for Davis’s interpretation
to broaden slightly over the years.
Once again, however, for all the excellence
of the new recording, I find myself
slightly preferring the earlier version:
no sense of hurry, for example, in the
Dream Interlude (track 2).
As usual, you may be
sure that a short review betokens high
approval on my part. As Sir Thomas More
reminds us in Robert Bolt’s play A
Man for All Seasons, a maxim of
the law is that silence implies consent
– qui tacet consentire. The wonderful
Paul Schofield film of that play is
available on an elusive DVD – well worth
tracking down, for Schofield’s greatest
rôle.
I put this CD on with
high expectation within minutes of opening
my latest batch of review discs – and
I certainly was not disappointed. With
attractive art-work and excellent notes
by Michael Kennedy (Falstaff
– explaining the programme behind the
music – and Enigma) and Lewis
Foreman (Pomp & Circumstance)
and recording which, though ADD, is
little inferior to the Warner remakes,
I have no hesitation in nominating this
as a Recording of the Month:
far preferable to the other Lyrita Elgar
recording advertised in the booklet,
the curiously low-key Boult version
of the two symphonies, for which the
conductor was persuaded against his
better judgement not to divide the violins
left and right. The 2-LP version of
this was my only disappointment ever
with Lyrita.
But don’t let me put
you off buying the two Apex CDs if you
want the extra pieces – both the Lyrita
and Warner versions are worthy to be
mentioned in the same breath as Boult’s
EMI recordings of Elgar.
Brian Wilson
See also review by Rob
Barnett
for details
New Philharmonia Orchestra/Andrew Davis
