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

The Philharmonia Orchestra’s second release of 2010 sees them reunited with the celebrated interpreter of Elgar’s work, Sir Andrew Davis and follows the critically praised recording of Elgar’s Enigma Variations with Andrew, released last year.

This CD set features the Hallé Centenary Concert given on 30 January 1958 with Clifford Curzon as soloist. It includes an introduction by Sir Malcolm Sargent and a conversation with Sir John Barbirolli – The Hallé and its conductor. Michael Kennedy writes: Barbirolli set up an informal advisory committee for the centenary programmes comprising himself, the Hallé’s then general manager the late Kenneth Crickmore, the Manchester Guardian’s critic the late Colin Mason, and me. I don’t remember that we did much advising. The programme for the centenary night, 30 January 1958, caused relatively little headscratching.

Weber’s overture to Der Freischütz was the obvious starter since Hallé had opened his first concert with it. Brahms’s B flat piano concerto had received its second UK performance in Manchester with Hallé, by then in his sixties and a friend of the composer, as soloist. Sir John asked for Clifford Curzon as soloist because he had been the only soloist with the re-formed Hallé during its first week of concerts in Bradford in 1943. To conclude the evening, Barbirolli’s first choice was Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique because Hallé – a pioneering champion of his friend’s music – had conducted its first UK performance and had included a movement from it in his 1858 inaugural concert. But it was pointed out that for these same reasons it had been played in November 1951 at the reopening of the Free Trade Hall. Surely there should be an English work in the programme and what better than Elgar’s First Symphony, first played at a Hallé concert in Manchester conducted by and dedicated to Hans Richter on 3 December 1908? Sir John readily agreed. After the performance which can be heard on these discs, Mason wrote next day that it was “not four movements but a single symphonic poem… It may be doubted whether Richter himself did better for the work than this”. It was an emotional evening, with Hallé’s granddaughter Cecile Sartoris in the audience.

Before its sensational première in 1908, Hans Richter, the work’s dedicatee and first conductor, acclaimed Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 as ‘the greatest symphony of modern times’.

Although Falstaff is often treated merely comically, Elgar’s virtuosic tone poem presents him and Prince Hal with a psychological insight truly worthy of Shakespeare.

On these historic and thrillingly realized recordings, made between 1930 and 1932, there really is no match for the composer’s insight and instinctive way with his own works, especially when conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, of which he had been principal conductor from 1911 to 1913.

“Elgar’s recordings of his own music have come to be regarded as one of the great achievements of gramophone history.” MusicWeb International