Of late Elgar has been entering the radar of my musical environment. I never paid all that much attention to him before–oh, I knew the Enigma Variations. Friends of mine would play the ‘Cello Concerto and I’ve accompanied them. And of course we’ve all hear the Pomp and Circumstance march. Beyond that I was fairly vague about him.
But the two symphonies are masterpieces, right up there with other first-rate late Romantics like Bruckner or Sibelius. Probably better than either in some ways, certainly much more tightly constructed than Bruckner, and much more Brahmsian than Sibelius. Wonderful orchestration. Jeffrey Tate recorded both of them with the LSO; beautiful, impassioned performances.
And another discovery is “The Dream of Gerontius” which I’ve heard of but never heard. I don’t get the impression that it’s very popular here in the US, and certainly in this day and age an oratorio about the soul’s journey from death through heaven is liable to meet with less than enthusiastic response. Yet the music is exquisite. I picked up the classic modern recording–Benjamin Britten conducting the LSO with Peter Pears singing the part of Gerontius. I have become fascinated by the work; the other night I listened to the “Go forth” movement which ends Part I something like two dozen times, following along with the score. I even went so far as to play through some of the score on the piano (a nice stretch for my score-reading abilities; it’s written for a gigantic orchestra.)
I have a lot more listening to do with Gerontius before I’ll consider it under my belt. In the meantime I also have a recording (as yet unwrapped) of “The Apostles”, the next big Elgar oratorio after Gerontius. It’s on the “coming attractions” list right now, but I don’t know quite when it will enter the stream, so to speak.