Customer Reviews

Elgar: Cello Concerto; "Enigma" Variations

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderfully passionate recording of the concerto that has rightfully become as closely associated with Jacqueline Dupre as with the composer himself. I don't want to go into detail - just listen and drink it all in. I was lucky enough to hear Jacqueline play this piece live (in Manchester with the Halle in 1970), and this recording is every bit as moving.

But, truth be told, my main reason for buying the CD was the Enigma Variations. On reading the score I discovered an ad lib organ part that fortifies the texture of the orchestra for a substantial part of the final variation. The recording I had (Andre Previn with the Royal Philharmonic) ad libbed it out. I tried to research which recordings had the organ ad libbed in, but couldn't find any indication anywhere on the Web. But, I thought, I have a recording of Barenboim with the London Phil playing Elgar's Cockaigne, and he certainly uses an organ in that recording, therefore...... and thus I discovered this wonderful CD.

The Enigma Variations is given a very fine performance, more satisfying in several ways than in the Previn recording, not least because the brass is a little more prominent and bright (full disclosure: I'm a trumpet player). Oh, and the timpani in the Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage quote are played - as tradition demands - with coins, not with the snare-drum sticks Elgar requests in the score. The result is a very very effective evocation of ships' engines.

I'm giving this recording 5 stars because of the Enigma and the Cello Concerto. The CD also features the two most well-known of the Pomp and Circumstance marches. No. 4 is perfectly fine, but Barenboim gives No. 1 a very strange interpretation. He takes the march part at about a million miles per hour, and it sounds - to my ears, anyway - trivial and silly at that speed. It's even faster than a circus-march screamer. The mind boggles.

Why has one piece of music here, the Elgar Cello Concerto played by Jacqueline DuPre become so legendary?
Of course it is the music itself. It has an overpowerful haunting deeply hypnotic feeling. Elgar wrote it after his recovery from a serious illness towards the end of the First War, and his thoughts were certainly on the suffering of life, and the inevitability of death.
DuPre brings to the piece not only her great mastery as cellist, but some deeper element of feeling. There is in the playing a sense of romantic abandoment of wild disturbance , and of intense and even ferious concentration. She seems to be Orpheus- like overtaken by the music and it seems to be playing through her whole body. It is almost as if too in the playing there is a sense of the illness which will later come to her, and which ironically, paradoxically painfully will deprive her of the feeling in her fingers and hands.
She seems swept up by the music and yet all the while moving it to deeper and deeper levels of sorrow, pain and beauty.
Music like this comes from the angels only.

...for me to review this recording. These are for me at least two special works. The Elgar Cello Concerto has been described as "the final epitaph to the romantic movement" and I wouldn't disagree with that. Who could know that one of very young performers of this piece, Jacqueline du Pré, was herself to fall victim to a crippling disease not long after this recording? EVERYTHING about this recording is superb. It's hardly surprising that few today will dare to rerecord it. I don't want to say more.
The "Enigma" variations, as the name suggests. have remained a mystery ever since they were composed. The style is Brahms, no question, but the tone is well, mysteriously light. If has often been suggested, this sublime Theme and Variations is a portrait of Elgar's friends and lovers, then it is surely unique in music and will go on being listened to for ever. Wonderful performance, a perfect record.

What else can be said about such an enormous performer this very young woman was? One can only make synthesis: integrity, honesty, the direct expression of a profound vision of human drama. She was not a common performer, she really was a gifted one, but this must be kept in second place. A crucial distinction must be done before that: this musician, like some very little others, is the case of a very elevated and cultured person, that also happens to play an instrument. Her sensitivity is even encreased by her very particular tragical situation, which she learned to manage and integrate to her entire artistical production, resulting in a tremendous output of performance masterpieces, where we must also consider as an integral part... her life itself.
Her relation with this particular concert was that of a kind of dialog which lasted a life long. This concert was for her like a mirror where to find her evolving image, and a tribute to her country's cultural contribution too. She played it all along her short life, from the very beggining: she made her debut with this concert when she was (I believe) only 17.
Do not only pay attention to the masterly performance, try to imagine her playing it. After that, try to see the several movies that show her biography, and you will sure make a unique experience by getting to know her as a human being. It's a privilege that we still can have nowadays.

All good. Elgar the way it should be played- plenty of emotion. Late romanticism should be played from the heart- almost to the extreme of 'haming it up'. The tears will roll, the joy of laughter is obvious- its fantastic. I wish today's performers were brave enough to let their hair down sufficiently when playing music from this era.

This recording of the Elgar is absolutely wonderful... it's breathtaking, poignant, playful, and altogether fabulous. I only wish I had been around to see the DuPre/Barenboim magic live...

It was her performance of this piece that brought J. DuPre to international attention and deserveredly so. The intrinsic beauty of the melodies is enhanced by the sensitivity of her playing. Perhaps of all Elgar's music this is one of the most accessible pieces. It is hard to imagine that anyone could listen to this concerto and not be immediately moved by it. Highly recommend!

Enjoy the music!

Of course this is a gorgeous piece, and she is the best. BUT, putting two versions of pomp and circumstance before the concerto is SO irritating. the moods are totally different and they are no preparation for the concerto. Why can't they just make CD's with what you want on them instead of filling them up with things you don't want?

Personally, I think this live performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto, with Daniel Barenboim, is the most profound and moving of all. There's an uncanny rapport between the cellist and the orchestra, and the longer pauses in crucial moments, especially in the slow movement and the finale, only increase the sense of deep Elgarian longing and inevitability of fate. It is a miracle that they manage the perfect marriage of expressive freedom and noble control.

The performance of Enigma Variations already shows the signs of Barenboim's greatness as a conductor to come. Again, he captures all the subtle nuances and deep lyricism of the music, allowing each voice of the orchestra much freedom to express, while his intellectual grasp of the architecture of the whole work never wavering. There is a timeless quality in this performance, as well as in the cello concerto and Elgar's two symphonies, also available from Sony.

Sir Edward Elgar's brilliant Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in E Minor, as well as Variations "Enigma" have been outstandingly performed and presented by the duo of J. Du Pre and conductor Daniel Barenboim. Tragic life of this great cellist as depicted in the famous movie "Jacqueline Du Pre: In Portrait", directed by the award-winning filmmaker Christopher Nupen, captures beautiful performance of this Concerto in 1967.