Customer Reviews

The Lighter Elgar

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I first bought "The Lighter Elgar" from the MHS in cassette form about 25 years ago. It was only about 45 minutes long, but each track was a gem. I have finally found this album in CD format with about twice as many tracks on it. It contains all of the original tape and then again as many other tracks. If you like light British music that doesn't sound like marching band music, you will probably like it. Tracks 9 to the end are the original tape tracks. You won't find some of this music anywhere else, or at least anywhere I've looked, and I've looked for 25 years.

It's a shame that this CD includes only half of the original miniature Elgar recordings by Collingwood, released on LP with the picture of a boy & bicycle, which included the most heart-felt and magical performance of The Serious Doll from Nursery Suite (the most sublime flute playing you can imagine!). Each work on this cd, conducted by Collingwood, is unsurpassed in its noble beauty and warmth of expression. Dream Children for example, is miraculously atmospheric and other-worldly (probably impossible to perform this piece better then this). Frederick Harvey's rendition of Organ-Ginder's songs is also hard to beat. Bryn Terfel made wonderful recording of the same songs with Mackerras, but still can not match the deeply moving and imaginative reading by Harvey.

In contrast, Marriner's accounts of Elgar miniatures sound very conventional and business-like.

In 1982 I was a teenage closet novelist yet to be published. My father had a membership with the Musical Heritage Society and classical music records were playing in our house most of the time. This particular record, The Lighter Elgar, was one of the few that I "lifted" from my father's collection early on. It was simply lovely. On an old portable turntable in my bedroom it was only ever removed from infinite repeats by Mozart's 40th (the Deutsche Grammophon release) and occasionally Queen. Many a short story plucked out of that manual typewriter had "Carissima" or "May Song" as their theme music. ~~~ Years have passed and I was anxious to find a cd to replace my old worn out record and was ecstatic to find it here on Amazon! In addition to the eleven tracks on the cd conducted my Neville Marriner that appear on my father's album the first eight pieces are also beautiful examples of Elgar's amazing works. I highly recommend this recording to anyone who enjoys lovely, charming classical melodies.