Help with Elgar's Second

[Elgarian]

I did say I think I'd take Chung, meaning, I'm seriously considering, for the first time ever, another suitor. A few more blah blahs might just turn me 

'Little does he know', sniggered Elgarian, twirling his long moustache and wickedly recharging the blah blah machine ....

[OK, OK, I'm just joking Sarge. I don't have a moustache.]

[71 dB]

Talking about Elgar's 2nd, I have Downes, Slatkin, Elder, Sinopoli and Sargent. Downes is my favorite. Slatkin and Elder are fine too. Sinopoli I find weird and Sargent suffers from bad mono sound. I don't usually buy many persormances of same works. This is my absolute favorite symphony and I have "already" 5 versions, two donated kindly by GMG members.   

[Sergeant Rock]

Sinopoli I find weird

Weird, yes. Of course that's why I like it so much    I just realized my entire CD collection of Seconds is weird actually (Barbirolli, C. Davis, Solti, Tate, Haitink, Sinopoli, Svetlanov). I do have Elgar conducting, and I have Boult on LP, but other than those two I have none of versions usually recommended by British critics: no Andrew Davis, no Handley, no Downes, no Boult on CD. I should rectify that but the only Second I'm really lusting for right now is another "weird" one: Barenboim. "He underlines and exaggerates the contrast of tempi, pulling the music out to the expansive limit."--Penguin. My kind of Second 

Sarge

[karlhenning]

[OK, OK, I'm just joking Sarge. I don't have a moustache.]

Then . . . what have you been doing with the wax??!!

[Elgarian]

Then . . . what have you been doing with the wax??!!

Waxing lyrical about Elgar of course.

[Todd]

I've listened to both the Slatkin recording of the Second and the Sinopoli twofer of both symphonies and other works.  Both were quite good.  The Slatkin was closer to Boult, but the playing was more nuanced and beautiful to my ears.  Very good.  The Sinopoli was something else.  Sinopoli seems to have brought a more operatic approach to the works.  His First was so much better than Boult's that it scarcely seemed to be the same work.  I swear it sounded like an opera without words; I could easily envision a aria here, a duet there, and a choral part somewhere else.  The Second had less of that, but it was still present.  The extended times also didn't make the works seem slow.  If anything, it added additional contrast to the music.  Perhaps I'm not a true Elgarian, which is fine by me, but I rather fancy Sinopoli here.