Elgar's Hillside

[Karl Henning]

They are pre-occupied with the three Delius sonatas.

(* chortle *)

[Leo K.]

Wow, a truly magnificent Elgar 2nd! And the sound for this 1944 recording is not bad at all, it's got punch! The opening is so clear and driven, with the horns wonderfully captured with fierceness and herocism - great and inspiring!

[André]

That's one of the versions included in the 19-disc EMI set. Hopefully the sound will hold up to your assessment !

[Mirror Image]

They are pre-occupied with the three Delius sonatas.

[Mirror Image]

I've really been enjoying Nigel Kennedy's second outing with Elgar's Violin Concerto:



Such a poetic performance. Kennedy is in top-form here.

[Moonfish]

Received some additional fuel for my TDoG addiction today....   

[asin] B00007IFQG[/asin]

[André]

This is one of my top five Gerontiuses 

[Karl Henning]

"Gerontii"?...

[Moonfish]

This is one of my top five Gerontiuses 

Good to hear!     Now I can enter its waters without fear!  0:) 0:) 0:)

[knight66]

It is good and Palmer is always worth listening to. She is still singing the likes of Clytemnestra well onto her 70s. But all round, everyone in that Hickox recording provides a lot of pleasure.

Mike

[André]

"Gerontii"?...

Bus, buses, bii ? 

[Jo498]

I'd go with somnia

[knight66]

"Gerontii"?...

Dreams of Gerontius?

Mike

[André]

Righte now, listening to disc one of the EMI Elgar-Boult box. Cockaigne, Froissart, Serenade Chanson de nit, Chanson de matin, Three Bavarian Dances,  Meditation from The Light of Life, Imperial March, Triumphal March from Caractacus.

[Mirror Image]

Righte now, listening to disc one of the EMI Elgar-Boult box. Cockaigne, Froissart, Serenade Chanson de nit, Chanson de matin, Three Bavarian Dances,  Meditation from The Light of Life, Imperial March, Triumphal March from Caractacus.

Very nice, Andre. What do you think about this Boult set so far?

[André]

Very nice, Andre. What do you think about this Boult set so far?

Righte now listening to disc 3 (yesterday was devoted to, you guessed right: disc no. 2) !!

It's a winner through and through. These (discs 1-3) are among the last from the maestro and they are so alive with fine details, surging flow, a constant mobility. Amazing: who has ever conducted the potentially trite P&C Marches so winningly: no 1 is fast yet all its nobilmente character comes through like a flower opening in full glory in the dewy morning sun. I mean: how did he achieve that pomp AND circumstance feeling ??

I have said it on another (French language) forum: this is probably the best composer+single conductor set on the market. Grab it !

[Mirror Image]

Righte now listening to disc 3 (yesterday was devoted to, you guessed right: disc no. 2) !!

It's a winner through and through. These (discs 1-3) are among the last from the maestro and they are so alive with fine details, surging flow, a constant mobility. Amazing: who has ever conducted the potentially trite P&C Marches so winningly: no 1 is fast yet all its nobilmente character comes through like a flower opening in full glory in the dewy morning sun. I mean: how did he achieve that pomp AND circumstance feeling ??

I have said it on another (French language) forum: this is probably the best composer+single conductor set on the market. Grab it !

I own this set of course. Yes, I agree, Boult had a wonderful way with Elgar and I didn't always hear it because I was under the opinion that Barbirolli couldn't be bettered. Well, guess again! It's hard to beat either conductor in Elgar, though. I don't like the Pomp & Circumstance Marches either but, you're right, Boult made them sound like they were more than mere ceremonial works. I still don't like these works.

[Mirror Image]

I've really been enjoying this recording tonight:



I haven't listened to anything but the Violin Sonata and it was simply an exquisite performance from Mordkovitch/Milford, although, I still like the Crayford/Brown (Nash Ensemble) performance on Hyperion a lot, which is a bit more emotionally reserved and conveys a different kind of mood --- more of an inward, withdrawn type of interpretation, which suits this music fine IMHO. It's nice to have both of these contrasting performances.

[Mirror Image]

I've really been enjoying this recording tonight:



I haven't listened to anything but the Violin Sonata and it was simply an exquisite performance from Mordkovitch/Milford, although, I still like the Crayford/Brown (Nash Ensemble) performance on Hyperion a lot, which is a bit more emotionally reserved and conveys a different kind of mood --- more of an inward, withdrawn type of interpretation, which suits this music fine IMHO. It's nice to have both of these contrasting performances.

Okay, so I went back and listened to this Mordkovitch/Milford performance of the Violin Sonata again and the result this time left a lot to be desired. I find this performance simply emotionally overboard. I don't think there's any subtlety in Mordkovitch's playing and I don't really care much for her tone. I love this work, but I don't like this kind of interpretation. I prefer something more withdrawn and somber. Mordkovitch/Milford perform this work like it's early-to-mid period Elgar when we all know his chamber music is the work of a broken man who seems to have taken all of his sadness and infused it into these pieces. So I stand by my favorite performance Crayford/Brown for now until I find another performance that can take this music into an even deeper state of despair.

[Elgarian]

Okay, so I went back and listened to this Mordkovitch/Milford performance of the Violin Sonata again and the result this time left a lot to be desired. I find this performance simply emotionally overboard. I don't think there's any subtlety in Mordkovitch's playing and I don't really care much for her tone. I love this work, but I don't like this kind of interpretation. I prefer something more withdrawn and somber. Mordkovitch/Milford perform this work like it's early-to-mid period Elgar when we all know his chamber music is the work of a broken man who seems to have taken all of his sadness and infused it into these pieces. So I stand by my favorite performance Crayford/Brown for now until I find another performance that can take this music into an even deeper state of despair.

I'm baffled, John. What happened between the first post (#2639 -which reported that you really enjoyed the recording) and the second, half an hour later (#2640 - which said you didn't)?

I'm not sure how I'd feel about listening to any recording twice in a row, straight, like that. But what particularly strikes me about the second post is this comment: 'I don't think there's any subtlety in Mordkovitch's playing'. Of course whether you like it or not is one thing. Anyone can like or dislike anything. But surely one thing that Mordkovitch has in bucketloads is subtlety in this performance? It was her subtlety - the apparently infinite layering of nuance, that first alerted me to it. Forgive me for quoting myself again, from the occasion when I compared her with Hugh Bean:

Bean v Mordkovitch. The first minute of the first movement says it all, in a way. Bean is marvellous, full of attack, almost aggressive. But Mordkovitch sounds completely different. Her tone is different, but I can't find words to fit - it's like comparing fine and coarse sandpaper, perhaps. She makes Bean sound as if he's lacking in finesse, more monodimensional in character. Her attack in the first minute is just as powerful as his, but it's like quicksilver, rising and falling in waves, with faster shifts of tone and pace. I get the impression she's actually playing faster than Bean (and checking the timings, I see that indeed she is, by a second or two when completing that first section. Bean is wonderful, but Mordkovitch makes him seem rather plodding by comparison.

This tendency carries on right through into the introduction of the second theme, where she seems to find nuances that Bean misses. For instance, you know how there's a long sustained high note starting at about 1m43s in Bean, and continuing for about 5 seconds? It's a lovely moment, poised somewhere between happiness and pain. Well, when Mordkovitch plays that, she seems to touch some sort of ethereal realm, where the note begins with exquisite delicacy and then fades with equal tenderness at the end. Her playing reminds me of those drawings by Rossetti of Elizabeth Siddal, where the pencil work rises from the page so delicately that you can't tell where the paper/pencil boundary is.

Obviously something wasn't right when you listened that second time, and something clearly was turning you off. But I wonder if you're sure you've identified the cause correctly?

There's also an interesting debate to be had about whether Elgar should be thought of as 'a broken man' when he was writing these late chamber pieces. Certainly he was disillusioned (he had a tendency for disillusionment!), but he'd found this isolated cottage at Brinkwells and was finding a kind of (troubled) peace there which inspired the great chamber works. There's deep sadness to be felt within them, yes - but great beauty too: would a 'broken man' be able to write such exquisite music as these chamber pieces? (The term might be more accurately applied to him after the death of Alice, perhaps, when for a long time he became unable or unwilling to compose anything of substance.)

I suppose we're into that frequently encountered area of paradox in art whereby the work that's created presents itself as a kind of answer to disillusionment, creating a mood that hovers between elation and regret. (I'm thinking of things like Matthew Arnold's 'Dover Beach', or much of Ted Hughes's poetry.) Mordkovitch seems to take me closer to that teetering, quivering edge than any other performance that I know. I've never experienced it myself as 'emotionally overboard', but of course the details of our emotional responses are not predictable things. And I guess that the performance that shocks us with its greatness on one occasion can be simply too much to take, on another.