Amazon.co.uk Review
In the sleeve note to this recording of Elgar's Symphony No.1, conductor Sir Colin Davis is quoted as saying that age is impressing upon him the desire to look for more space in his musical interpretations. "There is no virtue in driving things just for the sake of it, which is a temptation of youth," he says. Well, this is certainly the music-making of a mature Elgarian, broadly conceived though never too stately, carefully paced, lovingly phrased, before the symphony really comes off the leash in the finale. Overall, some will prefer the more intense energy of a
Solti or indeed of
Elgar himself, but this is a distinguished Elgar One. Just occasionally there is a sense of the reading being over-studied--maybe in part due to the sheer clarity of the sound engineered by the legendary Tony Faulkner--natural and full-bodied, but affording almost too much detail in the somewhat confined acoustic of London's Barbican Centre. But there are some great moments--the building of tension in the rapt slow movement, for example, and especially in the closing section of the finale from the point where the main theme magically reappears at half the original speed, then on to the triumphant conclusion. --
Andrew Green
The Guardian, December 6, 2002
Classical CDs of the Year