Circumstance

Menuhin - as is well known - recorded the Elgar Violin Concerto with the composer conducting. In many respects these recordings of the Symphonies sound as if Elgar was still standing at Menuhin's side. No other recordings come closer to the spirit and style of Elgar's own conducting of these works. But this is not mere imitation. Menhuin was a musician of the very first rank - with a remarkable ear and attention to detail. The phrasing is always beautiful and the rhythm alert and alive. These is nothing pompous about these performances - everything is full of vigour and feeling. Playing and recording are excellent.

Elgar's two symphonies are good example of interpretations of music being stuck thanks to the strange British conservatism. If you listen to 10 recordings of these symphonies by 10 British conductors, they all sound more or less same in terms of interpretation: controlled, noble, beautiful Elgarian rubato and so on.

The music of Edward Elgar (1857-1934) is as unmissable in the British landscape as the red of the double-decker buses and telephone booths that appear on the cover of our new Indispensable. Of the five steps of "Pomp & Circumstance" (the title is borrowed from a passage from Shakespeare's "Othello"), the first (1901) remains the most famous. In the lively radiance of his introduction as in his trio imbued with pride, gravity and dignity all at the same time, Adrian Boult wears, in 1955, an elegant authority, an absolutely irresistible smirk - and what relief!