Murdoch Mysteries Series10

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) began his career as a professional violinist and became a composer quite by accident. In fact, his reputation as a composer only came in his mid 30s. He had planned to write a violin concerto as early as 1890, but it took nearly two decades before he finally completed one. Finally in 1910 he wrote his sole Violin Concerto fulfilling a request by Fritz Kreisler who once declared that he regarded Elgar to be ‘the greatest living composer…. on an equal footing with my idols, Beethoven and Brahms’.

The recent ‘discovery’ of the music of Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944) belies the fact that in the early years of the 20th century she was immensely popular, touring both Europe and the US as a pianist, exclusively in her own music. Changing fashions brought an abrupt end to this fame, but in the first thirty years of the recording industry, over 80 discs of her piano music alone were released. Her own discs from 1901, presented complete here, are some of the earliest by a classical pianist. Many of her most popular pieces were recorded multiple times, but this set presents chronologically at least one version of every work recorded on 78s and introduces as many different pianists as practical.