Sir Colin Davis and the LSO recorded Elgar’s symphonies live at a series of acclaimed concerts at the Barbican during Autumn 2001. The LSO has a long and illustrious association with Elgar and his music. He conducted the LSO in 1904, the year it was founded, and was later to become its Principal Conductor. Over recent years Sir Colin Davis, the current Principal Conductor, has established an unrivalled reputation in Elgar’s music.
’"The LSO’s superb musicians play like men and women possessed."
"The greatest living Elgarian. There is a breadth and structural completeness about it that does justice to Elgar’s vision ... sustained tonally and technically as only the LSO can."
"A marvellously fresh interpretation ... performed here with rare, unsentimental vigour."
"Startlingly daring but what emerges is a totally unified view." *****
"Terrific and deeply satisfying" *****
"Sir Colin Davis’s live recordings with the LSO are rapidly establishing themselves as benchmarks of the catalogue ... This new disc is scarcely less essential."
"No other orchestra is better equipped than the LSO to perform Elgar’s music - the composer conducted them in their first season and maintained close links until his death ... a magnificent performance." *** EDITOR’S CHOICE ***
