Elgar / Halle Orchestra / Coote / Elder - Sir Edward Elgar: Sea Pictures - Poloni, Op. 76 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

One of the most exciting events I have experienced during a reviewing career approaching half a century, was the verdict of the Birmingham Post's critic after hearing the premiere performance of Elgar's Piano Quintet in a new orchestration by Donald Fraser, with Kenneth Woods conducting the English Symphony Orchestra. This version, which was also named a InchPremiere of the YearInch by Classical Music magazine, appears in a studio recording alongside Fraser's choral arrangement of Elgar's Sea Pictures, with Woods conducting the English Chamber Orchestra and the Rodolfus Choir. Fraser has frequently orchestrated works by Elgar at the behest of individuals and organizations including Yehudi Menuhin and the Elgar Society.

Wilhelm Goldner (1839-1907) was one of the many composer-pianists who populated European musical life in the nineteenth century. Born in Hamburg, six years after Brahms, he trained in Leipzig and made his name and his living in Paris, where his attractive and easy-going music became a favorite of the salons. His first Suite moderne for piano duet, written in 1875, proved so popular that his asked for more, and over the next twelve years Goldner composed five further Suites modernes. Although all six were reprinted in 1904 (by Universal in Vienna, no less), they have long since slipped from sight, and these first recordings restore their charms to modern audiences.

E. Elgar - Music for Organ [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/17/1995