Elgar: The Light of Life

Advantages: The Best Recording Ever
Disadvantages: None

...Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85 Jacqueline du Pre and the LSO, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli Madam, you have an instrument between your legs capable of giving pleasure to thousands, and all you can do is sit there and scratch it! So said the eminently witty conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, in reference to a lady ‘cellist. He certainly wasn’t, however, referring to the unmatchable Jacqueline du Pre, who, in my humble opinion, was the most gifted cellist ever and whose short, tragic life is somehow augured by this melancholic recording. It’s an EMI classic, which means that it’s an old, old recording, but so good that it shouldn’t be lost at the bottom of a pile of old vinyls at a jumble sale, but digitally re-mastered and made available for future generations on CD. The original... Read review

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Advantages: It is simply one of the finest pieces of music ever written
Disadvantages: How dare you ask of any disadvantges!?!

...THE MAN: SIR EDWARD ELGAR It's probably futile for me to tell you who is Edward Elgar. To the British readers here he holds about the same position as Sibelius does for me as a Finn, being THE composer whose musical language captures the ideologies of the country, working as a kind of stereotypical signature for the people. Elgar was born in 1857 as the son of a music shop owner and through a course of self-instruction became a masterful orchestrator and soon found himself as a reknowned choral composer with a great deal of choral works and other religiously titled pieces to his credit. However, it was not until 1899 that his reputation was sealed as a truly great composer when he wrote the masterful "Variations on an Original Theme 'Enigma'", which contained musical portraits of friends of Elgar and became an instant success. After... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Highly burnished, engaging, musically intelligent and emotionally mature playing; beautiful tone is never saccharine.
Disadvantages: Nil.

...It would be one of the most daunting works to take on for any musician, given the history of its recording, yet British cellist Natalie Clein decided to do it. It took her some ten years to get to the point where she felt ready to tackle it again for posterity, and this CD gives her good reason to be proud. ELGAR'S CELLO CONCERTO AND DU PRÉ So what's so intimidating about Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto? Besides its call in the performer for technical virtuosity and a mature musical understanding of the piece, the concerto has also been inextricably linked with Jacqueline du Pré (1945 - 1987), cellist extraordinaire, who was tragically struck down at the prime of life by multiple sclerosis. Her landmark 1965 recording, made when she was just twenty (with John Barbirolli conducting the London Symphony Orchestra), is still hallowed by... Read review

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