Elgar Symphonies No. 1 & 2

In 1907 Elgar’s wife Alice wrote in her diary that her husband was playing a ‘great beautiful tune’. This became the opening theme of his First Symphony; the march is marked ‘nobilmente e semplice’ (nobly and simply). This tune reappears throughout the work, finally heard for the last time in the coda to the finale.

Elgar’s Second Symphony was composed over the course of some years, and is an intensely personal work. The composer described it as ‘the passionate pilgrimage of a soul’ and said that the Rondo was associated with lines from one of Tennyson’s poems, beginning ‘Dead, long dead’.

This release also includes Elgar’s Overture Froissart.

This recording was made as part of the Philharmonia’s 2007 Elgar series.