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Elgar - Symphony no.1
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Label: Decca
Cat No: 4789353
Barcode: 0028947893530
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Orchestral
Release Date: 18th March 2016
In its voicings and especially in its gradations of string tone, the performance seems to fix Elgar’s orchestral writing even more firmly into the context of post-Wagnerian romanticism than before; the veiled sound for the opening motto theme immediately evokes memories of Parsifal, while the slow movements sometimes acquire a Brucknerian spaciousness. 
Daniel Barenboim's Elgar Symphony No. 1 – so eagerly expected on disc after his recording of No. 2 two years ago – doesn't sound quite like anyone else's. This is particularly the case in the first movement, a 20-minute music-drama in itself; as Barenboim heaves back the reins just before the first reminiscence of the march, one half expects to hear a Wagner tuba. ... Barenboim has here made this symphony his own. 
Barenboim’s long association with, and love for, Elgar has effectively made it part of his musical DNA. He understands its particulars and, to put it simply, he knows how it goes. And because he is a master he has somehow communicated all of that, both in practical and spiritual terms, to an orchestra for whom it is relatively unfamiliar. That is the really startling achievement here and it manifests itself in playing that is as exciting as it is nuanced and which can turn on a sixpence because Barenboim and his players ‘read’ each other so well. That which might sound mannered in other hands (though it must be said that Barenboim has matured and refined his ‘expressivity’) is here so naturally achieved. ... This is up there, you’ll have gathered, with the very finest that the gramophone has yet given us of this great – and finally, I hope, universally celebrated – symphony. 
