GREAT RECORDINGS phase 15

ELGAR: VIOLIN CONCERTO* · INTRODUCTION AND ALLEGRO
Nigel Kennedy*
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley

3 45792 2
(Angel: 3 45793 2)
Recorded 1983 & *1984
Stereo/DDD
69 minutes

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‘Kennedy’s recording of the Concerto is not to be missed. The violinist amazes with his total command. In alliance with a conductor second to none as an Elgar interpreter, Kennedy produces a reading to match any in imagination and technical mastery.’
(The Gramophone)
Awards: Gramophone & BPI, GB

On its first release in 1984, this recording of Elgar’s Violin Concerto played by the 27-year-old Nigel Kennedy with Vernon Handley and the London Philharmonic Orchestra caused a huge stir and helped to establish the violinist as a major star. In 1985 the disc won two Gramophone Awards, including ‘Record of the Year’, and was also named ‘Best Classical Album of the Year’ by the British Phonographic Industry.

But the recording was no fluke. Kennedy had already played the work many times in public, not least with Handley, one of the finest British conductors of his generation and a noted Elgarian (as he proves not only as the sympathetic accompanist in the concerto but also in the idiomatic performance of the Introduction and Allegro, which opens this new disc).

Though Kennedy went on to record the Elgar a second time (in 1997 with Sir Simon Rattle), this earlier version has established its place in the line of landmark recordings of Elgar’s masterpiece, starting with Albert Sammons and Henry Wood in 1929 and the 16-year-old Yehudi Menuhin, Kennedy’s mentor, with the composer himself in 1932.

Written for the composer’s own instrument, the concerto is on a large scale (lasting over 50 minutes and with a substantial accompanied cadenza during the last of its three movements). The work is dedicated to the great Austrian-born violinist Fritz Kreisler, who gave the first performance in 1910. The Introduction and Allegro is a further example of Elgar’s mastery in his writing for stringed instruments. Scored for string quartet and string orchestra, the piece was written for a concert of Elgar’s music given by the recently formed London Symphony Orchestra in March 1905.