Edward Elgar – From the Bavarian Highlands (CD, Br-Klassik)

As a composer of English-language choral songs, Elgar is still little-known on the European mainland; in the United Kingdom, however, the situation is very different. The country has long had a lively choral scene, focusing primarily on English music from Purcell and Handel to Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford and Elgar, all the way to Benjamin Britten and todays contemporary composers. The program on this CD has been compiled and conducted by the Englishman Howard Arman, one of todays most knowledgeable experts on British choral music and artistic director of the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and these recordings should do much to boost the popularity of this highly appealing music on the European mainland as well. In addition to the six songs of the cycle From the Bavarian Highlands op. 27 (1895), the CD also contains Elgar’s Spanish Serenade op. 23 (1891), the Two Partsongs op. 26 (1894), As Torrents in Summer from op. 30 (1896), Five Partsongs from the Greek Anthology op. 45 (1902), Weary Wind of the West (1902/1930), The Reveille op. 54 (1907), Go, Song of Mine op. 57 (1909), the elegy They Are at Rest (1909) and The Prince of Sleep (1925).