ELGAR:
SYMPHONY NO.1, IN THE SOUTH
English
Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Woods
ESO
Records
Even before we begin to listen to this well-intentioned release there is a problem. Why on earth put the Overture at the end, when listeners might well wish just to sit and ponder the peroration of the Symphony, perhaps while savouring the informative and indeed moving insert-notes?
So I shall impose my own playing order, and review Elgar’s In
the South Overture first. This is a live recording from Worcester Cathedral
during the Elgar Festival of 2022, Artistic Director Kenneth Woods conducting
the resident English Symphony Orchestra, and there is an inevitable garbling
and overlooking of detail in this acoustic.
Elgar’s great advocate Richard Strauss is evoked here, Woods
bursting in with a grip worthy of that composer’s Don Juan, and immediately
banishing any comparisons with his deathly Aus Italien. As the performance
progresses, though, we miss the moments of intimacy which also arise, for
example, in Elgar’s Falstaff, but also feel the need for more power and
inexorability in the grinding Roman passage. The Canto Popolare has a
touchingly-delivered viola solo from Carl Hill, and Woods follows this with a
well-built recapitulation. But all is a trifle subdued in this performance – we
need more surge --, and the strings are a tad light – which will be a serious
issue in the performance of Elgar’s First Symphony.
The Symphony was recorded in Worcester Cathedral with the
same forces during the Elgar Festival of 2023, and Woods’ opening tread
combines both nobility and an appropriate sense of unease. As the first
movement unfolds, the conductor is not afraid to swagger his tempi, nor to hold
back, but at the great climaxes we become aware that again the strings are light,
underpowered (only three double basses). The only instruments which seem to
benefit from this cloudy acoustic are the horns.
The second movement begins with a striking opening attack,
with a decidedly more liberated feel after the somewhat constrained opening
movement. Zoe Beyers’ violin solos are evocative in the lovely riverside
interludes, and the acoustic does release some eloquent trombone detail.
Woods shapes a natural, supple transition into the slow
movement, which unfolds with genuinely-felt nuance, but again we are aware of
the lightness of the string complement. Nevertheless, an introspective and
confessional atmosphere is built, and the introduction of material presaging
the finale is gently handled.
The opening of the final movement is fabulously expectant,
with crunchy, crisp bassoons. This performance has given me a realisation of
how simultaneously similar and different are the openings of the symphony’s
first and fourth movements! But the violin runup into the Allegro is
disappointingly puny, control is over-tight in the development section where
perhaps a more devil-may-care attitude is needed.
Everyone weeps at the wonderful episode in which the strings
sing the main melody in double time over a tinkling harp accompaniment, but
here they are again underpowered. From here on, though, Woods builds to a
properly climactic return of the motto-theme.
Applause is more politely muted than this
genuinely-committed performance deserved, but the fact remains that Kenneth
Woods has the potential to be a great Elgar conductor if only he could let
himself go and release himself from feeling the need to nurse an underpowered
orchestra.
Christopher Morley