New label, first release, with Kenneth Woods conducting it had to be Elgar, seventy-nine minutes’ worth. In the South is exuberant and sultry (the latter quality especially evident in the episode with a viola, a solo tenderly played) as part of a joined-up performance in which tempos are well-judged, persuasively languorous in places, detail freshly mined, conductor and orchestra at-one with their Elgarian experiences, perceptions, instincts and preparations, well-recorded in Worcester Cathedral, a sympathetic additive to the sound. Similarly, Woods’s conducting of the First Symphony has an ebb and flow that satisfies the moment and the whole. It’s an absorbing account, instructive, too – although the violins may be thought too few at times, further ‘reduced’ by being antiphonal (however pertinent that arrangement) – with the Adagio movingly eloquent and the Finale thrillingly cumulative. ESO2501 (applause retained) is enthusiastically recommended. Sibelius next.
https://www.ulyssesarts.com/ua-press-centre/eso-elgar-album-28-mar-2025