EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934)

1. Civic Fanfare (1927 version)

The Spanish Lady, Op. 89: symphonic suite
Realised from Elgar’s sketches by Martin Yates (2018)
2. i Comedy Overture (Allegro)
3. ii Adagio (Adagio molto)
4. iii Scherzo and Aria (Allegro)
5. iv Finale (Allegro)

6. Civic Fanfare (undated version)

Organ Sonata in G, Op. 28 (1895)
Orchestrated by Gordon Jacob (1946)
7. i Allegro maestoso
8. ii Allegretto
9. iii Andante espressivo
10. iv Presto (comodo)

11. Civic Fanfare (1933 version)

Severn Suite, Op. 87 (1930 orch. 1931)
12. i Introduction: Worcester Castle (Pomposo)
13. ii Toccata: Tournament (Allegro molto)
14. iii Fugue: The Cathedral (Andante)
15. iv Minuet: In the Commandery (Moderato)
16. v Coda (Lento – Pomposo)

ROYAL SCOTTISH NATIONAL ORCHESTRA conducted by MARTIN YATES
CHRISTOPHER NICKOL organ
WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING [1-6]
FIRST DIGITAL RECORDING [11]

Multi-ch Stereo
All tracks available in stereo and multi-channel

SA-CD
This hybrid CD can be played on any standard CD players

This disc contains four works that have evolved from Elgar’s original versions. The two works wholly from Elgar’s pen are the Severn Suite, commissioned for the 1930 National Brass Band Championships, which Elgar arranged for orchestra the following year; and Civic Fanfare, commissioned for the 1927 Three Choirs Festival. Perhaps best known for its unusual orchestration and convoluted history, recent research has shown the fanfare’s oral history to be substantially wide of the mark. This disc contains all three versions handed down to us, which allow the keen-eared to appreciate how Elgar developed the work in the six weeks from commission to first performance. The Organ Sonata, written for a convention of American organists visiting Worcester in 1895, was orchestrated by Gordon Jacob in 1946, and in this form brings out the full splendour of Elgar’s original. But the real discovery is Martin Yates’s symphonic suite on themes from Elgar’s unfinished opera The Spanish Lady. Who knows how Elgar may have reworked the sketches and fragments he had assembled for the opera by his death; but one can only hope it would have been as Elgarian as the work Yates presents us with here.

"... now comes Martin Yates ... own elaboration [Spanish Lady] Most gratifying it is too. ... has been deftly assimilated into a four-movement symphonic suite." "Yeats also presides over a new version of Gordon Jacob's gorgeous orchestration of Elgar's Organ Sonata ... it emerges here with comparably flying colours, Yates's affectionately unhurred approach paying especial dividends in the middle movements ...” "All told, a conspicuously rewarding and generously full anthology that no Elgarian will want to miss. Dutton's enticiingly ripe sound ad copious presentation are the icing on the cake." Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, September 2019