Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations has received more than sixty recordings since the first version, recorded under the baton of the composer in 1924. The first two recordings were made by the old acoustic process. Following the introduction of the microphone and electrical recording in 1925, Elgar re-recorded the work, taking advantage of the greatly increased realism of the new process. New recordings of the Variations were later made following the introduction of the long playing record in the early 1950s, and after the introduction of stereophonic recording towards the end of the decade. Details of the recordings, below, are taken from The Gramophone . [1]
| Conductor | Orchestra | Label | Date |
| The composer | untitled | HMV | 1924 |
| Sir Henry Wood | New Queen's Hall | Columbia | 1925 |
| The composer | Royal Albert Hall | HMV | 1927 |
| Sir Hamilton Harty | Hallé | Columbia | 1932 |
| Arturo Toscanini | BBC Symphony | HMV | 1935 |
| Sir Henry Wood | Queen's Hall | Decca | 1936 |
| Sir Adrian Boult | BBC Symphony | HMV | 1936 |
| Malcolm Sargent | National Symphony | Decca | 1945 |
| John Barbirolli | Hallé | HMV | 1948 |
| Walter Goehr | Concert Hall Symphony | Nixa | 1953 |
| Sir Malcolm Sargent | London Symphony | Decca | 1953 |
| Sir Adrian Boult | London Philharmonic | HMV | 1953 |
| George Weldon | Philharmonia | Columbia | 1954 |
| Arturo Toscanini | NBC Symphony | RCA | 1954 |
| Sir Thomas Beecham | Royal Philharmonic | Philips | 1955 |
| Sir John Barbirolli | Hallé | Pye | 1957 |
| William Steinberg | Pittsburgh Symphony | Capitol Records | 1957 |
| Sir Malcolm Sargent | Philharmonia | HMV | 1960 |
| Pierre Monteux | London Symphony | RCA | 1961 |
| Sir Adrian Boult | London Philharmonic | World Record Club | 1961 |
| Pierre Monteux | London Symphony | BBC | 1962 [2] |
| Sir John Barbirolli | Philharmonia | HMV | 1963 |
| Colin Davis | London Symphony | Philips | 1965 |
| Sir Malcolm Sargent | BBC Symphony | BBC | 1966 |
| Constantin Silvestri | Bournemouth Symphony | BBC | 1967 [3] |
| Sir Adrian Boult | London Symphony | HMV | 1970 |
| Leopold Stokowski | Czech Philharmonic Orchestra | Decca | 1972 |
| Eugene Ormandy | Philadelphia | CBS | 1972 |
| Zubin Mehta | Los Angeles Philharmonic | Decca | 1973 |
| Norman Del Mar | Royal Philharmonic | Contour | 1975 |
| Eugen Jochum | London Symphony | DG | 1975 |
| Andrew Davis | New Philharmonia | Lyrita | 1975 |
| Bernard Haitink | London Philharmonic | Philips | 1975 |
| Sir Georg Solti | Chicago Symphony | Decca | 1976 |
| Daniel Barenboim | London Philharmonic | CBS | 1976 |
| Sir Charles Groves | Royal Liverpool Philharmonic | HMV | 1978 |
| Neville Marriner | Concertgebouw | Philips | 1979 |
| Sir Alexander Gibson | Scottish National | RCA | 1979 |
| Andrew Davis | Philharmonia | CBS | 1983 |
| Vernon Handley | London Philharmonic | EMI | 1983 |
| Leonard Bernstein | BBC Symphony | DG | 1984 |
| Sir Charles Mackerras | London Philharmonic | HMV | 1986 |
| Yehudi Menuhin | Royal Philharmonic | Philips | 1986 |
| André Previn | Royal Philharmonic | Philips | 1987 |
| Andrew Litton | Royal Philharmonic | Virgin | 1988 |
| Barry Tuckwell | London Symphony | Pickwick | 1989 |
| Hilary Davan Wetton | London Philharmonic | Collins | 1989 |
| Bryden Thomson | London Philharmonic | Chandos | 1989 |
| William Boughton | English Symphony | Nimbus | 1989 |
| Leonard Slatkin | London Philharmonic | RCA | 1989 |
| Giuseppe Sinopoli | Philharmonia | DG | 1989 |
| David Zinman | Baltimore Symphony | Telarc | 1989 |
| Sir Edward Downes | BBC Philharmonic | Conifer | 1991 |
| Andrew Davis | BBC Symphony | Teldec | 1991 |
| Charles Dutoit | Montreal Symphony | Decca | 1991 |
| Sir Simon Rattle | City of Birmingham Symphony | EMI | 1992 |
| James Levine | Berlin Philharmonic | Sony | 1992 |
| Sir Neville Marriner | Academy of St Martin in the Fields | Capriccio | 1993 |
| Christopher Seaman | National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain | Classics | 1993 |
| Rolf Kleinert | Berlin Radio Symphony | Berlin Classics | 1996 |
| Sir Georg Solti | Vienna Philharmonic | Decca | 1997 |
| Adrian Leaper | Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony | Naxos | 1997 |
| George Hurst | Bournemouth Symphony | Naxos | 1998 |
| Stanisław Skrowaczewski | Saarbrücken Radio Symphony | Arte Nova | 1998 |
| Paul Daniel | London Philharmonic | Classic FM | 1999 |
| Sir John Eliot Gardiner | Vienna Philharmonic | DG | 2002 |
| Sir Mark Elder | Hallé | Hallé | 2003 |
| Sakari Oramo | City of Birmingham Symphony | CBSO | 2007 |
| Sir Colin Davis | London Symphony | LSO Live | 2007 |
| Vladimir Ashkenazy | Sydney Symphony | Exton | 2008 [4] [5] |
| Sir Simon Rattle | Berliner Philharmoniker | EMI | 2012 [6] [7] |
| Andrew Constantine | BBC National Orchestra of Wales | Orchid Classics | 2017 |
| David Bernard | Park Avenue Chamber Symphony | Recursive Classics | 2022 |
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.
The Pomp and Circumstance Marches, Op. 39, are a series of five marches for orchestra composed by Sir Edward Elgar. The first four were published between 1901 and 1907, when Elgar was in his forties; the fifth was published in 1930, a few years before his death; and a sixth, compiled posthumously from sketches, was published in 1956 and in 2005–2006. They include some of Elgar's best-known compositions.
Edward Elgar composed his Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, popularly known as the Enigma Variations, between October 1898 and February 1899. It is an orchestral work comprising fourteen variations on an original theme.
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an English orchestra, founded in 1893 and originally based in Bournemouth. With a remit to serve the South and South West of England, the BSO is administratively based in the adjacent town of Poole, since 1979.
Sir John Barbirolli was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings.
Sir Colin Rex Davis was an English conductor, known for his association with the London Symphony Orchestra, having first conducted it in 1959. His repertoire was broad, but among the composers with whom he was particularly associated were Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett.
Frederick William Gaisberg was an American musician, recording engineer and one of the earliest classical music producers for the gramophone. He himself did not use the term 'producer', and was not an impresario like his protégé Walter Legge of EMI or an innovator like John Culshaw of Decca. Gaisberg concentrated on talent-scouting and persuading performers to make recordings for the newly invented Gramophone.
Sir Landon Ronald was an English conductor, composer, pianist, teacher and administrator.
The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory. Elgar disapproved of the use of the term "oratorio" for the work, though his wishes are not always followed. The piece is widely regarded as Elgar's finest choral work, and some consider it his masterpiece.
Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61, is one of his longest orchestral compositions, and the last of his works to gain immediate popular success.
Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A♭ major, Op. 55 is one of his two completed symphonies. The first performance was given by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter in Manchester, England, on 3 December 1908. It was widely known that Elgar had been planning a symphony for more than ten years, and the announcement that he had finally completed it aroused enormous interest. The critical reception was enthusiastic, and the public response unprecedented. The symphony achieved what The Musical Times described as "immediate and phenomenal success", with a hundred performances in Britain, continental Europe and America within just over a year of its première.
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.
In the South (Alassio), Op. 50, is a concert overture composed by Edward Elgar during a family holiday in Italy in the winter of 1903 to 1904. He was working on a symphony, but the local atmosphere inspired him instead to write what some have seen as a tone poem, with an Italian flavour. At about 20 minutes' duration it was the composer's longest sustained orchestral piece to that time.
Falstaff – Symphonic Study in C minor, Op. 68, is an orchestral work by the English composer Edward Elgar. Though not so designated by the composer, it is a symphonic poem in the tradition of Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss. It portrays Sir John Falstaff, the "fat knight" of William Shakespeare's Henry IV Parts 1 and 2.
The Nursery Suite is one of the last compositions by Edward Elgar. Like Elgar's The Wand of Youth suites, it makes use of sketches from the composer's childhood.
The Quintet in A minor for Piano and String Quartet, Op. 84 is a chamber work by Edward Elgar.
Beatrice Harrison was a British cellist active in the first half of the 20th century. She gave first performances of several important English works, especially those of Frederick Delius, and made the first or standard recordings of others, particularly the first recording of Elgar’s cello concerto in 1920 with the composer conducting.
The first recording of Edward Elgar's Symphony No 1 was made by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1930, conducted by the composer for His Master's Voice. The recording was reissued on long-playing record (LP) in 1970, and on compact disc in 1992 as part of EMI's "Elgar Edition" of all the composer's electrical recordings of his works.
The Dream of Gerontius, Edward Elgar's 1900 work for singers and orchestra, had to wait forty-five years for its first complete recording. Sir Henry Wood made acoustic recordings of four extracts from The Dream of Gerontius as early as 1916, with Clara Butt as the angel, and Henry Coward's Sheffield Choir recorded a portion of the Part I "Kyrie" in the same period. Edison Bell recorded the work under Joseph Batten in abridged form in 1924. HMV issued excerpts from two live performances conducted by Elgar in 1927, with the soloists Margaret Balfour, Steuart Wilson, Tudor Davies, Herbert Heyner and Horace Stevens; further portions of the first of those two performances, deemed unfit for publication at the time, have since been published by EMI and other companies.
Edward Elgar's Symphony No 2 was first recorded complete in 1927 by His Master's Voice conducted by the composer. This recording was reissued on LP record and later on compact disc. There was no further recording for seventeen years, until Sir Adrian Boult made the first of his five recordings of the symphony in 1944. Since then there have been many more new recordings, the majority played by British orchestras with seven of them recorded by the London Philharmonic.
