Elgar: Falstaff / Cello Concerto / Romance for Bassoon / Smoking Cantata

***** Five Stars BBC Music Magazine (June 2004)

"The playing is glorious, and the recording does it full justice; what what really makes this Falstaff outstanding is Mark Elder's engagement with the musical storyline. A pleasant performance of the Romance is followed by a truly remarkable rendition of the Cello Concerto…Schiff brings a focused intensity." (BBC Music)

"A masterly reading of a great score ... Elder draws stunning playing from the Hallé"
(MusicWeb Sept 2004)

Mark Elder CBE, Music Director of the Hallé and Winner in the Classical Category of the 2003 Time Out Awards, says of this disc:

"The four pieces on this CD - two substantial, two small scale - knit together in an unexpected way. The solo bassoon is a crucial voice in Elgar's portrayal of Falstaff, the fat knight (1915), but it is a comic, satirical voice. The mellow, lyrical side of the bassoon surfaces in the wistful Romance (1910).

That autumnal quality pervades much of the Cello Concerto (1919), which, in its last movement, also contains the rumbustious spirit so prominent in Falstaff.

The tiny Smoking Cantata is a curiosity - here receiving its first ever recording. One of the earliest play-throughs of the Concerto took place in the country house of a confirmed non-smoker… Elgar's sense of fun was clearly the equal of Falstaff's!"

Mark Elder became Music Director of the Hallé in September 2000. Following critical acclaim for his many concerts with the Orchestra in Manchester, London and throughout England, he recently led the Hallé during a highly successful residency in Vienna. Frequently invited to work with many of the world's leading symphony orchestras and opera companies, he was awarded the CBE by the Queen in 1989 and won an Olivier Award for his outstanding work at English National Opera, where he was Music Director between 1979 and 1993.

He was Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1992 to 1995, and Music Director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in the USA from 1989 to 1994. He has also held positions as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. In addition to working with orchestras all over the world (including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris) he enjoys a close association with both the London Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE). He has appeared annually at the BBC Proms for many years, including, in 1987, the Last Night, and in 2001 he conducted the Hallé in a memorable Verdi Centenary Celebration.

During his years at ENO he brought international acclaim to the company for its work in London, as well as leading tours to the USA and Russia. He is a frequent guest with the Royal Opera, Metropolitan Opera in New York, Opéra National de Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich. Other guest engagements have taken him to the Bayreuth Festival (where he was the first British conductor to conduct a new production), Amsterdam, Berlin and Sydney. In collaboration with the director Barrie Gavin, he made a two-part film on the life and music of Verdi for BBC TV in 1994, which was followed by a similar project on Donizetti for German television in 1996. He has conducted Verdi's Otello and Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila for the Metropolitan Opera. Other recent opera engagements have included Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande for the Opéra National de Paris, Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress for Glyndebourne, Verdi's La battaglia di Legnano, Rossini's La Cenerentola for the Royal Opera, Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and, recently, Weber's Euryanthe for Glyndebourne, which was also broadcast live on Radio 3 as part of the BBC Proms and Puccini's Turandot at the Bastille, Paris.