MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Elgar: Symphonies 1 & 2 / etc

"Solti's way with the First Symphony is certainly exciting - some might say excitable. Listening to it again after so many years there were passages in the first movement that really made me sit up because the pace was uncommonly fast. Yet, when I turned to Elgar's own recording and in particular to the passages where I'd raised a question mark over Solti's pacing - such as the passage from 5:22 or again the stretch between 7:55 and 9:20 - I found that Elgar's approach was not dissimilar. In other words, although more 'centrist' interpreters such as Boult, Elder or Handley may offer an approach which is more familiar to us, Solti has a precedent on his side. Overall, I felt that his reading of the first movement can be rather breathless in places but it's vivid, urgent and exciting." MusicWeb