Elgar - Falstaff, Symphonic Study • Enigma Variations • Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5

New Philharmonia Orchestra, Andrew Davis, conductor

Label: Lyrita
Copyright: 2008 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England
Catalogue number: SRCD.301
UPC/EAN: 5020926030122
Format: CD
Analogue / Digital recording: ADD
Number of discs: 1
Total playing time: 68.46
Price: £ 14.99 (+ postage & packing)

Recorded at Walthamstow Assembly Hall, 4 & 5 January 1974, Producer: Michael Woolcock, Engineers: Kenneth Wilkinson & John Dunkerley


Elgar composed Falstaff in 1913, though he made some sketches in 1902 (the year after Cockaigne, with which Falstaff has several affinities). In his detailed and indispens able analytical note, he emphasised that the listener should forget the buffoon of The Merry Wives of Windsor and concentrate on the Falstaff of Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. He cites Maurice Morgann's description of Falstaff as "a conception hardly less complex, hardly less wonderful than that of Hamlet" made "wholly of incongruities... a knight, a gentleman and a soldier, without either dignity, decency or honour". Elgar was equally complex, and the work is another, perhaps the greatest, addition to his musical portrait-gallery in which there was always room for self-portraits. Falstaff's quixotic humour, his dreams of the innocence of youth beyond recall, his delight at being in the apple orchards of the Severn country, are Elgar’s too. This is Elgar's Falstaff rather than Shakespeare's.


Falstaff, Symphonic Study Op.68 (1913) Sir Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934) 33.19
1 I Falstaff and Prince Henry — an apartment of the Prince's 2.58
2 II Eastcheap — Gadshill — The Boar's Head. Revelry and sleep —
Dream Interlude: Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy,
and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk
15.07
3 III Falstaff's march — Return through Gloucestershire —
Interlude: Shallow’s orchard — The new King — The ride to London
6.30
4 IV King Henry V's progress to his Coronation —
The repudiation of Falstaff, and his death
8.44
Enigma, Variations on an original Theme Op.36 (1899) Sir Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934) 29.46
5 Theme Andante 1.27
6 I (C.A.E.) L'istesso tempo 1.41
7 II (H.D.S-P.) Allegro 0.45
8 III (R.B.T.) Allegretto 1.22
9 IV (W.M.B.) Allegro di molto 0.28
10 V (R.P.A.) Moderato 2.09
11 VI (Ysobel) Andantino 1.18
12 VII (Troyte) Presto 0.58
13 VIII (W.N.) Allegretto 1.40
14 IX (Nimrod) Adagio 3.20
15 X (Dorabella) Intermezzo - andante 2.36
16 XI (G.R.S.) Allegro di molto 0.56
17 XII (B.G.N.) Andante 2.49
18 XIII (***) Romanza - moderato 2.42
19 XIV (E.D.U.) Allegro 5.28
20 Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 in C Op. 39 (1930) Sir Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934) 5.41