This pioneering set of Gerontius has come up newly minted in these superbly engineered transfers taken from 78rpm masters, apart from the first three sides, which are a shade murky. Neither in 78 nor LP form has the original recording sounded anything like so immediate or vivid. That only enhances the incandescence and fervour of the reading itself, in virtually all respects still the most convincing the work has received. Here we come closest surely to what a complete recording under Elgar would have been like, complemented by a spirit of wartime dedication found on all sides in recording a noted oratorio by England's greatest composer for the first time.
Sargent's conducting, influenced by Elgar's, is direct, vital and urgently crafted with an inborn feeling for the work's ebb and flow and an overall picture that comprehends the piece's spiritual meaning while realizing its dramatic leanness and force. Heddle Nash's Gerontius is unrivalled in its conviction and inwardness. He was encouraged by Elgar in 1930 to take the part and sang it under the composer's baton in 1932 to his satisfaction. He became the most famous Gerontius of his and perhaps any day, his singing at once plaintive and eloquent, his feeling for words second to none. By 1945 the work was in Nash's being; he sang it from memory and had mastered every facet of interpreting it. Such phrases as ''Mary pray for me'', ''Novissima hora est'' and ''My soul is in my hand, I have no fear'' come from and go to the heart. The whole of ''Sanctus fortis'' is sung with the beseeching passion for which Nash was famed in the opera house, ''I went to sleep'' with an appropriate sense of release, and ''Take me away'' is like a searing cry of pain from the depth of the singer's soul.
Gladys Ripley is a natural and communicative Angel throughout, her flexible and appealing tone always a pleasure to hear. She and Nash combine effortlessly and sweetly in their Part 2 duet and she is appropriately consoling in ''Softly and gently''. Walter Legge, the producer, noted perceptively that the role of the Priest called for a high baritone, the Angel of Agony for a basso cantante. So he cast the roles respectively with Dennis Noble and Norman Walker, the first, keen-edged and authoritative, the second, softer-grained, urgent, sympathetic. Neither has been surpassed in their respective solos and no other recording has attempted this sensible differentiation of voices.
The Liverpool Philharmonic lives up to its reputation at the time as the country's leading orchestra (in particular the sonorous string section). The Huddersfield Choral Society sing as though their lives depended on the outcome, more invigorating and disciplined than their successors on the recent Handley/EMI Eminence set (10/93), which hasn't half the all-round conviction shown here. Nor does that version catch the soloists in such a favourable light as that achieved by Legge in 1945, now fully revealed on Andrew Walter's and Paul Baily's transfers.
To complement this Gerontius, an essential acquisition for any Elgarian, we have an unjustly neglected version by Tortelier of the Cello Concerto that has languished in EMI's archives since the 1950s, when it was issued in the doomed ten-inch LP format. As Tully Potter suggests in his notes, it presents the classical approach as compared with the romantic one of Du Pre, and some others. Isserlis is the closest counterpart today. It is the best of Tortelier's readings of the work on disc, with his tone and phrasing at their firmest and most telling, an interpretation caught, as Potter comments, ''when Tortelier had already considerably refined it, but had lost none of his youthful passion and spontaneity''. Sargent is a positive yet discreet accompanist and, having moved from Liverpool to the BBC Symphony, he again had an orchestra dedicated to his methods. This deeply considered and unaffected reading is among the best ever committed to disc.
Once again we have Testament to thank for routing out from the archives interpretations that deserve to be part of any reputable collection. The Elgar Society are to be thanked, too, for the help given in making sure these performances are there for a new generation.'