Menuhin's emergence in recent years as a major conductor of certain British works has been exemplified for me by his splendid recordings of Elgar's Cello Concerto and Enigma Variations (Philips (CD) 416 354-2PH, 6/86) and even more by his penetrating accounts of Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony and Double Piano Concerto (Virgin Classics (CD) VC7 90733-2, 1/89). Now he and the RPO give us an Elgar First Symphony which I would immediately rank high among recorded performances (and I recently heard him conduct it live with a different orchestra and the result was equally impressive).
The outstanding features are the vitality and energy of the music, reflected in brilliant orchestral playing. The tempos are quick—Menuhin takes only 50 minutes compared with Bryden Thomson's lethargic 57 on Chandos—but this has not meant any loss of emotional power. Menuhin seems instinctively to realize that Elgar's music thrives on rhythmic liveliness, on swift transitions from phrase to phrase and from mood to mood. He is also scrupulous in observing the composer's markings—as, for instance, the 'hairpins' in the statement of the great tune at the start of the work. Also, as it seems instinctively, he 'feels' the fluctuations in the first movement, the music's ebb and flow within its sequences and repetitions. This was where I found Haitink's otherwise admirable interpretation on EMI deficient. Menuhin handles the end of the first movement superbly, a tender dying fall after the eruptive passions with which the coda begins.
The second movement is brilliant, followed by an Adagio that is never allowed to sink into self-indulgence and yet is full of poetic insights. The finale, with the march-tune like a spectre at its start, is marvellously done, stirring and exciting and culminating in a blazing coda in which the attempts to disrupt the progress of the march's apotheosis show how hard-won was Elgar's optimistic climax to the symphony.
Virgin have provided a dynamically wide-ranging and spacious recording to match the vigour and colour of this outstanding performance. Menuhin gives the brass their head and some may consequently find the sound occasionally a little raw and strident. Not me, though, I found it red-blooded and inspiring.'