No, these 2006 recordings featuring mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly with Simon Wright conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are not the finest recordings of Elgar's "Sea Pictures" and "The Music Makers" ever made. Those honors go to Janet Baker and John Barbirolli's incredibly moving 1965 recording of "Sea Pictures" and Baker and Adrian Boult's amazingly effective 1966 recording of "The Music Makers." But these are still very fine performances that deserve to be heard by anyone who loves the music. Why? ...
Read More
No, these 2006 recordings featuring mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly with Simon Wright conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are not the finest recordings of Elgar's "Sea Pictures" and "The Music Makers" ever made. Those honors go to Janet Baker and John Barbirolli's incredibly moving 1965 recording of "Sea Pictures" and Baker and Adrian Boult's amazingly effective 1966 recording of "The Music Makers." But these are still very fine performances that deserve to be heard by anyone who loves the music. Why? Because Connolly is clearly one of the finest of contemporary English mezzos and she brings more conviction, as well as more beauty of tone, to these works than anyone since Baker. Try any of the "Sea Pictures," but especially the rapt inwardness of "Sabbath Morning at Sea": here is a singer who truly, deeply, profoundly believes in the glorious music and, somehow, the trivial words, and the result is ineffably touching. Although Wright is a much more than adequate conductor who leads...
Read Less