Edward Elgar's songs are not in the main very often performed, and even this recording by young star soprano Julia Sitkovetsky might not have come to be without a subvention from the Elgar Society. The reason is alluded to by annotator Iain Farrington; these were mostly commercial efforts that do not fully reflect the composer's personality, and what was commercial in 1900 is perhaps less so today. The exception is the five-song cycle Sea Pictures, Op. 37, a fine pictorial essay whose strong texts are sensitively rendered ...
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Edward Elgar's songs are not in the main very often performed, and even this recording by young star soprano Julia Sitkovetsky might not have come to be without a subvention from the Elgar Society. The reason is alluded to by annotator Iain Farrington; these were mostly commercial efforts that do not fully reflect the composer's personality, and what was commercial in 1900 is perhaps less so today. The exception is the five-song cycle Sea Pictures, Op. 37, a fine pictorial essay whose strong texts are sensitively rendered here by Sitkovetsky; listen to the ecstatic "Sabbath Morning at Sea" with its text by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Much of the rest may be of most interest to hardcore Elgarians, but many of the songs have a good deal of period charm. They are generally simple in tonality, with little of the Wagnerian influence Elgar showed in larger forms. Several show folkish thinking, especially the excerpts from the Sieben Lieder (so titled because they were collected and originally...
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