Bridge: Oration; Elgar: Cello Concerto; Holst: Invocation (2006)

For fans of English music, for fans of cello music, for fans of elegiac music, for fans of great music, this 2005 Nimbus recording is not to be missed. Coupling three sorrowful works for cello and orchestra by Frank Bridge, Edward Elgar, and Gustav Holst, this disc by cellist Raphael Wallfisch with Richard Dickins leading the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic features performances of heartfelt intensity and unsurpassed virtuosity. In his 1930 Oration-Concerto elegiaco, Bridge mourns the dead of World War I with an overwhelming ... Read More

For fans of English music, for fans of cello music, for fans of elegiac music, for fans of great music, this 2005 Nimbus recording is not to be missed. Coupling three sorrowful works for cello and orchestra by Frank Bridge, Edward Elgar, and Gustav Holst, this disc by cellist Raphael Wallfisch with Richard Dickins leading the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic features performances of heartfelt intensity and unsurpassed virtuosity. In his 1930 Oration-Concerto elegiaco, Bridge mourns the dead of World War I with an overwhelming outpouring of passionate grief; in his 1919 Cello Concerto, Elgar mourns the passing of the prewar world he knew with a stiff dose of concentrated sorrow; and in his Invocation of 1911, Holst mourns the lose of a Buddhist world he never knew with an explosion of ecstatic lyricism. And in all three works, Raphael Wallfisch, perhaps the finest cellist in England, plays with tremendous depth of soul and immense nobility of spirit, as if he were a cello-playing Orpheus calling out to... Read Less