Recordings have stunted us
Bring me my bow of burning gold; or failing that, the opening notes of Elgar’s Second Symphony. That’s how I’ve always imagined them anyway, those three swelling B flats – a mighty drawing back of the bow before Elgar propels his arrows of desire into the restless heart of this greatest of British symphonies. Thinking back, though, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite that tension in a live performance – not from Pesek in Liverpool or Barenboim at the Proms, and not from this most recent encounter, with Mark Wigglesworth and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Bristol. So where am I getting it from? Recordings, presumably, and the long-embedded
