Elgar: Violin Concerto, Interlude from Crown of India & Polonia

Tasmin Little plays Elgar’s magisterial yet deeply personal Violin Concerto with a palpable love for its myriad moods. Along with the sure-footed conducting of Andrew Davis, this is one of the most outstanding in the catalogue. But what also sets it apart is its inclusion of the cadenza, complete with harps, that Elgar wrote for the work’s first recording in 1916, as played by Marie Hall. The Concerto is joined by an interlude from the incidental music to 1912's The Crown of India, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra closes the album with a seldom-heard symphonic prelude, Polonia. Composed as a gesture of solidarity and admiration for the people of Poland, Elgar quotes melodies from Polish songs and themes by Chopin and Paderewski, to whom the work was dedicated.