The Best of Elgar

2 CDs: The Very Best of Elgar

Sir Edward William Elgar was an English composer, many of whose works have entered
the British and international classical concert repertoire.
Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations,
the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies.
He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius,
chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.

Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously.
Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of acoustic recordings of his works.
The introduction of the microphone in 1925 made far more accurate sound reproduction possible,
and Elgar made new recordings of most of his major orchestral works and excerpts from The Dream of Gerontius.