COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: EMI: Classics for Pleasure
Andrew Litton’s hard-driven London Philharmonic account, taped digitally a decade later, is also newly available on Classics for Pleasure (5 75142 2).
It’s fractionally cheaper, and also includes the usual highlights from GRIEG’s Peer Gynt, but Previn’s version has ardour, insight, and a wealth of orchestral detailing that Litton’s doesn’t match.
Lastly, CfP has reissued Kennedy’s masterful recording of ELGAR’s Violin Concerto, with the LPO under Vernon Handley (CDE 5 75139 2. The natural heir to great British performances by Albert Sammons (now on Naxos 8.110951) and Menuhin, this movingly insightful traversal by the pre-populist (1984) Kennedy is, I think, his finest discographic achievement.