There are two advantages to having won free of England by revolution, thus staying out of what eventually became the British Commonwealth. The first is that we don’t owe nominal allegiance to a monarch as titular head of state, and the other is that we don’t have to prove our fidelity by giving a damn about Elgar. This doesn’t mean he wasn’t a fine composer, but he was a patchy one, and it’s nice to be able to enjoy his handful of true masterpieces without making a fetish about it or giving him more attention than his limited achievement deserves. To my mind the First Symphony does not stand among his best efforts: the thematic material of the first movement is undistinguished and the Adagio is interminable, but it certainly does have a marvellous finale, with many attractive moments along the way.
Unfortunately, Jeffrey Tate, a conductor whose discography is distinguished by the fact that absolutely nothing he has ever done can even remotely be deemed essential, signally fails to explain what makes this music special. This is a droopy, flaccid performance. Tate crawls through the two outer movements and turns in a positively lethal Adagio lasting more than a quarter of an hour. If that doesn’t make you wonder what all the Elgarian fuss is about, then nothing will, and there’s no point in wasting as much of your time describing it as listening has already wasted mine. The same defects plague the Mendelssohn, which only wakes up for the development section, by which time it’s simply too late. The Melbourne Symphony, however, certainly plays as well as any of its English counterparts. Compare this live effort, minor imperfections aside, to any of the “classic Hallé” this or “vintage LSO” that, and it’s clear the citizens of Melbourne should be proud of their orchestra. Just not on this occasion.
