Elgar - Enigma Variations

This CD provides US with an introduction to the essential music of Elgar. The earliest of these works is the Enigma Variations, written in the spring of 1899, and destined to set Elgar in the front rank of English composers, as a composer fit to be noticed by foreign musicians as well as by his compatriots. The overture Cockaigne is subtitled "In London Town". Cockaigne was a cloud-cuckoo land, but Elgar intends a pun on Cockneydom. There are six Pomp and Circumstance Marches, here we have No's 1 and 4. No. 1 in D is familiar for the tune of it's trio, later to be used in the Coronation Ode as "Land of Hope and Glory".