Achim Breiling on the new Naxos recording:

>Maybe its not as dramatic or bombastic as Elgars previous symphonies,
>but it has some kind of relaxed beauty and grandeur one would expect from
>a last work of a composer. Highly recommended! By the way I think I read
>somewhere that Payne did some changes in the score for this recording
>(compared to the older one on NMC).  Is this true?

I would not have chosen the perjorative "bombastic" to describe those
wonderful earlier symphonies - Edo Dewaart once described Elgar as (if
my memory is accurate) as a "misty Mahler." I too read a review (in that
new International Review?) which stated that Payne made some changes.  I
also heard Payne interviewed, and he stated that the relative emotional
austerity of the Third was a response to the new times- the age of
Hindemith as he put it.  I have the older recording, enjoy the work
greatly, but often wonder: how much of it is real Elgar? Perhaps it
doesn't matter- we should take it for what it is.  Incidentally another
reconstruction of an unfinished work seems to me much more controversial,
Charles Ive's Universe Symphony - I forget the name of the finisher.
That is such an odd and visionary work, that I wonder whether or not
it represents what Ives had in mind- although his odd and visionary
credentials are strong ones.  I would be grateful for any enlightenment
on this subject.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University