Proms From The Past

Another of the BBC Music magazine cover disks, this one from about six years ago. It features live performances from the Proms, so was presumably the one on that year's Proms edition. Two pieces of music, Falstaff by Elgar and Symphonic Variations by Dvorak. The Elgar is by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martin Brabbins and the Dvorak is the BBC SO with Jiri Belohlavek. To be honest, I normally find the cover disks featuring chamber music to be more memorable than the orchestral ones, the BBC orchestras can be a bit pedestrian at times. This one's ok though. Falstaff is a programmatic piece based on the Shakespeare character and scenes from the plays. I had half assumed that it was from some sort of incidental music to a theatrical performance but it is purely a symphonic series of sketches. And it sounds...well...Elgarian I suppose. Dvorak's variations on a sort of waltz theme are an expert series of variations, interesting to follow but a shame that the theme itself isn't a bit more engaging. I found it outstayed its' welcome a little by the end of 20 minutes or so.