Cellist Ofra Harnoy’s Rediscovered & Unreleased 1996 Recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto Debuts on Sony Classical

Cellist Ofra Harnoy

Her Rediscovered & Unreleased 1996 Recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto Gets its Long Overdue Debut on Sony Classical

Available September 15
Pre-order Now

With George Pehlivanian Conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the “Lost” Elgar Performance is Coupled with Harnoy’s Celebrated 1995 Recording of the Lalo Cello Concerto

When cellist Ofra Harnoy entered London’s venerable Abbey Road Studios in 1996 to record Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85, she never imagined she would have to wait 27 years for the recording’s release – at last, set for release on September 15 via Sony Classical and available for pre-order now.

The new album also includes a reissue of Harnoy’s recording of the Cello Concerto in D Minor by the French composer Edouard Lalo, made in 1995 with the late Antonio de Almeida conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

The Elgar recording – with George Pehlivanian conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra – was completed in its 1996 Abbey Road sessions. However, it was never edited and released, all but vanished. Repeated inquiries and searches over the years yielded no results, until a diligent effort in 2022 finally discovered the master tapes in the storage of a former associate.

Fortunately, notes from the sessions survived, and the Elgar recording’s original producer, Andrew Keener, was available to advise Mike Herriott, Harnoy’s husband and manager, who edited the tapes in their own home studio. Ron Searles of Red Maple Sound in Toronto mastered the final edit, as well as remastering the Lalo recording, using the latest Dolby Atmos technology.

Keener recalls how the Elgar concerto felt at the time. “The sessions at Abbey Road’s fabled Studio 1 were productive and enjoyable, fresh and uninhibited. I hope you enjoy the result.”

In the last half-century, Elgar’s Cello Concerto has emerged as one of the masterpieces of late Romantic music for cello and orchestra – and it finally makes an essential addition to Ofra Harnoy’s catalogue of recordings. Shortly after the 1996 Abbey Road sessions, she spoke with the International Cello Society, for an interview. “I recently recorded the Elgar Concerto with the London Philharmonic,” Harnoy said, at the time. “I'm very excited about this because the Elgar is one of those pieces that just wrings me dry; I always end up crying. It's such a wonderful piece.”

The sensitive, deeply spiritual Elgar was an aging man – devastated by the brutality of World War I and newly aware of his own mortality – when he was inspired to write the concerto in 1919. His work was transfiguring, if audiences at the time were not quite ready to hear that. Interestingly, it has been women cello virtuosos who most eloquently kept it in the repertoire. The British cellist Beatrice Harrison triumphed with the concerto in the first successful performances after its troubled premiere, and she went on to record it twice with the composer conducting. In the years that followed, Canadian cellist Zara Nelsova believed in the concerto so completely that she performed it in concert and even in a reduction for cello and piano.

But it was the vibrant and heartfelt stereo recording by the young Jacqueline du Pré in the mid-1960s that sparked a new and enduring interest in the work. She inspired a young Ofra Harnoy, who met her and played for her in a master class near the end of du Pré’s tragically brief life. This new release will confirm Harnoy’s place in the Elgar concerto’s distinctive legacy.

The Lalo recording from 1995 also comes from the cellist’s years as an exclusive artist on the RCA Victor Red Seal/BMG Classics label, now a part of Sony Classical. On its release, Gramophone’s critic noted how, in the opening movement of the Lalo, the recording “ensures that the soloist’s disarmingly gentle recitativo projects naturally, and readily tames the vehement orchestral protests,” then praises how “the finely graduated and eloquently phrased solo introduction for the finale again shows Harnoy at her most imaginative.”

OFRA HARNOY: ELGAR / LALO: CELLO CONCERTOS

RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

TRACKLIST

Elgar: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85

1. I. Adagio – Moderato

2. II. Lento - Allegro molto

3. III. Adagio

4. IV. Allegro - Moderato - Allegro, ma non-troppo - Poco più lento – Adagio

Lalo: Cello Concerto in D Minor

5. I. Prelude. Lento - Allegro maestoso

6. II. Intermezzo. Andantino con moto - Allegro presto

7. III. Introduction. Andante - Allegro vivace

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.

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