Symphony No. 1 (Elgar) - Recordings

Recordings

The first recording of the symphony was made by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1931, conducted by the composer for His Master's Voice. The recording was reissued on long-playing record (LP) in 1970, and on compact disc in 1992 as part of EMI's "Elgar Edition" of all the composer's electrical recordings of his works.

After 1931 the work received no further gramophone recordings until Sir Adrian Boult's 1950 recording. During the 1950s there was only one other new recording of the symphony, and in the 1960s there were only two. In the 1970s there were four new recordings. In the 1980s there were six, and the 1990s saw twelve. Ten new recordings were released in the first decade of the 21st century. Most of the recordings have been by British orchestras and conductors, but exceptions include the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Bernard Haitink, Tadaaki Otaka, André Previn, Constantin Silvestri, Giuseppe Sinopoli, and Leonard Slatkin.

BBC Radio 3's "Building a Library" feature, a comparative review of all available recordings, has considered the symphony three times since 1982. The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music, 2008 edition, contains two pages of reviews of the work. The two recordings recommended by both the BBC and The Penguin Guide are by Boult and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1977) and Vernon Handley with the same orchestra (1979).