Elgar/ Ralph Vaughan Williams: Davis Conducts

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Sir Colin Davis, the ''quiet star'' on the list of the top international conductors, assumed his position as Chief Conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in the autumn of 1983. He enriched the repertoire of the orchestra, inter alia, with works from the late British romantic era, as documented by the two recorded compositions by Sir Edward Elgar and Ralph?áVaughan?áWilliams. Elgar's ''Enigma Variations'' number today among the most important symphonic works ever to emerge from England. Friends and other persons in the composer's inner circle are concealed behind the mysterious abbreviations in the titles of the individual variations, all of whom Elgar portrays in musical terms. With its acerbic musical utterance and its experimental treatment of both harmony and sound, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 6 (completed in 1947) attests to the horrors of the recently ended war, marking, however, concurrently a phase of new beginnings and turning away from established conventions.