As an uncharacteristic wave of patriotism sweeps over England, the BBC Philharmonic's all-Elgar concerts with Sir Charles Mackerras prove to have been an astute bit of programming. Though Mackerras isn't a renowned Elgarian, his opening account of Cockaigne was beautifully crafted from the very first bar. It's not one of Elgar's subtlest works - the composer himself described it as "cheerful and Londony, stout and steaky" - but Mackerras handled even its most extrovert moments with elegance and a refreshing lightness of touch.
Not all Elgar's music has dated well. Even some of his greatest works are, for some, still tainted by their imperial associations. Others might be considered anachronistic for different reasons. The poems in his song-cycle Sea Pictures now seem embarrassingly Victorian in sentiment, and of dubious literary quality, though he set them with such glorious conviction that it is still possible to be swept along. Louise Winters's rather melodramatic delivery may have been a well-meaning gesture to authenticity - it's easy to imagine Sea Pictures being sung in that way a century ago. If so, we're just not ready for the full Victorian treatment yet.
Whatever the effect Sea Pictures and other works like it may have on our 21st-century sensibilities, Elgar's two completed symphonies are still undisputed masterpieces. Yet they can be treacherously difficult to perform well, with subtleties of pacing and balance at a premium. Elgar himself was more fussy than most of his contemporaries about such matters, taking care to mark in every slight slowing down and speeding up, adding metronome marks every few pages, which often indicate the minutest fluctuations in tempo. So when a perfectly correct performance seems to miss the mark, as this one did, the reasons may not be obvious.
On the surface, Mackerras did everything right; but his account of the Second Symphony, and of the first movement in particular, tended towards precisely the kind of brassy over-confidence and bombast that had been so impressively not in evidence in Cockaigne and Sea Pictures. The hard-driven orchestra played superbly, but less would have been so much more.
