Welcome to this page dedicated to my new Elgar Recording, out on Rubicon on 25 September 2026!

It was an enterprise given a unique energy by working together with people who I have known for a very long time. The spirit created at the sessions and in post-production was one of unusual conviviality, and this might have helped to get to the essence or Rasa of Elgar and his music I like to think.

I chose a team of whom I had not a shred of doubt as to their deep connection to the music and its composer, and their drive and heart to deliver, discover and crystalise it.

They are all collaborators of exceptional and deep knowledge, and ones who were already in deep sympathy with what I felt about Elgar. I chose a conductor, producer and editor, orchestral musicians, arranger and engineer who I knew would bring themselves to the project purely because they wanted to do it. I also chose to make the recording in a place rich in Elgarian reverberation.

The Studio and Engineer

The recording was made at the very same studio where Elgar himself had recorded the concerto with the young Yehudi Menuhin in 1932. The place which in fact he had opened a year earlier; Abbey Rd Studio no 1. It’s a big old place with Elgar’s spirit still somehow presiding over it if one can allow him to be there. Of course, there are other historic presences in the building as well – but the four lads from Liverpool are largely connected to the room next door – Studio no 2. The sound in Studio no 1 is quite exceptionally generous and warm. It does need though an expert engineer to control some of the eddying currents of sound as they swirl about the large space. This room is a bit like a great violin or cello; noble, idiosyncratic, very generous, but occasionally a little treacherous if you don’t watch out. That we were able to have 3-time Grammy-winner Arne Akselberg to look after us on this front was huge. I worked on my first recording with Arne in 1990 with some Haydn Quartets - it won a Diapason d'Or - and have done many since. He knows the room as well as anyone alive. I’ve spent countless hours in Studio no 1 recording everything from the classics with the LPO and Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields back in the 80’s and 90’s, to jingles and pop tracks for the Spice Girls and all sorts of other artists - and many, many film scores. I continue to go there to do that.

The Orchestra

There’s an orchestra in London who no one has ever heard of but whose sounds have been heard probably more than any other band in existence. In fact, probably more people across the globe have heard these musicians than any orchestra anywhere. Technically described as a ‘contracted orchestra’ these musicians have no group name beyond having been booked by a particular contractor. Susie Gillis at Isobel Griffiths Ltd fixed what we later decided to call Sinfonia Arcadiana. Its members are a rotating collective of the finest musicians in the country. A glance up and down the personnel list will tell you all you need to know. Here in the strings are the quartet players, the chamber musicians, and those who have left behind the endless politics of the orchestras up and down the country. Many have been leaders and principals under the great names in the conducting world; some are still in these orchestras, leading or being principals. The wind players are nearly all the holders, or past holders, of soloist positions; the brass, all stars in their own right. The horn section is worthy of particular attention – three past and one current principal of the Philharmonia. Usually gathering to play film music, all these fabulous personalities bring to any of the myriad styles they are asked to morph into such brilliance, immediate knowledge, and chameleon-like style, that it is tricky to keep track of who they are. They are all dear and cherished friends and colleagues of many years.

The Conductor

Nic Fallowfield is one of my oldest friends. He and I played the violin in youth orchestra together and were students of the same wise professor of the violin at Trinity College of Music, Bela Katona. Nic took up conducting later in his journey and has become an inspirational guiding hand of youth and amateur orchestras, taking them way beyond their means with the deep knowledge of the craft of conducting he’d learnt from the late great George Hurst.

I’ve done the concerto with Nic more than with anyone else and always with the greatest mutual understanding and enjoyment. He knows every detail of the score and has the same kind of overarching concept of the piece as I do.

The Arranger

Eleanor Alberga OBE is a composer whose work I know well (!) and she and I had played the five shorter works many times in their violin and piano format. She brought not only her exceptional ear for orchestral colour but an Elgarian freshness to the task of imagining these pieces into authentic violin and orchestra transcriptions.

The Producer/Editor

I’ve worked with Stephen Frost a great deal. He is a great friend and a wise counsel indeed. We’ve recorded solo Bach together as well as Telemann and Ysaye and more recently the Paganini Caprices. He has a habit of knowing better than I do myself what’s going on when we’re recording and is always nudging me towards what I might not dare feel is possible. His editing – that secret ingredient in every recording - is beyond appraisal.

But he is a one off and the range of his talents is extraordinary: from writing novels and screenplays to composing and creating award-winning films. After editing the concerto and the Paganini (due for release next year) Stephen felt these to be the last projects he wanted to undertake as producer/editor and to progress his own projects in film making and writing.

How grateful I was that the hugely respected and experienced Simon Kiln was able to climb on board for the completion of the project and to produce and edit the five Alberga arrangements. He immediately embraced the vibe and has become a trusted friend.

The sessions for everyone, both in December ’22 for the concerto and again in May of this year for the five arrangements, were like a colossal release valve being opened. We were all very emotional. Of this I think Elgar would have approved.

All of us involved found these words of Elgar’s in a letter of 1903 a helpful guide. In 1903 he wrote to his dear friend Jaeger (of the Variation ‘Nimrod’ fame):

“You are a bonny boy to talk of my career! I know nothing of any such thing. I only know that my things are performed – when they go as I like – elastically and mystically people grumble – when they are conducted squarely and sound like a wooden box these people are pleased to say it’s better. It’s a curious thing that the performances which I have hated and loathed as being caricatures of my thoughts are the very ones held up as patterns!”‍ ‍

T.B. July ‘26

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