Nimrod
This is not just another arrangement of a well-known tune; it has been carefully deconstructed and rebuilt to give an uncanny feel of the original. Although the audio can't do justice to the tone colours, it does demonstrate Elgar's original tempo marking which is always ignored nowadays. He wrote the piece as his career was taking off and he was at long last starting to feel accepted in musical society, so it's a hymn of thanksgiving, not of sorrow - stately, yes but funereal, no. Its unexplained trappings of war crept up on it much later.
Follow it with the equally evocative Finale of the Enigma Variations which is now available and starts in the same key and tempo as "Dorabella", which is what we're used to hearing next.
(No para la venta en España)