Elgar: Symphony 1

Antonio Pappano, who studied piano and conducting, first attracted the attention of Daniel Barenboim, becoming his assistant at the Bayreuth Festival. After working in Barcelona and Frankfurt, he made his debut at Den Norske Opera in Oslo in 1987, becoming music director there in 1990. From 1992 to 2002 Pappano was music director of La Monnaie, the Belgian Royal Opera House. In 2002, he was named music director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, his current contract there running to 2017. Pappano has also been principal guest conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2005 became music director of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Pappano’s recordings have been hailed as “a magnificent achievement, of rare accomplishment” (Gramophone), “unmissable” (The Sunday Times), “a triumph” (BBC Radio 3); they have received awards including Classic BRIT, ECHO Klassik, BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone Awards. ICA Classics are proud to present two new releases featuring Antonio Pappano with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

His first release on the ICA Classics label couples Elgar’s Symphony No.1 with another work inspired by Italy, the colourful and exuberant Concert Overture ‘In the South’ a souvenir from a holiday in Alassio in 1903–04. This is the first time that Pappano has recorded Elgar, a welcome addition to Pappano’s discography. Following a concert at the Barbican in January 2012, John Allison wrote in a 5-star article for the Telegraph that “Pappano has much to bring to Elgar… his surging, striving account caught all the nervous energy of this elegiac work… now he should take the symphony, which like many Elgar works owes inspiration to Italy and was partly composed in Rome, to his own orchestra there…”. Antonio Pappano himself said that he was “on a mission to bring this music back to its place of birth” and knew the players “natural Italianate passion and lyricism would be ideal for the piece.”