Elgar: Violin Concerto / Violin Sonata

Elgar's violin concerto - distinctively passionate and nostalgic - is one of the great late-Romantic concertos. "It is a huge piece," says Renaud Capuçon "both in terms of its length and its romantic and noble nature."

As both Renaud Capuçon and Sir Simon Rattle point out, it is not a piece that has been favoured by French violinists. Perhaps, despite the worldwide currency of Elgar's cello concerto and Enigma Variations, this arises from some lingering perception of the composer's music as exclusively and mysteriously 'English'.

This is Capuçon's first recording with Rattle, here conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. When Rattle chose Elgar's Enigma Variations for his inaugural concert as the LSO's music director in 2017, he was celebrating a long and historic association: the LSO, conducted by Elgar, accompanied Fritz Kreisler in the premiere of the violin concerto in 1910, and the composer became the orchestra's Principal Conductor the following year.

Paired with the concerto on this album is Elgar's violin sonata, first performed in 1919. Renaud Capuçon, who calls the sonata "a work of nobility and tenderness", is joined by one of the leading British pianists of today, Stephen Hough.