Symphony No. 2 (Elgar) Elgar is widely acknowledged as one of England's leading composers, his orchestral music, with the exception of the "Enigma Variations", the Cello Concerto, and his "Pomp and Circumstance" Marches, is only sporadically programmed outside Britain. The symphony was first recorded complete in 1927 by His Master's Voice, part of the EMI group, conducted by the composer. This recording was later reissued on LP and later on CD. There was no further recording for eighteen years, until Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra made a recordings of the symphony in 1944. Since then there have been more than twenty-four
Pomp and Circumstance Marches clarinets in A, bass clarinet in A, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in F, 2 cornets in A, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani (3), percussion (2 side drums, triangle, glockenspiel & jingles, bass drum & cymbals), and strings. It was first performed, as was March No. 1, by the Liverpool Orchestral Society conducted by Alfred Rodewald, in Liverpool on 19 October 1901. Both marches were played two days later at a London Promenade Concert. The second is the shortest and most simply constructed of the marches. The composer Charles Villiers Stanford is said to have preferred this