"Enigma" Variations / Cello Concerto

Sinopoli’s reading of Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations strips away Victorian sentiment to reveal the work’s architectural rigor, while cellist Mischa Maisky brings a singing, almost vocal quality to the Cello Concerto’s melancholic lines. Deutsche Grammophon’s early-90s sound captures both the Philharmonia Orchestra’s warmth and the conductor’s precise, modernist approach to these British standards.