Elgar: Cello Concerto; Sea Pictures
This is rightly regarded as the finest recording of Elgar's attractive and elegiac Cello Concerto.  It's held in almost irrationally high esteem in the UK, largely because of the universal affection for  Jacqueline Du Pré, the wife of Daniel Barenboim, whose early death from multiple sclerosis cut  short what would have been a stellar career. This disc is equally noteworthy for Janet Baker's magnificent  singing of theSea Pictures, the composer's only orchestral song cycle. It's not Elgar's fault if the  tune of the last song sounds like an excessively inflated version of "Hello, Dolly!" A classic  then, even if neither work is a raging masterpiece.--David Hurwitz