Elgar Starlight Express

Chandos CHSA 5111 (2 CDs)

From Elgar, 1915, incidental music for a hopelessly dated children's play which is unlikely to appeal now in this form to children of any age, or their great grandparents, not even with Simon Callow as indefatigable narrator...

There are some great tunes and the singers are fine.

There is a useful alternative within the boxed set, Andrew Davis's 45 mins Suite which can be heard separately and comprises half of the second disc.

Maybe that will lend itself to purchase by downloading, but I cannot see the boxed double CD as viable, at a 'special offer' of c. £17 from MDT...

However, there is a A L Webber musical "the most successful of all time"* which had passed us by, and which might explain its CD release?

Peter Grahame Woolf

*See the Webber finale with roller skating on YouTube