Music Man

Roger Norrington is a first-rate conductor who has championed the idea of playing music on authentic period instruments and in the style which would have been prevalent at the time the music was written. But I feel he has gone too far with his treatment of the music of Elgar, which he insists on performing without vibrato. He is, of course, entitled to his view as to how this music should be played, but to suggest, as he does, that this is playing it "as its composer intended" is well wide of the mark. We have recordings of Elgar himself conducting his music, and there's plenty of vibrato, so where Sir Roger gets this idea from, I don't know - perhaps he's fallen into the trap of starting to believe his own publicity?