Illustrating a generally little known facet of Elgar’s music, this recording brings together a number of works on which the composer had worked in childhood. Forty years after writing the tunes for a children’s play about age, youth and the escapism of fairyland, for performance in the family with his brothers and sisters, Elgar refashioned them into the two suites known as The Wand of Youth, from which Wild Bears continues to enjoy a separate existence as a popular concert encore. With its tender, wistful moods and restrained scoring, the Nursery Suite of 1930 is Elgar’s final evocation of childhood.