BOULT & BBC SO Pre-War Recordings, Volume 3 (1932-37) - PASC743

The first thing to say about these recordings is that they are just so very good! I mean the performances and the recording quality, though clearly Mark Obert-Thorn’s dedicated work enhanced the latter.

Adrian Boult, born in Chester in 1889, went on to study music at Christchurch College Oxford, and then at the Leipzig Conservatory. In 1930, the BBC appointed him music director, responsible for forming a new symphony orchestra. Over the next decade, he largely met his goal of attracting the best available players, and setting the standard for English orchestras. He became their permanent conductor at the end of the first season. Visiting conductors like Arturo Toscanini and Bruno Walter were impressed with what he had been able to achieve.

Boult took the BBC SO to Europe, and soon he too became an international figure, conducting orchestras all over the world. When he reached the official retirement age in April 1949, the BBC pensioned him off after he had made over fifteen hundred broadcasts. (Gary Lineker, eat your heart out.) The London Philharmonic Orchestra promptly made him their music director!

Boult may be best remembered nowadays for his interpretations of British music. He gave the world premieres of Holst’s The Planets , and two of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s symphonies, along with many other works by his contemporaries. But he undoubtedly had wide sympathies, as this release demonstrates. He saw it as part of his work, and that of the BBC, to introduce his musicians and the listening public to a full range of modern music.

So, we have here an interesting selection: Wagner, Humperdinck and Brahms on CD1, Borodin, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns and Sibelius on CD2. In the first Wagner item, a splendid Meistersinger Prelude, Boult refuses to let the music ‘sit down’ complacently. Even when the Prize Song appears, he keeps a firm hand on the tiller. That makes the many little Wagnerian turns that now crop up very tricky for his violinists. We thus learn a lot about the excellent standard of players he had been able to attract. Maintaining the forward momentum of the music means less bombast and a more satisfying sense of culmination at the conclusion.

The Prelude to Act 1 of Tristan is, for my money, the outstanding track on these discs. Boult’s undemonstrative demeanour on the podium and his slightly military appearance,made people sometimes think that Sir Adrian lacked passion. There is an important lesson when one responds to music: listening is more important than looking . So, this simply gripping performance builds inexorably, and expresses powerfully the feeling of overwhelming yet unsated sexual desire. Also interesting is Boult’s use of Wagner’s own extended concert ending, which I had never heard before. The way the music hints distantly at the Liebestod is rather wonderful.

Next we get two extracts from Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel , the Overture and the Dream Pantomime , both played with touching sensitivity. The disc ends with a powerful reading of Brahms’s great Tragic Overture and three of his Hungarian Dances.

The second disc kicks off with a couple of Russian operatic bonbons: Borodin’s Polovtsian March from Prince Igor , and Tchaikovsky’s Polonaise from Eugene Onegin . Then comes the latter composer’s Serenade for Strings, one of his most successful and satisfying works. The standard of the string playing does not let Boult down; but the first movement, in its slow introduction and following main theme, is far too heavy and over-accentuated. So, the charm of the work and its grandeur do not come through here.

The remainder of the work fares much better. The irresistible waltz is as delightful as ever, and the great Larghetto elegiaco is played with real feeling and surprising flexibility. I particularly love the coda to this movement, where Tchaikovsky’s harmonies briefly cast a shadow over the music’s serenity. The finale, with its irrepressible Russian theme, brings the necessary lively conclusion. There are a few slightly scrappy moments in this movement, but let us remember two things. This is very taxing music, despite its charm; and these recordings are one-take-wonders from an era when editing was still largely impossible, until magnetic tape arrived in the 1940s.

Another bonbon opératique is the famous Bacchanale from Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila , a fairly tame version this time. The final tracks contain two of Sibelius’s finest tone-poems. The Oceanides is one of the greatest seascapes in the whole of music. To finish with, we get one of my own favourites, Night Ride and Sunrise . Sibelius describes an overnight journey by sleigh through an icy landscape. The bumpy, obsessive ride suddenly stops, and there follows the most uplifting and glorious depictions of dawn that you can imagine – even Ravel could not surpass this one! Boult gets it, as he usually did, just right.

Gwyn Parry-Jones
MusicWeb International