This CD usefully brings
together a clutch of Ireland orchestral
works that Sir Adrian recorded for Lyrita
in the 1960s. Lyrita are surprisingly
coy about recording dates but they have
no need to be: the recorded sound –
and the performances - sound as fresh
as ever on this, their first CD issue.
As Rob Barnett justly
observes in his review
the contents of this CD are largely
surpassed in quality by the music included
on the companion disc SRCD
241 but, despite that small caveat,
there’s much to enjoy and admire here.
I relished in particular
Boult’s account of the wartime Epic
March. Here’s an offering right
in the tradition of Pomp and Circumstance
and Crown Imperial. In fact,
the noble and confident trio tune has
Walton-esque echoes and is definitely
none the worse for that. Boult’s performance
has real dash.
He’s equally successful
in The Forgotten Rite. Here he
distils the atmosphere and mystery superbly.
The conductor’s control is admirable
as he builds the piece from its hushed
opening to the powerful climax and then
manages the music back down again to
a quiet close. Mai-Dun, in Julian
Herbage’s words, "epitomises the
strenuous life and struggles of a primitive
community." Boult’s reading has
grip and drama. The more lyrical central
section is convincingly shaped with
some ripe playing to savour from the
LPO.
A London Overture
is a nicely pointed, affectionate tribute
to the city in which Ireland lived for
many years. Boult plays it with wit
and geniality but also with the requisite
amount of bite. Despite the extra colours
of the full orchestral version I must
confess to a preference for the piece
in its original brass band incarnation
as A Comedy Overture (1934).
However, it’s a very fine piece in the
orchestral version too and Boult’s performance
is an excellent one.
Tritons is an
early, unpublished work. However, as
composer Geoffrey Bush, Ireland’s one-time
pupil and longstanding friend, points
out in a note, Ireland evidently thought
enough of the music to recycle much
of it in 1944 as A Maritime Overture
for military band. Bush draws attention
to the influence of Ireland’s teacher,
Stanford. The music may not be among
Ireland’s most important or characteristic
but it’s certainly not short on confidence.
Geoffrey Bush has assembled
the Julius Caesar music that
is played here in what, I suspect, was
its first recording. This performance
must have been set down in or after
1970 for Bush writes that he first looked
at the scraps of music that Ireland
had left in January 1970. The music
had been written as incidental music
for a BBC radio production of Shakespeare’s
play in 1942. I’ve deliberately used
the word "scraps" since Bush
tells us that the material consisted
of eighteen fragments, none of which
was more than three lines long. It seems
to me that he’s done a first rate rescue
job – one would be unaware of the fragmentary
nature of the original material simply
from listening. The music is scored,
rather unusually, for woodwind, brass,
double basses and percussion. I particularly
liked the grave Cortège.
To finish Boult offers
some film music in the shape of a four-movement
suite compiled by Sir Charles Mackerras
from Ireland’s incidental music for
the 1947 film, The Overlanders.
The suite includes a vigorous March,
which was the film’s title music and
culminates with an exciting illustration
of a nighttime stampede.
Throughout the programme
Boult conducts with flair and imagination
and he gets excellent playing from the
LPO. The recorded sound wears its years
very lightly indeed and presents the
orchestra most truthfully – I suspect
the venue may have been London’s Kingsway
Hall. The notes, by three different
writers, are presumably assembled from
the original LP issues: all are well
informed and very readable. At the time
they were first released these Boult
recordings and their companions on two
other Lyrita CDs, represented the first
serious survey of Ireland’s orchestral
music. Though subsequent recordings
have appeared from other labels and
other conductors these performances
are still required listening for all
Ireland enthusiasts and their appearance
at last on CD is greatly to be welcomed.
John Quinn
See also review by Rob
Barnett
for
details
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Adrian
Boult 
