I’d always assumed
because Boult was incensed at having
been told to divide his violins for
these recordings, and because by all
accounts he threw one of his periodic
fits, that these recordings were sub-par.
The impression was reinforced by their
long absence from the catalogues and
by the existence of other recordings
by Boult of the symphonies, some commercial
and others live. Since Sargent was completely
bypassed for studio recordings of the
symphonies – an unaccountable misjudgement
which live broadcast performances have
thrown into pertinent relief – it was
left to Boult and Barbirolli to dominate
the field. I’ve always found Barbirolli
more convincing in No.1 – in the earlier
Hallé recording, fond though
I am of the emotional Philharmonia traversal
– and Boult in No. 2, a work that he
did so much to revivify in the 1920s
and of which his 1945 78s set is so
supreme an example of his way with it.
Be all this as it may,
critics would have stacked up these
1968 Lyritas against the two Barbirolli
No. 1s and the LPO Boult of 1957. They
would have duly noted Boult’s greater
fidelity to the score, as regards the
later Barbirolli recordings, but the
greater tonal warmth of the Philharmonia
which does indeed play marvellously
for Barbirolli, whatever reservations
they may have harboured about his tempi.
Now that we have the
luxury of so many years to consider,
it remains really only to examine Boult’s
recordings in the cold light of critical
day. If I’d imagined they were sub-par
I was wrong. I still don’t think them
the best of Boult. The 78 set of the
Second from 1945, sonically limited
though it may be, and the later EMI
1970s recording of No.1 seem to me to
be his most outstanding statements of
both scores. But what remains true is
the tremendous symphonic grip and control
exerted by Boult throughout both works.
The measured gravity
of his opening of the First, is highlit
by Lyrita’s close-up concentration on
the strutting brass, and by the colour
often obscured in more massy, messy,
congested performances and recordings.
Solo lines emerge beautifully and naturally
from the density of Elgar’s undergrowth.
And at 65 crotchets to the minute Boult
approaches Elgar’s demand of 72; with
Boult tempi are linear yet infinitely
malleable in matters of rubati, all
the while predicated on the long line,
on architectural verities, principles
long handed down to him in the symphonic
literature. His slow movement is nobly
burnished but not as superficially affecting
as Barbirolli’s Philharmonia performance.
The Second Symphony
is equally impressive. Boult had long
learned that not all Elgar’s voluminous
tempo markings were to be followed to
the letter but he keeps to the sprit
of most of them. Therefore his opening
movement emerges as a powerfully consonant
piece of work, each incident properly
related to the whole. Boult’s performance
is an argument in the strictest architectural
terms, building the edifice from the
ground up and having always in view
the final pages, which he unfolds with
unselfconscious and culminatory glow.
It’s not the most obviously extrovert
or emotive performance but it never
releases its own special grip.
So, yes, the long unavailability
of these performances should not have
been equated by me with below-par performances
in a fraught recording studio, if that’s
what it was. Boult admirers have many
performances of his on which to draw
when it comes to the Elgar symphonies.
These were not his first nor his last
words on the subject but they sit wisely
and well and not especially transitionally,
in the corpus of his Elgar discs. In
truth then not essential – but very
valuable.
Jonathan Woolf
see also reviews
by Rob
Barnett and Stephen
Hall
for details
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Adrian
Boult 
