No one was a doughtier champion of Vaughan Williams than Boult, and if EMI’s elegant, slimline repackaging of Sir Adrian’s admittedly variable stereo symphony cycle (together with a generous assortment of other orchestral items) serves to introduce a whole new clutch of listeners to VW’s remarkable odyssey, then it will have fulfilled its purpose admirably.
Highlights? Well, although it can’t rival the implacable grip and thrilling authority of Boult’s own legendary mono predecessor, I’ve always had a soft spot for this September 1968 version of A Sea Symphony. Certainly, it remains a wonderfully wise and affectionate traversal. Rehearing Boult’s New Philharmonia recording of A Pastoral Symphony (of which he gave the premiere in 1922), I now wonder whether I’ve tended to underestimate its subtle merits in the past. How movingly Boult conveys both the tugging heartache and wondrous ebb and flow of this elusive masterwork. The Kingsway Hall sound here is very fine, though not quite as bloom-laden as it was on the original full-price issue (1/87 – nla; like the Fifth, with which it shares a disc, it was remastered for its mid-priced resuscitation on British Composers). Elsewhere, the Ninth comes off pretty well – a reading of characteristic integrity, if just a little wanting in tingling concentration (the first half of the finale tends to hang fire by the side of Boult’s 1958 world-premiere recording – Everest, 4/95, just deleted, alas). As for A London Symphony and No 5, they also possess their fair share of treasurable qualities, though I continue to hold a marked preference for Sir Adrian’s altogether tauter mono versions (truly inspirational performances, both, that of the Fifth finishing top of the heap in my June 2000 Gramophone Collection).
On the downside, Boult and the LPO make surprisingly heavy weather of the Sinfonia Antartica and Eighth (the latter receives strangely lacklustre treatment all round, in fact), and in Nos 4 and 6, for all the abundant character and spirit displayed by the hard-working, sometimes distractingly fallible New Philharmonia, Boult fails to rekindle the fires so memorably stoked on his earlier mono interpretations (do investigate his electrifying 1949 LSO account of the Sixth, newly restored on Dutton).
Among the valuable clutch of extras, I was especially pleased to see the inclusion of Job. This was Boult’s fourth and final recording of a masterpiece he conducted with supreme understanding for more than 40 years (he was, of course, the dedicatee). There are many collectors (myself included) who retain an especial affection for this particular document, but it seldom blazes in the way that Boult’s blistering BBC SO account does (Dutton, 1/97 – nla). Job shares a disc with VW’s 1946 two-piano arrangement of his remarkable Piano Concerto (1926-31). Unfortunately, the 1968 Abbey Road sound here is unpleasantly coarse and restricted; nor is the actual performance untouched by routine. (That superlatively engineered Markham/Broadway version with Menuhin – formerly on Virgin Classics’s bargain Virgo label, 1/94 – deserves a new lease of life.) Infinitely more palatable, to my mind, are the warm-hearted renderings of Serenade to Music (with a strong vocal line-up), In the Fen Country and The Lark Ascending (featuring Hugh Bean in radiant form). The Tallis Fantasia is enjoyable but again doesn’t eclipse memories of Boult’s passionately fervent, superbly shaped wartime account with the BBC SO.
Despite occasional foibles, this set is definitely worth its extremely modest outlay – just don’t deprive yourself of hearing Boult’s mono cycle as well.'