It's good news that Decca are reissuing Boult's earlier recordings of Vaughan Williams's symphonies for in the main they are superior to the later versions he made for EMI. But here Decca have coupled two works which were very much associated with Sir John Barbirolli in their early days. Barbirolli conducted first performances of both, and in each case made a superlative first recording very shortly after—for EMI and Pye, respectively. Neither is available at present, alas. Boult's performances, recorded soon after the Barbirolli versions, are wise and thoughtful of course, and each has a certain authority in that the composer was present to advise at recording sessions. But in neither case does Boult get quite into the work as did Barbirolli, or Haitink more recently in the Sinfonia antartica (EMI). There's a certain reserve, a slight unwillingness to let the music speak out, and the feeling that he was less at home in these works than in the earlier symphonies.
Margaret Ritchie sings her wordless part in the Sinfonia antartica with a superb sense of atmosphere, however, and Sir John Gielgud delivers the superscriptions at the head of each movement very movingly: I do not find this an intrusion on the music as some commentators have in the past. The very good 1953 mono sound has been well matched to the original LP, and the Eighth Symphony has also been faithfully transferred in quite vivid 1956 stereo.'