This disc very usefully brings together all of the Bax recordings made by Boult for Lyrita. Conversations I had with Sir Adrian towards the end of his life suggested that he was not a wholehearted admirer of Bax's music. He served the composer diligently for many years, however, and clearly there were some works which he did admire. One of these was November Woods. His performance of this tone-poem is masterly and he generates a great deal of tension, atmosphere and drama. Here is Boult at his very best, and Bryden Thomson's version on Chandos seem pedestrian and prosaic in comparison. Tintagel's warm, surging romanticism is also vividly painted by Sir Adrian, and the Northern Ballad No. 1, a colder and darker piece, is played with much strength and vigour. In The Garden of Fand Boult's approach is more objective than either Beecham (EMI) or Barbirolli (PRT, 7/57—nla), each of whom in their different ways responds more readily to the work's heady perfumes and delicate colouring. But Boult's performance is satisfying on its own terms, and once more he puts Bryden Thomson on Chandos in the shade. Sir Adrian brings a pleasing lilt to the short Mediterranean, but this piece perhaps needs slightly stronger accents than it receives here.
There is an occasional hint of distortion in the tone of the violin section, rather as if the transfer engineers have tried to dig more deeply into the original analogue sound than they should have done. In other respects the recordings have come up well.'