Stalwart Anglophiles will doubtless already own the Hyperion disc of Vernon Handley’s trusty RPO performance of Rutland Boughton’s Third Symphony (1937). Not having returned to the work for a considerable period of time, I was pleasantly surprised by how many melodic fecundities in his likeable score had lodged themselves in the memory. The first movement’s secondary theme is a beauty, as is the ravishing horn-led main idea of the ensuing, Finzi-esque Adagio con serenita. I still think the most wholly successful movement comprises the brassy, out-of-doors Allegro giocoso scherzo. Moreover, in Downes’s hands the finale unfolds with a greater sense of purpose than it does under Handley – and the unashamedly grandiose peroration is more convincing too. Boughton’s Third, though not by any means a great work, remains a thoroughly endearing creation, and one well worth an occasional airing.
As it happens, much the same verdict applies to its predecessor of 1927. This grew out of a three-act ballet score planned for (and, according to the composer’s biographer, Michael Hurd, ultimately rejected by) Ninette de Valois, which was based on the tragic life and love of Deirdre, one of the heroines of Celtic mythology. Boughton had no problems refashioning his aborted stage-work and himself directed the broadcast premiere in January 1932. A year later, Dan Godfrey gave the work its first public hearing in Bournemouth, and, in January 1939, Clarence Raybould gave another radio performance. After that, the piece was not taken up again until the present 1985 BBC broadcast. Such neglect is undeserved, I feel, for the symphony is nicely proportioned and contains plenty of good ideas. Boughton’s chosen idiom combines something of the wistful tenderness and restraint of Elgar with a fertile aural imagination reminiscent of Bantock. The Celtic character of the subtitle is most apparent in the ravishing central movement, an enchanting “Moonlight Idyll” scored with luminous beauty. Indeed, Boughton’s rich, yet never clotted orchestral palette adds very considerably to the listener’s pleasure throughout.
As I’ve already intimated, Sir Edward Downes is a highly sympathetic, unfussy guide. The BBC Philharmonic respond with pleasing wholeheartedness, though in the otherwise lively account of the Third Symphony, one notes that these players aren’t always quite on the invincible form they habitually display nowadays. That said, such intrepid enterprise is not to be decried and plenty of readers will surely find this decent-sounding, budget-price issue of some rewarding, off-the-beaten-track repertoire pretty irresistible.'