Only last May I was warmly welcoming Beecham’s 1954 Proms performance of Sibelius’s mighty Seventh Symphony with the RPO; now the BBC archivists have unearthed another, in some ways even more powerful statement, this time featuring Sir Adrian Boult at the helm of the same band. Fascinatingly, the two readings complement each other wonderfully. Beecham’s account has a radiant allure and tingling, translucent atmosphere all its own, whereas Boult’s conception evinces the greater intellectual scope and architectural splendour. Granitic and uncompromising, Sir Adrian’s is a reading of doughty, clear-sighted integrity that had me marvelling afresh at the awesome inevitability and seamless organic flow of this inexhaustible masterpiece.
That Sibelius Seventh emanates from a March 1963 concert at the RFH, whereas the remainder of Sir Adrian’s programme was captured at a July 1964 Prom featuring the Philharmonia. Surprisingly, given his consummate understanding of the core repertory, Boult made just one commercial recording of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. That was way back in 1923 at the outset of his career (with the British SO for the Edison Bell label), all of which makes this BBC recording doubly cherishable. It is, not to beat about the bush, a simply glorious document, profoundly moving in its unerring ‘rightness’, tender humanity and gentle wisdom.
Under Boult’s watchful, yet twinklingly affectionate direction, Bizet’s Jeux d’enfants is an absolute delight from start to finish. In his exemplary booklet-essay, Rob Cowan detects a kinship here with Elgar’s Wand of Youth music – an impression I would wholeheartedly endorse, above all in the ravishing, unforgettably wistful cantilena of ‘Petit mari, petite femme’ (where the Philharmonia strings surpass themselves).
Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe was another Boult speciality that never made it onto disc; indeed, the Second Suite was the final item in Sir Adrian’s triumphant inaugural concert with the BBC SO in October 1930. Patience and honesty are the watchwords to describe Boult’s handling of ‘Lever du jour’, not to mention a textural clarity, Apollonian purity and probing intelligence that also illuminate the progress of ‘Pantomime’ (I was put in mind of Ansermet’s similarly individual 1965 Decca version of the whole ballet – nla). If the concluding ‘Danse generale’ lacks something in terms of sheer abandon, there’s abundant compensation in the sinewy logic (not for nothing does Ravel’s score bear the subtitle ‘Fragments symphoniques’); the closing pages – where Ravel’s time-signature shortens from 5/4 to 3/4 and then finally 2/4 – convey a tremendous cumulative excitement. Now, do the archives contain a complete Daphnis under Boult, I wonder?
In short, an utterly absorbing anthology and absolutely not to be missed. The stereo tapes have all come up very cleanly.'