Boult on Beulah

Adrian Boult had the good fortune to study at Leipzig where he watched the conductor Arthur Nikisch at work. Nikisch's stick technique impressed the young Boult who thereafter always used a long stick controlled by wrist movement. This sometimes gave the audience the impression of little effort being exerted by Boult. However the musicians watched the swish of the long stick and Boult's piecing eyes. For six years from 1924 Boult directed the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

In 1930 Sir John Reith, Director General of the BBC invited Boult to form a symphony orchestra. Boult trawled the Hallé and Queens Hall Orchestras for his principles and many of the rank and file of the new BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Having already established himself as a leading exponent of Elgar's music Boult used the new orchestra to broadcast the music of Elgar to a wider audience. To the ageing composer the young Boult's performance of the Second Symphony came as a revelation. "I feel that my reputation in he future is safe in your hands," he wrote after Boult's re-introduction of the work to London in 1920 after its neglect for nearly a decade.

Boult remained with the BBC until, reaching the age of sixty, when he was required to retire in accordance with BBC employment conditions.

It just so happened that at the same time the London Philharmonic Orchestra's conductor Eduard van Beinum relinquished his post due to ill health. Boult was appointed conductor to the LPO, a post he held until the end of 1956. During this time they were often engaged to make recordings. Having spent twenty years with one of the world's leading radio orchestras he was no stranger to the recording studio and could work quickly and closely with recording producers.

Boult is often associated with British composers, such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams. During his time in Leipzig he conducted Wagner, a composer that he was to return to at the end of his career in the 1970s.

Respected by soloists as a great accompanist, Boult kept a card index of soloists he worked with. On the cards would be details of works performed with such information as speeds taken so that he would acquaint himself with a soloist's performance style prior to a further performance.

Boult was equally good at giving orchestral support for dancers and throughout his life he remained in demand as a ballet conductor, in fact his very last conducting engagement was with the London Festival Ballet.

Sir Adrian's English Music Sessions

At the height of his powers as one of Britain's leading interpreters of his contempories Sir Adrian spent nine days between October 19 and November 2 1954 in the Kingsway Hall, London, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra recording English music for Decca with Kenneth Wilkinson balace engineer and James Walker producer. All the music recorded during these sessions can be downloaded here.

Arnold - Eight English Dances
Bax - Tintagel

Butterworth - A Shropshire Lad

Butterworth - The Banks of Green Willow

Elgar - Chansons Op. 15

Elgar - Threee Bavarian Dances

Elgar - Violin Concerto with Alfredo Campoli

Holst - Pefect Fool Ballet Music

Vaughan Williams - Old King Cole Ballet for orchestra

Walton - Portsmouth Point Overture

Walton - Scapino

Walton - Siesta

7PD10 Ultimate Campoli

Alfredo Campoli plays

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor[Listen]
Bruch Scottish Fantasy [Listen]

London Philhramonic Orchestra conductor Sir Adrian Boult

Saint Saens Havanaise [Listen]
Saint Saens Introduction and rondo capriccioso [Listen]

London Symphony Orchestra conductor Anatole Fistoulari

In March 1953 Decca's chief engineer Arthur Haddy engaged Roy Wallace who had worked for ten years on binaural sound for Lawrence Savage ( a pioneer of binaural recording). Wallace developed a technique using three microphone, left, centre and right, mounted in a triangle on a Dexion frame. Roy Wallace recalled that it was a crude attempt to recreate the artificial head that he spent about a year making. When Arthur Haddy first saw the array, he remarked: "It looks like a bloody Christmas Tree!" Ever since the array has been known as a "tree". Since Wallace used three microphones but only two recording channels he adapted Decca's six channel mono mixer to two sets of three. In an effort to keep the work on binaural recording secret early recordings were made in continental Europe. Decca's tape library filed binaural tapes in a new BN (for binaural) series. We have therefore described these recordings as binaural rather than stereo.

"The Mendelssohn Concerto gets a fine reading, Campoli's tuning spot-on as always, the Bruch masterly and imposing." Peter Joelson at Audiophile Audition

"The greatest recording ever made" of Elgar's Second Symphony. "One of my Desert Island Discs choices" Rob Cowan BBC Radio 3 16 October 2005

Alfredo Campoli performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto over 900 times during his career as a soloist. On this disc we release his 1949 recording with the London Philharmonic conducted by Eduard van Beinum. It is coupled with his 1954 recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult .

Sir Adrian boult created the BBC Symphony Orchestra and withoin a very short time after its creation in 1930 it had established itself as a world class orchestra. This disc contains recordings made during the first ten years of the orchestra. It contains:

Sir Adrian BOULT at Beulah Extra