Adrian Boult
Encyclopedia
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH
(8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was an English conductor
. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig
, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House
and Sergei Diaghilev
's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra
in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation
appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra
and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra
(LPO), founded two years later.
Forced to leave the BBC in 1950 on reaching retirement age, Boult took on the chief conductorship of the LPO. The orchestra had declined from its peak of the 1930s, but under his guidance its fortunes were revived. He retired as its chief conductor in 1957, and later accepted the post of president. Although in the latter part of his career he worked with other orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra
, the Philharmonia Orchestra
, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
, and his former orchestra, the BBC Symphony, it was the LPO with which he was primarily associated, conducting it in concerts and recordings until 1978, in what was widely called his "Indian Summer".
Boult was known for his championing of British music. He gave the first performance of his friend Gustav Holst
's The Planets
, and introduced new works by, among others, Bliss
, Britten
, Delius
, Tippett
, Vaughan Williams
and Walton
. In his BBC years he introduced works by foreign composers, including Bartók
, Berg
, Stravinsky
, Schoenberg
and Webern
. A modest man who disliked the limelight, Boult felt as comfortable in the recording studio as on the concert platform, making recordings throughout his career. From the mid-1960s until his retirement after his last sessions in 1978 he recorded extensively for EMI
. As well as a series of recordings that have remained in the catalogue for three or four decades, Boult's legacy includes his influence on prominent conductors of later generations, including Colin Davis
and Vernon Handley
.
Boult was born in Chester
in north west England, the second child and only son of Cedric Randal Boult (1853–1950), and his wife Katharine Florence née Barman (d. 1927). Cedric Boult was a Justice of the Peace
and a successful businessman connected with Liverpool
shipping and the oil trade; Cedric and his family had "a Liberal Unitarian outlook on public affairs" with a history of philanthropy. When Boult was two years old the family moved to Blundellsands
, where he was given a musical upbringing. From an early age he attended concerts in Liverpool, conducted mostly by Hans Richter
. He was educated at Westminster School
in London, where in his free time he attended concerts conducted by, among others, Sir Henry Wood
, Claude Debussy
, Arthur Nikisch
and Richard Strauss
. His biographer, Michael Kennedy
, writes, "Few schoolboys can have attended as many performances by great artists as Boult heard between 1901 and October 1908, when he went up to Christ Church, Oxford." While still a schoolboy, Boult met the composer Edward Elgar
through Frank Schuster
, a family friend.
At Christ Church
college at Oxford
, where he was an undergraduate from 1908 to 1912, Boult studied history but later switched to music, in which his mentor was the musical academic and conductor Hugh Allen
. Among the musical friends he made at Oxford was Ralph Vaughan Williams
, who became a lifelong friend. In 1909 Boult presented a paper to an Oxford musical group, the Oriana Society, entitled Some Notes on Performance, in which he laid down three precepts for an ideal performance: observance of the composer's wishes, clarity through emphasis on balance and structure, and the effect of music made without apparent effort. These guiding principles lasted throughout his career. He was president of the University Musical Club for the year 1910, but his interests were not wholly confined to music: he was a keen rower, stroking his college boat at Henley
, and all his life he remained a member of the Leander Club
.
Boult graduated in 1912, with a basic "pass" degree. He continued his musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1912–13. The musician Hans Sitt was in charge of the conducting class, but Boult's main influence was Nikisch. He later recalled, "I went to all his [Nikisch's] rehearsals and concerts in the Gewandhaus. … He had an astonishing baton technique and great command of the orchestra: everything was indicated with absolute precision. But there were others who were greater interpreters." Boult admired Nikisch "not so much for his musicianship but his amazing power of saying what he wanted with a bit of wood. He spoke very little". This style was in accord with Boult's opinion that "all conductors should be clad in an invisible Tarnhelm
which makes it possible to enjoy the music without seeing any of the antics that go on". He sang in choral festivals and at the Leeds Festival
of 1913, where he watched Nikisch conduct. There he made the acquaintance of George Butterworth
, and other British composers. Late that year Boult joined the musical staff of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
, where his most important work was to assist the first British production of Wagner
's Parsifal
, and do "odd jobs with lighting cues" while Nikisch conducted the Ring
cycle.
Public Hall, with members of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. His programme comprised orchestral works by Bach
, Butterworth, Mozart
, Schumann
, Wagner and Hugo Wolf
, interspersed with arias by Mozart and Verdi
sung by Agnes Nicholls
. Boult was declared medically unfit for active service during World War I
, and until 1916 he served as an orderly officer in a reserve unit. He was recruited by the War Office
as a translator (he spoke good French, German and Italian). In his spare time he organised and conducted concerts, some of which were subsidised by his father, with the aims of giving work to orchestral players and bringing music to a wider audience.
In 1918 Boult conducted the London Symphony Orchestra
in a series of concerts that included important recent British works. Among them was the première of a revised version of Vaughan Williams's A London Symphony
, a performance which was "rather spoilt by a Zeppelin raid". His best-known première of this period was Holst's The Planets
. Boult conducted the first performance on 29 September 1918 to an invited audience of about 250. Holst later wrote on his copy of the score, "This score is the property of Adrian Boult who first caused The Planets to shine in public and so earned the gratitude of Gustav Holst."
Elgar was another composer who had cause to be grateful to Boult. His Second Symphony
had, since its première nine years earlier, received few performances. When Boult conducted it at the Queen's Hall
in March 1920 to "great applause" and "frantic enthusiasm", the composer wrote to him: "With the sounds ringing in my ears I send a word of thanks for your splendid conducting of the Sym. … I feel that my reputation in the future is safe in your hands." Elgar's friend and biographer, the violinist W. H. Reed
, wrote that Boult's performance of Elgar's neglected work brought "the grandeur and nobility of the work" to wider public attention.
Boult took a wide variety of conducting jobs in the years following the war. In 1919 he succeeded Ernest Ansermet
as musical director of Sergei Diaghilev
's ballet company. Although Ansermet gave Boult all the help he could in his preparations, there were fourteen ballets in the company's repertory – none of which Boult knew. In only a short period, Boult was required to master such scores as Petrushka
, The Firebird
, Scheherazade
, La Boutique fantasque
and The Good-Humoured Ladies. In June 1921, Boult conducted for Theodore Komisarjevsky
and Vladimir Rosing
's experimental Opera Intime week at London's Aeolian Hall
. He also took on an academic post. When Hugh Allen succeeded Sir Hubert Parry
as principal of the Royal College of Music
, he invited Boult to start a conducting class along the lines of Leipzig – the first such class in England. Boult ran the classes from 1919 to 1930. In 1921 he received a Doctorate of Music.
In 1923 Boult conducted the first season of the Robert Mayer concerts for children, but his participation in the following season was prevented by his appointment in 1924 as conductor of the Birmingham Festival Choral Society. This led to his becoming musical director of the City of Birmingham Orchestra
, where he remained in charge for six years, attracting widespread attention with his adventurous programmes.
The advantage of the Birmingham post was that for the first time in his life Boult had his own orchestra, and sole control of programming; the only time in his life, he later said, when that was so. The disadvantages were that the orchestra was inadequately funded, the available venues (including the Town Hall) were unsatisfactory, the Birmingham Post
s music critic, A. J. Symons, was a constant thorn in Boult's side, and the local concert-going public had conservative tastes. Despite this conservatism, Boult programmed as much innovative music as was practical, including works by Mahler
, Stravinsky
and Bruckner
. Such departures from the repertoire expected by the regular concert-goers depressed the box-office takings, requiring subsidies from private benefactors including Boult's family.
While at Birmingham Boult had the opportunity to conduct a number of operas, chiefly with the British National Opera Company
, for which he conducted Die Walküre
and Otello
. He also conducted a diverse range of operas from such composers as Purcell
, Mozart
and Vaughan Williams
. In 1928 he succeeded Vaughan Williams as conductor of the Bach Choir
in London, a position he held until 1931.
and particularly the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwängler
in 1929, had highlighted the relatively poor standards of London orchestras. Sir Thomas Beecham
and the director general of the BBC Sir John Reith
were keen to establish a first-class symphony orchestra, and they agreed in principle to do so jointly. Only a small number of core players were recruited, however, before negotiations foundered. Beecham withdrew, and with Malcolm Sargent
soon established the rival London Philharmonic Orchestra
.
In 1930 Boult returned to London to succeed Percy Pitt
as director of music at the BBC
. On taking up the post, Boult and his department recruited enough musicians to bring the complement of the new BBC Symphony Orchestra
to 114. A substantial number of these players performed at the 1930 Promenade Concerts
under Sir Henry Wood
, and the full BBC Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert on 22 October 1930, conducted by Boult at the Queen's Hall
. The programme consisted of music by Wagner
, Brahms
, Saint-Saëns
and Ravel
. Of the 21 programmes in the orchestra's first season, Boult conducted nine and Wood five.
The reviews of the new orchestra were enthusiastic. The Times
wrote of its "virtuosity" and of Boult's "superb" conducting. The Musical Times
commented, "The boast of the B.B.C. that it intended to get together a first-class orchestra was not an idle one" and spoke of "exhilaration" at the playing. The Observer
called the playing "altogether magnificent" and said that Boult "deserves an instrument of this fine calibre to work on, and the orchestra deserves a conductor of his efficiency and insight." After the initial concerts Reith, was told by his advisers that the orchestra had played better for Boult than anyone else. Reith asked him if he wished to take on the chief conductorship, and if so whether he would resign as director of music or occupy both posts simultaneously. Boult opted for the latter.
During the 1930s, the BBC Symphony Orchestra became renowned for its high standard of playing and for Boult's capable performances of new and unfamiliar music. Like Henry Wood before him, Boult regarded it as his duty to give the best possible performances of a wide range of composers, including those whose works were not personally congenial to him. His biographer, Michael Kennedy, writes that there was a very short list of composers whose works Boult refused to conduct, "but it would be difficult to deduce who they were." Boult's pioneering work with the BBC included an early performance of Schoenberg
's Variations, Op. 31, British premières, including Alban Berg
's opera Wozzeck
and Three Movements from the Lyric Suite, and world premières, including Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 4 in F minor
and Bartók
's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra. He introduced Mahler's Ninth Symphony
to London in 1934, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra
in 1946. Boult invited Anton Webern
to conduct eight BBC concerts between 1931 and 1936.
The excellence of Boult's orchestra attracted leading international conductors. In its second season guest conductors included Richard Strauss
, Felix Weingartner
and Bruno Walter
, followed, in later seasons, by Serge Koussevitzky
, Beecham and Willem Mengelberg
. Arturo Toscanini
, widely regarded at the time as the world's leading conductor, conducted the BBC orchestra in 1935 and said that it was the finest he had ever directed. He returned to conduct the orchestra in 1937, 1938 and 1939.
During this period, Boult accepted some international guest conductorships, appearing with the Vienna Philharmonic, Boston Symphony
, and New York Philharmonic
orchestras. In 1936 and 1937 he headed European tours with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, giving concerts in Brussels, Paris, Zurich, Budapest and Vienna, where they were especially well received. During his BBC years, Boult did not entirely lose contact with the world of opera and his performances of Die Walküre
at Covent Garden
in 1931 and Fidelio
at Sadler's Wells Theatre
in 1930 were considered outstanding.
For many years, Boult had been a close friend of the tenor Steuart Wilson
and his wife Ann, née Bowles. When, in the late 1920s, Wilson began to mistreat his wife, Boult took her side. She divorced Wilson in 1931. In 1933, Boult astonished those who knew his notorious shyness with women by marrying her and becoming a much-loved stepfather to her four children. The marriage, which took place at Ditchling Unitarian Chapel
in East Sussex
, lasted for the rest of his life. The enmity it provoked in Wilson, however, had repercussions in Boult's later career. The stigma attached to divorce in Britain in the 1930s affected Wilson's career but not Boult's: Wilson was barred from performing in English cathedrals at the Three Choirs Festival
but Boult was invited to conduct the orchestra at Westminster Abbey
for the coronation of George VI
in 1937.
During World War II
the BBC Symphony Orchestra was evacuated first to Bristol
, where it suffered from bombing, and later to Bedford
. Boult strove to maintain standards and morale as he lost key players. Between 1939 and the end of the war, forty players left for active service or other activities. In 1942 Boult resigned as the BBC's director of music, while remaining chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This move, made as a favour to the composer Arthur Bliss
to provide a suitable war-time job for him, later came to be Boult's undoing at the BBC. Meanwhile he made recordings of Elgar's Second Symphony, Holst's The Planets and Vaughan Williams's Job, A Masque for Dancing. At the end of the war Boult "found a changed attitude to the orchestra in the upper echelons of the BBC". Reith was no longer director general, and without his backing Boult had to fight hard to restore the orchestra to its pre-war glory.
On 29 September 1946, Boult conducted Britten
's new Festival Overture, to inaugurate the BBC Third Programme
. For this innovative cultural channel, Boult was concerned in pioneering ventures including the British premiere of Mahler's Third Symphony
. The Times later said of this period, "The Third Programme could not possibly have had the scope which made it world-famous musically without Boult." Nevertheless, Boult's BBC days were numbered. When he was appointed in 1930, Reith had informally promised him that would be exempt from the BBC's rule that staff must retire at age 60. However, Reith had left the BBC in 1938 and his promise carried no weight with his successors. In 1948 Steuart Wilson was appointed head of music at the BBC, the post previously occupied by Boult and Bliss. He made it clear from the start of his appointment that he intended that Boult should be replaced as chief conductor, and he used his authority to insist on Boult's enforced retirement. The director general of the BBC at the time, Sir William Haley
, was unaware of Wilson's animus against Boult and later acknowledged, in a broadcast tribute to Boult, that he "had listened to ill-judged advice in retiring him." By the time of his retirement in 1950, Boult had made 1,536 broadcasts.
(LPO), offered him the post of principal conductor of the LPO in succession to Eduard van Beinum
. In the 1930s the LPO had flourished, but since Beecham's departure in 1940, it had struggled to survive. Boult was well known to the orchestra, having been among the musicians who came to its aid in 1940. He took over as chief conductor of the LPO in June 1950, immediately after leaving the BBC, and threw himself into the task of rebuilding it. In the early years of his conductorship, the finances of the LPO were perilous, and Boult subsidised the orchestra from his own funds for some time. The need to earn money obliged the orchestra to play many more concerts than its rivals. In the 1949–50 season, the LPO gave 248 concerts, compared with 55 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, 103 by the London Symphony Orchestra
, and 32 apiece by the Philharmonia
and Royal Philharmonic
orchestras.
Although he had worked extensively in the studio for the BBC, Boult had, up to this point, recorded only a part of his large repertoire for the gramophone. With the LPO he began a series of commercial recordings that continued at a varying rate for the rest of his working life. Their first recordings together were Elgar's Falstaff
, Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
with the mezzo
Blanche Thebom
, and Beethoven's First Symphony
. The work of the new team was greeted with approval by the reviewers. Of the Elgar, The Gramophone wrote, "I have heard no other conductor approach [Boult's] performance. … His newly adopted orchestra responds admirably". In The Manchester Guardian
, Neville Cardus
wrote, "Nobody is better able than Sir Adrian Boult to expound the subtly mingled contents of this master work."
In January 1951 Boult and the LPO made a tour of Germany, described by Kennedy as "gruelling", with 12 concerts on 12 successive days. The symphonies they played were Beethoven's Seventh
, Haydn's London, No 104
, Brahms's First
, Schumann's Fourth
and Schubert's Great C major
. The other works were Elgar's Introduction and Allegro
, Holst's The Perfect Fool
ballet music, Richard Strauss's Don Juan
, and Stravinsky's Firebird
.
In 1952, the LPO negotiated a five-year contract with Decca Records
, which was unusually rewarding for the orchestra, giving it a 10 per cent commission on most sales. On top of this, Boult always contributed his share of the recording fees to the orchestra's funds. In the same year, the LPO survived a crisis when Russell was dismissed as its managing director. He was an avowed member of the Communist party
; when the cold war
began some influential members of the LPO felt that Russell's private political affiliations compromised the orchestra, and pressed for his dismissal. Boult, as the orchestra's chief conductor, stood up for Russell, but when matters came to a head Boult ceased to protect him. Deprived of that crucial support, Russell was forced out. Kennedy speculates that Boult's change of mind was due to a growing conviction that the orchestra would be "seriously jeopardized financially" if Russell remained in post. A later writer, Richard Witts, suggests that Boult sacrificed Russell because he believed doing so would enhance the LPO's chance of being appointed resident orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall
.
In 1953 Boult once again took charge of the orchestral music at a coronation, conducting an ensemble drawn from UK orchestras at the coronation of Elizabeth II. During the proceedings, he conducted the first performances of Bliss's Processional and Walton's march Orb and Sceptre
. In the same year he returned to the Proms after a three-year absence, conducting the LPO. The notices were mixed: The Times found a Brahms symphony "rather colourless, imprecise and uninspiring", but praised Boult and the orchestra's performance of The Planets. The following year the orchestra celebrated its 21st birthday, giving a series of concerts at the Festival Hall and the Royal Albert Hall
in which Boult was joined by guest conductors including Paul Kletzki
, Jean Martinon
, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
, Georg Solti
, Walter Susskind
and Vaughan Williams.
In 1956 Boult and the LPO visited Russia. Boult had not wished to go on the tour because flying hurt his ears, and long land journeys hurt his back. The Soviet authorities threatened to cancel the tour if he did not lead it, and he felt obliged to go. The LPO gave nine concerts in Moscow and four in Leningrad
. Boult's assistant conductors were Anatole Fistoulari
and George Hurst
. Boult's four Moscow programmes included Vaughan Williams's Fourth
and Fifth
Symphonies, Holst's The Planets, Walton's Violin Concerto
(with Alfredo Campoli
as soloist), and Schubert's Great C major Symphony. While in Moscow, Boult and his wife visited the Bolshoi Opera
and were guests at the composer Dmitri Shostakovich
's 50th birthday party.
After the Russian tour, Boult told the LPO that he wished to step down from the principal conductorship. He continued to be the orchestra's main conductor until his successor William Steinberg
took up the post in 1959. After the sudden resignation of Andrzej Panufnik
from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), Boult returned as principal conductor of the CBSO for the 1959–60 season. That was his last chief conductorship, though he remained closely associated with the LPO as its president and a guest conductor until his retirement.
in 1970, Boult was seen as "the sole survivor of a great generation" and a living link with Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Holst. In the words of The Guardian
, "it was when he reached his late seventies that the final and most glorious period of his career developed." He ceased to accept overseas invitations, but conducted in the major British cities, as well as at the Festival and Albert Halls and began what is frequently called his "Indian Summer" in the concert hall and recording studio. He was featured in a 1971 film The Point of the Stick, in which he illustrated his conducting technique with musical examples.
At a spare recording session in August 1970 Boult recorded the Third Symphony
of Brahms. This was well-received and led to a series of recordings of Brahms, Wagner, Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven. His repertoire in general was much wider than his discography might suggest. It was a disappointment to him that he was rarely invited to conduct in the opera house, and he relished the opportunity to record extensive excerpts from the Wagner operas in the 1970s. His last public performance was conducting Elgar's ballet The Sanguine Fan
for the London Festival Ballet
at London's Coliseum
on 24 June 1978. His final record, completed in December 1978, was of music by Hubert Parry
. Boult formally retired from conducting in 1981 and died in London in 1983, aged 93.
Boult's biographer, Kennedy, gave this summary: "In the music he admired most, Boult was often a great conductor; in the rest, an extremely conscientious one. … If from behind he seemed unexciting and unemotional, the players could see the animation in his face – and he was capable of frightening outbursts of temper at rehearsals. Tall and erect, with something of the military in his appearance … he seemed the personification of the English gentleman. But recipients of his cutting wit and occasional sarcasm knew that this was not the whole picture." Grove's Dictionary
similarly said of him:
Boult, unlike many of his contemporaries, preferred the traditional orchestral layout, with first violins on the conductor's left and the seconds on the right. Of the practice of grouping all the violins together on the left, he wrote, "The new seating is, I admit, easier for the conductor and the second violins, but I firmly maintain that the second violins themselves sound far better on the right. … When the new fashion reached us from America somewhere about 1908 it was adopted by some conductors, but Richter, Weingartner, Walter, Toscanini and many others kept what I feel is the right balance."
This care for balance was an important feature of Boult's music-making. Orchestral players across decades commented on his insistence that every important part should be heard without difficulty. His BBC principal violist wrote in 1938, "If a woodwind player has to complain that he has already been blowing 'fit to burst' there is trouble for somebody." The trombonist Ray Premru wrote forty years later, "One of the old school, like Boult, is so refreshing because he will reduce the dynamic level – 'No, no, pianissimo, strings, let the soloist through, less from everyone else.' That is the old idea of balance."
As an educator, Boult influenced several generations of musicians, beginning with his conducting class at the Royal College of Music
, London, which he ran from 1919 to 1930. As no such classes had been held before in Britain, Boult "created its curriculum from out of his own experience. … From that first small class has come all the later formal training for conductors throughout Britain." In the 1930s Boult ran a series of "conferences for conductors" at his country house near Guildford
, sometimes helped by Vaughan Williams who lived a few miles away. From 1962 to 1966 he again taught at the Royal College of Music. In later life, he made time for young conductors who sought his counsel. Among those who studied with or were influenced by Boult were Colin Davis
, James Loughran
, Richard Hickox
and Vernon Handley
. The last was not only a pupil of Boult, but acted as his musical assistant on many occasions.
Boult was knighted in 1937 and was created Companion of Honour
(CH) in 1969. He received the gold medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society
in 1944 and the Harvard Glee Club
medal (jointly with Vaughan Williams) in 1956. He received honorary degrees and fellowships from 13 universities and conservatoires. In 1951 he was invited to be the first president of the Elgar Society. In 1959 he was made president of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music
.
The Birmingham Conservatoire, a department of the Birmingham City University
includes in its home building the Adrian Boult Hall
, a purpose-built 525-seat recital hall. It is used for classical concerts, other musical performances, and conferences.
made in May 1978 was taped in experimental digital sound, although technical problems led EMI to release an analogue version.
Boult's recordings fall into three main periods. In the first, from 1920 to the end of the 1940s, he recorded almost exclusively for HMV. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he was less in demand by the major labels, and although he made a substantial number of discs for Decca
, he recorded mostly for smaller labels, chiefly Pye Nixa
. His last period, from the mid-1960s, sometimes referred to as his Indian Summer, was once again with HMV. With his regular collaborators the producer Christopher Bishop and the engineer Christopher Parker he made more than sixty recordings, re-recording much of his key repertoire in stereo. He also added many works to his discography that he had not recorded before.
Of the British composers, Boult extensively recorded and sometimes re-recorded major works by Elgar and Vaughan Williams. He recorded all eight then-existing symphonies by Vaughan Williams for Decca in the 1950s with the LPO, in the presence of the composer. The recording producer, John Culshaw
, wrote that the composer "said very little during the sessions because he was totally in favour of Sir Adrian's approach to his music." Vaughan Williams was to have been present for the first recording of his Ninth symphony, for Everest Records
in 1958, but he died the night before the session took place; Boult recorded a short introduction as a memorial tribute. All these recordings have been reissued on CD. In the 1960s Boult re-recorded the nine symphonies for EMI.
Other British composers who feature significantly in Boult's discography include Holst, Ireland
, Parry
, and Walton
. Despite his reputation as a pioneer in Britain of the works of the Second Viennese School
and other avant-garde composers, the record companies, unlike the BBC, remained cautious about recording him in this repertory, and only a single recording of a Berg
piece represents this side of Boult's work. In the core continental orchestral repertoire, Boult's recordings of the four symphonies of Brahms, and the Great C major Symphony of Schubert were celebrated in his lifetime and have remained in the catalogues during the three decades after his death. Late in his recording career he recorded four discs of excerpts from Wagner's operas, which received great critical praise. The exceptional breadth of Boult's repertoire has left some well-regarded recordings of works not immediately associated with him, among which are versions of Franck
's Symphony (recorded in 1959), Dvořák's Cello Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovich
(1958), and a pioneering recording of Mahler's Third Symphony taped live in 1947.
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry or religion....
(8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was an English conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
and Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...
in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...
and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
(LPO), founded two years later.
Forced to leave the BBC in 1950 on reaching retirement age, Boult took on the chief conductorship of the LPO. The orchestra had declined from its peak of the 1930s, but under his guidance its fortunes were revived. He retired as its chief conductor in 1957, and later accepted the post of president. Although in the latter part of his career he worked with other orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
, the Philharmonia Orchestra
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...
, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
, and his former orchestra, the BBC Symphony, it was the LPO with which he was primarily associated, conducting it in concerts and recordings until 1978, in what was widely called his "Indian Summer".
Boult was known for his championing of British music. He gave the first performance of his friend Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
's The Planets
The Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
, and introduced new works by, among others, Bliss
Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO was an English composer and conductor.Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army...
, Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
, Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
, Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
and Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
. In his BBC years he introduced works by foreign composers, including Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
, Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
and Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
. A modest man who disliked the limelight, Boult felt as comfortable in the recording studio as on the concert platform, making recordings throughout his career. From the mid-1960s until his retirement after his last sessions in 1978 he recorded extensively for EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
. As well as a series of recordings that have remained in the catalogue for three or four decades, Boult's legacy includes his influence on prominent conductors of later generations, including Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
and Vernon Handley
Vernon Handley
Vernon George "Tod" Handley CBE was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers. He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, London. He acquired the nickname "Tod" because his feet were turned in at his birth, which his...
.
Early life
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
in north west England, the second child and only son of Cedric Randal Boult (1853–1950), and his wife Katharine Florence née Barman (d. 1927). Cedric Boult was a Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
and a successful businessman connected with Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
shipping and the oil trade; Cedric and his family had "a Liberal Unitarian outlook on public affairs" with a history of philanthropy. When Boult was two years old the family moved to Blundellsands
Blundellsands
Blundellsands or Blundell Sands is an area of Merseyside, England in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, and a Sefton council electoral ward...
, where he was given a musical upbringing. From an early age he attended concerts in Liverpool, conducted mostly by Hans Richter
Hans Richter (conductor)
Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...
. He was educated at Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
in London, where in his free time he attended concerts conducted by, among others, Sir Henry Wood
Henry Wood
Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...
, Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, Arthur Nikisch
Arthur Nikisch
Arthur Nikisch ; 12 October 185523 January 1922) was a Hungarian conductor who performed internationally, holding posts in Boston, London and - most importantly - Berlin. He was considered an outstanding interpreter of the music of Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Liszt...
and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
. His biographer, Michael Kennedy
Michael Kennedy (music critic)
Dr. George Michael Sinclair Kennedy CBE is an English biographer, journalist and writer on classical music. He joined the Daily Telegraph at the age of 15 in 1941, and began writing music criticism for it in 1948...
, writes, "Few schoolboys can have attended as many performances by great artists as Boult heard between 1901 and October 1908, when he went up to Christ Church, Oxford." While still a schoolboy, Boult met the composer Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
through Frank Schuster
Leo Frank Schuster
Leo Frank Schuster , was a patron of the arts in the United Kingdom, normally known to his friends as "Frankie". His home at 22 Old Queen Street, London, became a meeting-place for artists, writers and musicians, including Siegfried Sassoon, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert, Sir Edward Elgar...
, a family friend.
At Christ Church
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
college at Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, where he was an undergraduate from 1908 to 1912, Boult studied history but later switched to music, in which his mentor was the musical academic and conductor Hugh Allen
Hugh Allen (conductor)
Sir Hugh Percy Allen was an English musician, academic and administrator. He was a leading influence on British musical life in the first half of the 20th century.-Early years:...
. Among the musical friends he made at Oxford was Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
, who became a lifelong friend. In 1909 Boult presented a paper to an Oxford musical group, the Oriana Society, entitled Some Notes on Performance, in which he laid down three precepts for an ideal performance: observance of the composer's wishes, clarity through emphasis on balance and structure, and the effect of music made without apparent effort. These guiding principles lasted throughout his career. He was president of the University Musical Club for the year 1910, but his interests were not wholly confined to music: he was a keen rower, stroking his college boat at Henley
Henley Royal Regatta
Henley Royal Regatta is a rowing event held every year on the River Thames by the town of Henley-on-Thames, England. The Royal Regatta is sometimes referred to as Henley Regatta, its original name pre-dating Royal patronage...
, and all his life he remained a member of the Leander Club
Leander Club
Leander Club, founded in 1818, is one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world. It is based in Remenham in the English county of Berkshire, adjoining Henley-on-Thames...
.
Tarnhelm
Tarnhelm is the name of a magic helmet in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. It is used as a cloak of invisibility by Alberich in Das Rheingold...
which makes it possible to enjoy the music without seeing any of the antics that go on". He sang in choral festivals and at the Leeds Festival
Leeds Festival (classical music)
The Leeds Festival was a classical music festival which took place between 1858 and 1985 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.The first festival celebrated the opening of Leeds Town Hall by Queen Victoria on 7 September 1858...
of 1913, where he watched Nikisch conduct. There he made the acquaintance of George Butterworth
George Butterworth
George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC was an English composer best known for the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow and his song settings of A. E...
, and other British composers. Late that year Boult joined the musical staff of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, where his most important work was to assist the first British production of Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
, and do "odd jobs with lighting cues" while Nikisch conducted the Ring
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
cycle.
First conducting work
Boult made his début as a professional conductor on 27 February 1914 at West KirbyWest Kirby
West Kirby is a town on the north-west corner of the coast of the Wirral Peninsula, England, at the mouth of the River Dee across from the Point of Ayr in North Wales. To the north-east of the town lies Hoylake, with the suburbs of Grange and Newton to the east, and the village of Caldy to the...
Public Hall, with members of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. His programme comprised orchestral works by Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Butterworth, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Wagner and Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...
, interspersed with arias by Mozart and Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
sung by Agnes Nicholls
Agnes Nicholls
Agnes Nicholls was one of the greatest English sopranos of the 20th century, both in the concert hall and on the operatic stage....
. Boult was declared medically unfit for active service during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and until 1916 he served as an orderly officer in a reserve unit. He was recruited by the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
as a translator (he spoke good French, German and Italian). In his spare time he organised and conducted concerts, some of which were subsidised by his father, with the aims of giving work to orchestral players and bringing music to a wider audience.
In 1918 Boult conducted the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
in a series of concerts that included important recent British works. Among them was the première of a revised version of Vaughan Williams's A London Symphony
A London Symphony
A London Symphony is the second symphony composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The work is sometimes referred to as the Symphony No. 2, though it was not designated as such by the composer...
, a performance which was "rather spoilt by a Zeppelin raid". His best-known première of this period was Holst's The Planets
The Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
. Boult conducted the first performance on 29 September 1918 to an invited audience of about 250. Holst later wrote on his copy of the score, "This score is the property of Adrian Boult who first caused The Planets to shine in public and so earned the gratitude of Gustav Holst."
Elgar was another composer who had cause to be grateful to Boult. His Second Symphony
Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)
Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 2 in E major, Op. 63, was completed on 28 February 1911 and was premiered at the London Musical Festival at the Queen's Hall by the Queen's Hall Orchestra on 24 May 1911 with the composer conducting...
had, since its première nine years earlier, received few performances. When Boult conducted it at the Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...
in March 1920 to "great applause" and "frantic enthusiasm", the composer wrote to him: "With the sounds ringing in my ears I send a word of thanks for your splendid conducting of the Sym. … I feel that my reputation in the future is safe in your hands." Elgar's friend and biographer, the violinist W. H. Reed
William Henry Reed
William Henry "Billy" Reed was an English violinist, teacher, minor composer, conductor and biographer of Sir Edward Elgar...
, wrote that Boult's performance of Elgar's neglected work brought "the grandeur and nobility of the work" to wider public attention.
Boult took a wide variety of conducting jobs in the years following the war. In 1919 he succeeded Ernest Ansermet
Ernest Ansermet
Ernest Alexandre Ansermet was a Swiss conductor.- Biography :Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Although he was a contemporary of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Otto Klemperer, Ansermet represents in most ways a very different tradition and approach from those two musicians. Originally he was a...
as musical director of Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
's ballet company. Although Ansermet gave Boult all the help he could in his preparations, there were fourteen ballets in the company's repertory – none of which Boult knew. In only a short period, Boult was required to master such scores as Petrushka
Petrushka
Petrouchka or Petrushka is a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, composed in 1910–11 and revised in 1947....
, The Firebird
The Firebird
The Firebird is a 1910 ballet created by the composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor....
, Scheherazade
Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)
Sheherazade , Op. 35, is a symphonic suite composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888. Based on One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes known as The Arabian Nights, this orchestral work combines two features common to Russian music and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colourful...
, La Boutique fantasque
La Boutique fantasque
La Boutique fantasque or The Magic Toy Shop was a ballet conceived by Léonide Massine who wrote the choreography and the libretto. Ottorino Respighi wrote the music based on piano pieces by Gioachino Rossini. Its world premiere was at the Alhambra Theatre in London on 5 June 1919 and was performed...
and The Good-Humoured Ladies. In June 1921, Boult conducted for Theodore Komisarjevsky
Theodore Komisarjevsky
Fyodor Fyodorovich Komissarzhevsky or Theodore Komisarjevsky, as he is better known in the West, was a Russian theatrical director and designer. He began his career in Moscow, but had his greatest influence in London...
and Vladimir Rosing
Vladimir Rosing
Vladimir Sergeyevich Rosing , aka Val Rosing, was a Russian-born operatic tenor and stage director who spent most of his professional career in England and the United States...
's experimental Opera Intime week at London's Aeolian Hall
Aeolian Hall (London)
Aeolian Hall located at 135-137 New Bond Street, began life as the Grosvenor Gallery, being built by Sir Coutts Lindsay in 1876, an accomplished amateur artist, with a predeliction for the aesthetic movement, for which he was held up to some ridicule. In 1883, he decided to light his gallery with...
. He also took on an academic post. When Hugh Allen succeeded Sir Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
as principal of the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
, he invited Boult to start a conducting class along the lines of Leipzig – the first such class in England. Boult ran the classes from 1919 to 1930. In 1921 he received a Doctorate of Music.
Birmingham
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...
, where he remained in charge for six years, attracting widespread attention with his adventurous programmes.
The advantage of the Birmingham post was that for the first time in his life Boult had his own orchestra, and sole control of programming; the only time in his life, he later said, when that was so. The disadvantages were that the orchestra was inadequately funded, the available venues (including the Town Hall) were unsatisfactory, the Birmingham Post
Birmingham Post
The Birmingham Post newspaper was originally published under the name Daily Post in Birmingham, England, in 1857 by John Frederick Feeney. It was the largest selling broadsheet in the West Midlands, though it faced little if any competition in this category. It changed to tabloid size in 2008...
s music critic, A. J. Symons, was a constant thorn in Boult's side, and the local concert-going public had conservative tastes. Despite this conservatism, Boult programmed as much innovative music as was practical, including works by Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
, Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and Bruckner
Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...
. Such departures from the repertoire expected by the regular concert-goers depressed the box-office takings, requiring subsidies from private benefactors including Boult's family.
While at Birmingham Boult had the opportunity to conduct a number of operas, chiefly with the British National Opera Company
British National Opera Company
The British National Opera Company presented opera in English in London and on tour in the British provinces between 1922 and 1929. It was founded in December 1921 by singers and instrumentalists from Sir Thomas Beecham's Beecham Opera Company , which was disbanded when financial problems over...
, for which he conducted Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
and Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
. He also conducted a diverse range of operas from such composers as Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
and Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
. In 1928 he succeeded Vaughan Williams as conductor of the Bach Choir
The Bach Choir
The Bach Choir is a large chorus, based in London, England. It has around 220 active members. The choir's musical director is David Hill and previous musical directors have included Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Reginald Jacques and Sir David Willcocks.The Bach Choir is an...
in London, a position he held until 1931.
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Visits to London by the Hallé OrchestraThe Hallé
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...
and particularly the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
in 1929, had highlighted the relatively poor standards of London orchestras. Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
and the director general of the BBC Sir John Reith
John Reith, 1st Baron Reith
John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom...
were keen to establish a first-class symphony orchestra, and they agreed in principle to do so jointly. Only a small number of core players were recruited, however, before negotiations foundered. Beecham withdrew, and with Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
soon established the rival London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
.
In 1930 Boult returned to London to succeed Percy Pitt
Percy Pitt
Percy Pitt was an English organist and conductor.A native of London, Pitt studied music at the conservatory in Leipzig, also working in Munich with Josef Rheinberger...
as director of music at the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. On taking up the post, Boult and his department recruited enough musicians to bring the complement of the new BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...
to 114. A substantial number of these players performed at the 1930 Promenade Concerts
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
under Sir Henry Wood
Henry Wood
Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...
, and the full BBC Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert on 22 October 1930, conducted by Boult at the Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...
. The programme consisted of music by Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
and Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
. Of the 21 programmes in the orchestra's first season, Boult conducted nine and Wood five.
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote of its "virtuosity" and of Boult's "superb" conducting. The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
commented, "The boast of the B.B.C. that it intended to get together a first-class orchestra was not an idle one" and spoke of "exhilaration" at the playing. The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
called the playing "altogether magnificent" and said that Boult "deserves an instrument of this fine calibre to work on, and the orchestra deserves a conductor of his efficiency and insight." After the initial concerts Reith, was told by his advisers that the orchestra had played better for Boult than anyone else. Reith asked him if he wished to take on the chief conductorship, and if so whether he would resign as director of music or occupy both posts simultaneously. Boult opted for the latter.
During the 1930s, the BBC Symphony Orchestra became renowned for its high standard of playing and for Boult's capable performances of new and unfamiliar music. Like Henry Wood before him, Boult regarded it as his duty to give the best possible performances of a wide range of composers, including those whose works were not personally congenial to him. His biographer, Michael Kennedy, writes that there was a very short list of composers whose works Boult refused to conduct, "but it would be difficult to deduce who they were." Boult's pioneering work with the BBC included an early performance of Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's Variations, Op. 31, British premières, including Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's opera Wozzeck
Wozzeck
Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
and Three Movements from the Lyric Suite, and world premières, including Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 4 in F minor
Symphony No. 4 (Vaughan Williams)
The Symphony No. 4 in F minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams was dedicated by the composer to Arnold Bax.Unlike Vaughan Williams's first three symphonies it was not given a title, the composer stating that it was to be understood as pure music, without any incidental or external inspiration.In contrast...
and Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra. He introduced Mahler's Ninth Symphony
Symphony No. 9 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 9 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1909 and 1910, and was the last symphony that he completed.Though the work is often described as being in the key of D major, the tonal scheme of the symphony as whole is progressive...
to London in 1934, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra
Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók)
Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123, is a five-movement musical work for orchestra composed by Béla Bartók in 1943. It is one of his best-known, most popular and most accessible works. The score is inscribed "15 August – 8 October 1943", and it premiered on December 1, 1944 in Boston Symphony...
in 1946. Boult invited Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
to conduct eight BBC concerts between 1931 and 1936.
The excellence of Boult's orchestra attracted leading international conductors. In its second season guest conductors included Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, Felix Weingartner
Felix Weingartner
Paul Felix von Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist.-Biography:...
and Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
, followed, in later seasons, by Serge Koussevitzky
Serge Koussevitzky
Serge Koussevitzky , was a Russian-born Jewish conductor, composer and double-bassist, known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949.-Early career:...
, Beecham and Willem Mengelberg
Willem Mengelberg
Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...
. Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
, widely regarded at the time as the world's leading conductor, conducted the BBC orchestra in 1935 and said that it was the finest he had ever directed. He returned to conduct the orchestra in 1937, 1938 and 1939.
During this period, Boult accepted some international guest conductorships, appearing with the Vienna Philharmonic, Boston Symphony
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
, and New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
orchestras. In 1936 and 1937 he headed European tours with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, giving concerts in Brussels, Paris, Zurich, Budapest and Vienna, where they were especially well received. During his BBC years, Boult did not entirely lose contact with the world of opera and his performances of Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in 1931 and Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
at Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
in 1930 were considered outstanding.
For many years, Boult had been a close friend of the tenor Steuart Wilson
Steuart Wilson
Sir James Steuart Wilson was an English singer, known for tenor roles in oratorios and concerts in the first half of the 20th century....
and his wife Ann, née Bowles. When, in the late 1920s, Wilson began to mistreat his wife, Boult took her side. She divorced Wilson in 1931. In 1933, Boult astonished those who knew his notorious shyness with women by marrying her and becoming a much-loved stepfather to her four children. The marriage, which took place at Ditchling Unitarian Chapel
Ditchling Unitarian Chapel
Ditchling Unitarian Chapel is a Unitarian chapel in Ditchling, a village in the English county of East Sussex...
in East Sussex
East Sussex
East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
, lasted for the rest of his life. The enmity it provoked in Wilson, however, had repercussions in Boult's later career. The stigma attached to divorce in Britain in the 1930s affected Wilson's career but not Boult's: Wilson was barred from performing in English cathedrals at the Three Choirs Festival
Three Choirs Festival
The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...
but Boult was invited to conduct the orchestra at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
for the coronation of George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
in 1937.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the BBC Symphony Orchestra was evacuated first to Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, where it suffered from bombing, and later to Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...
. Boult strove to maintain standards and morale as he lost key players. Between 1939 and the end of the war, forty players left for active service or other activities. In 1942 Boult resigned as the BBC's director of music, while remaining chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This move, made as a favour to the composer Arthur Bliss
Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO was an English composer and conductor.Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army...
to provide a suitable war-time job for him, later came to be Boult's undoing at the BBC. Meanwhile he made recordings of Elgar's Second Symphony, Holst's The Planets and Vaughan Williams's Job, A Masque for Dancing. At the end of the war Boult "found a changed attitude to the orchestra in the upper echelons of the BBC". Reith was no longer director general, and without his backing Boult had to fight hard to restore the orchestra to its pre-war glory.
On 29 September 1946, Boult conducted Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's new Festival Overture, to inaugurate the BBC Third Programme
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
. For this innovative cultural channel, Boult was concerned in pioneering ventures including the British premiere of Mahler's Third Symphony
Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 3 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1893 and 1896. It is his longest piece and is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire, with a typical performance lasting around ninety to one hundred minutes.- Structure :...
. The Times later said of this period, "The Third Programme could not possibly have had the scope which made it world-famous musically without Boult." Nevertheless, Boult's BBC days were numbered. When he was appointed in 1930, Reith had informally promised him that would be exempt from the BBC's rule that staff must retire at age 60. However, Reith had left the BBC in 1938 and his promise carried no weight with his successors. In 1948 Steuart Wilson was appointed head of music at the BBC, the post previously occupied by Boult and Bliss. He made it clear from the start of his appointment that he intended that Boult should be replaced as chief conductor, and he used his authority to insist on Boult's enforced retirement. The director general of the BBC at the time, Sir William Haley
William Haley
Sir William John Haley, KCMG was a British newspaper editor and broadcasting administrator.-Biography:Early in his career on the Manchester Evening News, Haley was found to be too shy to work as a reporter...
, was unaware of Wilson's animus against Boult and later acknowledged, in a broadcast tribute to Boult, that he "had listened to ill-judged advice in retiring him." By the time of his retirement in 1950, Boult had made 1,536 broadcasts.
London Philharmonic
After it became clear that Boult would have to leave the BBC, Thomas Russell, the managing director of the London Philharmonic OrchestraLondon Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
(LPO), offered him the post of principal conductor of the LPO in succession to Eduard van Beinum
Eduard van Beinum
Eduard van Beinum was a Dutch conductor.-Biography:Beinum was born in Arnhem, Netherlands, where he received his first violin and piano lessons at an early age. He joined the Arnhem Orchestra as a violinist in 1918. His grandfather was conductor of a military band...
. In the 1930s the LPO had flourished, but since Beecham's departure in 1940, it had struggled to survive. Boult was well known to the orchestra, having been among the musicians who came to its aid in 1940. He took over as chief conductor of the LPO in June 1950, immediately after leaving the BBC, and threw himself into the task of rebuilding it. In the early years of his conductorship, the finances of the LPO were perilous, and Boult subsidised the orchestra from his own funds for some time. The need to earn money obliged the orchestra to play many more concerts than its rivals. In the 1949–50 season, the LPO gave 248 concerts, compared with 55 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, 103 by the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
, and 32 apiece by the Philharmonia
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...
and Royal Philharmonic
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
orchestras.
Although he had worked extensively in the studio for the BBC, Boult had, up to this point, recorded only a part of his large repertoire for the gramophone. With the LPO he began a series of commercial recordings that continued at a varying rate for the rest of his working life. Their first recordings together were Elgar's Falstaff
Falstaff (Elgar)
Falstaff – Symphonic Study in C minor, Op.68, is an orchestral work by the English composer Edward Elgar. Though not so designated by the composer, it is a symphonic poem in the tradition of Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss...
, Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen is Gustav Mahler's first song cycle. While he had previously written other lieder, they were grouped by source of text or time of composition as opposed to common theme...
with the mezzo
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
Blanche Thebom
Blanche Thebom
Blanche Thebom was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and opera director. She was part of the first wave of American opera singers that had highly successful international careers. In her own country she had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City which...
, and Beethoven's First Symphony
Symphony No. 1 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21, was dedicated to Baron Gottfried van Swieten, an early patron of the composer. The piece was published in 1801 by Hoffmeister & Kühnel of Leipzig...
. The work of the new team was greeted with approval by the reviewers. Of the Elgar, The Gramophone wrote, "I have heard no other conductor approach [Boult's] performance. … His newly adopted orchestra responds admirably". In The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Neville Cardus
Neville Cardus
Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus CBE was an English writer and critic, best known for his writing on music and cricket. For many years, he wrote for The Manchester Guardian. He was untrained in music, and his style of criticism was subjective, romantic and personal, in contrast with his critical...
wrote, "Nobody is better able than Sir Adrian Boult to expound the subtly mingled contents of this master work."
In January 1951 Boult and the LPO made a tour of Germany, described by Kennedy as "gruelling", with 12 concerts on 12 successive days. The symphonies they played were Beethoven's Seventh
Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...
, Haydn's London, No 104
Symphony No. 104 (Haydn)
The Symphony No. 104 in D major is Joseph Haydn's final symphony. It is the last of the twelve so-called London Symphonies, and is known as the London Symphony....
, Brahms's First
Symphony No. 1 (Brahms)
The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876...
, Schumann's Fourth
Symphony No. 4 (Schumann)
The Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 120, composed by Robert Schumann, was completed in 1841 . Schumann heavily revised the symphony in 1851, and it was this version that reached publication....
and Schubert's Great C major
Symphony No. 9 (Schubert)
The Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, known as the Great , is the final symphony completed by Franz Schubert. Nicknamed The Great C major originally to distinguish it from his Symphony No...
. The other works were Elgar's Introduction and Allegro
Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)
Sir Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47, was composed in 1905 for performance in an all-Elgar concert by the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. Scored for string quartet and string orchestra, Elgar composed it to show off the players' virtuosity. Though initial critical...
, Holst's The Perfect Fool
The Perfect Fool
The Perfect Fool is an opera in one act with music and libretto by the English composer Gustav Holst. Holst composed the work over the period of 1918 to 1922. The opera received its premiere at the Covent Garden Theatre, London on 14 May 1923...
ballet music, Richard Strauss's Don Juan
Don Juan (Strauss)
Don Juan, Op. 20 is a tone poem for large orchestra by the German composer Richard Strauss, written in 1888. The composer conducted its premiere on 11 November 1889 with the orchestra of the Weimar Opera, where he served as Court Kapellmeister....
, and Stravinsky's Firebird
The Firebird
The Firebird is a 1910 ballet created by the composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor....
.
In 1952, the LPO negotiated a five-year contract with Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, which was unusually rewarding for the orchestra, giving it a 10 per cent commission on most sales. On top of this, Boult always contributed his share of the recording fees to the orchestra's funds. In the same year, the LPO survived a crisis when Russell was dismissed as its managing director. He was an avowed member of the Communist party
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
; when the cold war
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
began some influential members of the LPO felt that Russell's private political affiliations compromised the orchestra, and pressed for his dismissal. Boult, as the orchestra's chief conductor, stood up for Russell, but when matters came to a head Boult ceased to protect him. Deprived of that crucial support, Russell was forced out. Kennedy speculates that Boult's change of mind was due to a growing conviction that the orchestra would be "seriously jeopardized financially" if Russell remained in post. A later writer, Richard Witts, suggests that Boult sacrificed Russell because he believed doing so would enhance the LPO's chance of being appointed resident orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
.
In 1953 Boult once again took charge of the orchestral music at a coronation, conducting an ensemble drawn from UK orchestras at the coronation of Elizabeth II. During the proceedings, he conducted the first performances of Bliss's Processional and Walton's march Orb and Sceptre
Orb and Sceptre
Orb and Sceptre is a march composed for orchestra by composer William Walton. It was written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953.-Structure:...
. In the same year he returned to the Proms after a three-year absence, conducting the LPO. The notices were mixed: The Times found a Brahms symphony "rather colourless, imprecise and uninspiring", but praised Boult and the orchestra's performance of The Planets. The following year the orchestra celebrated its 21st birthday, giving a series of concerts at the Festival Hall and the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
in which Boult was joined by guest conductors including Paul Kletzki
Paul Kletzki
Paul Kletzki was a Polish conductor and composer.Born Paweł Klecki in Łódź, Poland, he later adopted the German spelling Paul Kletzki. He joined its Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of fifteen. After serving in the First World War, he studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw before moving...
, Jean Martinon
Jean Martinon
Jean Martinon was a French conductor and composer.-Biography:Martinon was born in Lyon, where he began his education, going on to the Conservatoire de Paris to study under Albert Roussel for composition, under Charles Munch and Roger Désormière for conducting, under Vincent d'Indy for harmony,...
, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt was a German conductor and composer.-Early life:Born in Berlin, he studied music in Heidelberg and Münster. He was also a composition student with Franz Schreker at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, and received a doctorate in 1923.-Career:He was a repetiteur at the...
, Georg Solti
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
, Walter Susskind
Walter Susskind
Jan Walter Susskind was a Czech-born British conductor.-Biography:Susskind was born in Prague, Austria–Hungary, now the Czech Republic. His father was a Viennese music critic and his Czech mother was a piano teacher. At the State Conservatorium he studied under composer Josef Suk, the son-in-law...
and Vaughan Williams.
In 1956 Boult and the LPO visited Russia. Boult had not wished to go on the tour because flying hurt his ears, and long land journeys hurt his back. The Soviet authorities threatened to cancel the tour if he did not lead it, and he felt obliged to go. The LPO gave nine concerts in Moscow and four in Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. Boult's assistant conductors were Anatole Fistoulari
Anatole Fistoulari
Anatole Fistoulari was a noted 20th century conductor.Anatole Fistoulari was born in Kiev Ukraine into a musical family...
and George Hurst
George Hurst
George Hurst is a British conductor.-Biography:Born in Edinburgh in 1926, Hurst studied at Bishops College School in Lennoxville, Quebec and the Royal Conservatory in Toronto Canada....
. Boult's four Moscow programmes included Vaughan Williams's Fourth
Symphony No. 4 (Vaughan Williams)
The Symphony No. 4 in F minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams was dedicated by the composer to Arnold Bax.Unlike Vaughan Williams's first three symphonies it was not given a title, the composer stating that it was to be understood as pure music, without any incidental or external inspiration.In contrast...
and Fifth
Symphony No. 5 (Vaughan Williams)
Symphony No. 5 by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was written between 1938 and 1943. In style it represents a shift away from the violent dissonance of the Fourth Symphony, and a return to the more romantic style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony...
Symphonies, Holst's The Planets, Walton's Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto (Walton)
The Violin Concerto of William Walton was written in 1938–39 and reorchestrated in 1943. It has three movements:#Andante tranquillo#Presto capriccioso alla napolitana#VivaceThe concerto was written for Jascha Heifetz, who commissioned it in 1936...
(with Alfredo Campoli
Alfredo Campoli
Alfredo Campoli was an Italian-born British violinist, often known simply as Campoli. He was noted for the beauty of the tone he produced from the violin.-Biography:...
as soloist), and Schubert's Great C major Symphony. While in Moscow, Boult and his wife visited the Bolshoi Opera
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
and were guests at the composer Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
's 50th birthday party.
After the Russian tour, Boult told the LPO that he wished to step down from the principal conductorship. He continued to be the orchestra's main conductor until his successor William Steinberg
William Steinberg
William Steinberg was a German-American conductor.- Biography :Steinberg was born Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne, Germany. He displayed early talent as a violinist, pianist, and composer, conducting his own choral/ orchestral composition at age 13...
took up the post in 1959. After the sudden resignation of Andrzej Panufnik
Andrzej Panufnik
Sir Andrzej Panufnik was a Polish composer, pianist, conductor and pedagogue. He became established as one of the leading Polish composers, and as a conductor he was instrumental in the re-establishment of the Warsaw Philharmonic orchestra after World War II...
from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), Boult returned as principal conductor of the CBSO for the 1959–60 season. That was his last chief conductorship, though he remained closely associated with the LPO as its president and a guest conductor until his retirement.
Later years
After stepping down from the chief conductorship of the LPO, Boult was, for a few years, less in demand in the recording studio and the concert hall. Nevertheless, he was invited to conduct in Vienna, Amsterdam and Boston. In 1964 he made no recordings, but in 1965 he began an association with Lyrita records, an independent label specialising in British music. In the same year he resumed recording for EMI after a six year break. Celebrations for his eightieth birthday in 1969 also raised his profile in the musical world. After the death of his colleague Sir John BarbirolliJohn Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...
in 1970, Boult was seen as "the sole survivor of a great generation" and a living link with Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Holst. In the words of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, "it was when he reached his late seventies that the final and most glorious period of his career developed." He ceased to accept overseas invitations, but conducted in the major British cities, as well as at the Festival and Albert Halls and began what is frequently called his "Indian Summer" in the concert hall and recording studio. He was featured in a 1971 film The Point of the Stick, in which he illustrated his conducting technique with musical examples.
At a spare recording session in August 1970 Boult recorded the Third Symphony
Symphony No. 3 (Brahms)
The Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. The work was written in the summer of 1883 at Wiesbaden, nearly six years after he completed his Second Symphony...
of Brahms. This was well-received and led to a series of recordings of Brahms, Wagner, Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven. His repertoire in general was much wider than his discography might suggest. It was a disappointment to him that he was rarely invited to conduct in the opera house, and he relished the opportunity to record extensive excerpts from the Wagner operas in the 1970s. His last public performance was conducting Elgar's ballet The Sanguine Fan
The Sanguine Fan
The Sanguine Fan, Op. 81, is a single-act ballet written by Sir Edward Elgar in 1917. It was one of the pieces he composed to raise money for wartime charities, having been asked to write it by his close friend and confidante Lady Alice Stuart-Wortley....
for the London Festival Ballet
English National Ballet
English National Ballet is a classical ballet company founded by Dame Alicia Markova and Sir Anton Dolin and based at Markova House in South Kensington, London, England. Along with the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Scottish Ballet, it is one of the four major ballet companies in Great...
at London's Coliseum
Coliseum Theatre
The London Coliseum is an opera house and major performing venue on St. Martin's Lane, central London. It is one of London's largest and best equipped theatres and opened in 1904, designed by theatrical architect Frank Matcham , for impresario Oswald Stoll...
on 24 June 1978. His final record, completed in December 1978, was of music by Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
. Boult formally retired from conducting in 1981 and died in London in 1983, aged 93.
Musicianship
A review in The Observer of Boult's second London concert, in 1918, said, "Having, apparently, a thorough knowledge of the work, he was content to let it speak for itself without having recourse to those aids to success which are a constant temptation to conductors." Sixty-five years later, in an obituary tribute, Peter Hepworth wrote in the same newspaper: "From Nikisch he had early acquired an immaculate stick technique and was quietly scathing about conductors who used their anatomy to indicate their artistic requirements. … In an occupation ridden with inflated egos and circus tricksters Boult brought a rare probity to everything he undertook."Boult's biographer, Kennedy, gave this summary: "In the music he admired most, Boult was often a great conductor; in the rest, an extremely conscientious one. … If from behind he seemed unexciting and unemotional, the players could see the animation in his face – and he was capable of frightening outbursts of temper at rehearsals. Tall and erect, with something of the military in his appearance … he seemed the personification of the English gentleman. But recipients of his cutting wit and occasional sarcasm knew that this was not the whole picture." Grove's Dictionary
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
similarly said of him:
Boult, unlike many of his contemporaries, preferred the traditional orchestral layout, with first violins on the conductor's left and the seconds on the right. Of the practice of grouping all the violins together on the left, he wrote, "The new seating is, I admit, easier for the conductor and the second violins, but I firmly maintain that the second violins themselves sound far better on the right. … When the new fashion reached us from America somewhere about 1908 it was adopted by some conductors, but Richter, Weingartner, Walter, Toscanini and many others kept what I feel is the right balance."
This care for balance was an important feature of Boult's music-making. Orchestral players across decades commented on his insistence that every important part should be heard without difficulty. His BBC principal violist wrote in 1938, "If a woodwind player has to complain that he has already been blowing 'fit to burst' there is trouble for somebody." The trombonist Ray Premru wrote forty years later, "One of the old school, like Boult, is so refreshing because he will reduce the dynamic level – 'No, no, pianissimo, strings, let the soloist through, less from everyone else.' That is the old idea of balance."
As an educator, Boult influenced several generations of musicians, beginning with his conducting class at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
, London, which he ran from 1919 to 1930. As no such classes had been held before in Britain, Boult "created its curriculum from out of his own experience. … From that first small class has come all the later formal training for conductors throughout Britain." In the 1930s Boult ran a series of "conferences for conductors" at his country house near Guildford
Guildford
Guildford is the county town of Surrey. England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the administrative headquarters of the South East England region...
, sometimes helped by Vaughan Williams who lived a few miles away. From 1962 to 1966 he again taught at the Royal College of Music. In later life, he made time for young conductors who sought his counsel. Among those who studied with or were influenced by Boult were Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
, James Loughran
James Loughran
James Loughran CBE, DMus., FRNCM, FRSAMD is a Scottish conductor.-Early life:Educated at St Aloysius' College in Glasgow, Loughran conducted at school and afterwards, while studying economics and law...
, Richard Hickox
Richard Hickox
Richard Sidney Hickox CBE was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.-Early life:Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family...
and Vernon Handley
Vernon Handley
Vernon George "Tod" Handley CBE was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers. He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, London. He acquired the nickname "Tod" because his feet were turned in at his birth, which his...
. The last was not only a pupil of Boult, but acted as his musical assistant on many occasions.
Honours and memorials
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry or religion....
(CH) in 1969. He received the gold medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society
Royal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...
in 1944 and the Harvard Glee Club
Harvard Glee Club
The Harvard Glee Club is a 60-voice, all-male choral ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1858 in the tradition of English and American glee clubs, it is the oldest collegiate chorus in the US. The Glee Club is part of the Holden Choruses of Harvard University, which also include the...
medal (jointly with Vaughan Williams) in 1956. He received honorary degrees and fellowships from 13 universities and conservatoires. In 1951 he was invited to be the first president of the Elgar Society. In 1959 he was made president of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music
Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is a conservatoire of music, drama, and dance in the centre of Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Educational Association, it is the busiest performing arts venue in Scotland...
.
The Birmingham Conservatoire, a department of the Birmingham City University
Birmingham City University
Birmingham City University is a British university in the city of Birmingham, England. It is the second largest of three universities in the city, the other two being the Aston University and University of Birmingham...
includes in its home building the Adrian Boult Hall
Adrian Boult Hall
The Adrian Boult Hall is the main concert hall of the Birmingham Conservatoire in central Birmingham, England. It is named after the conductor Adrian Boult....
, a purpose-built 525-seat recital hall. It is used for classical concerts, other musical performances, and conferences.
Recordings
Boult was a prolific recording artist. Unlike many musicians, he felt at home in the recording studio and was happy working without an audience. His recording career stretched from the days of acoustic recording until the beginning of the digital era. His last recording of The PlanetsThe Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
made in May 1978 was taped in experimental digital sound, although technical problems led EMI to release an analogue version.
Boult's recordings fall into three main periods. In the first, from 1920 to the end of the 1940s, he recorded almost exclusively for HMV. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he was less in demand by the major labels, and although he made a substantial number of discs for Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, he recorded mostly for smaller labels, chiefly Pye Nixa
Nixa Records
Nixa Record Company Ltd. was founded in 1950 by F. H. B. Nixon. Nixa was the second company, after Decca, in Britain to release LP records. At the time, EMI was attempting to promote 45 rpm records over 33 LP records...
. His last period, from the mid-1960s, sometimes referred to as his Indian Summer, was once again with HMV. With his regular collaborators the producer Christopher Bishop and the engineer Christopher Parker he made more than sixty recordings, re-recording much of his key repertoire in stereo. He also added many works to his discography that he had not recorded before.
Of the British composers, Boult extensively recorded and sometimes re-recorded major works by Elgar and Vaughan Williams. He recorded all eight then-existing symphonies by Vaughan Williams for Decca in the 1950s with the LPO, in the presence of the composer. The recording producer, John Culshaw
John Culshaw
John Royds Culshaw OBE was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He recorded a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, begun in 1958.Largely self-educated musically, Culshaw worked for...
, wrote that the composer "said very little during the sessions because he was totally in favour of Sir Adrian's approach to his music." Vaughan Williams was to have been present for the first recording of his Ninth symphony, for Everest Records
Everest Records
Everest Records was a stereophonic record label based in Bayside, Long Island started by Harry D. Belock and Bert Whyte in May 1958. It was devoted mainly to classical music.-History:...
in 1958, but he died the night before the session took place; Boult recorded a short introduction as a memorial tribute. All these recordings have been reissued on CD. In the 1960s Boult re-recorded the nine symphonies for EMI.
Other British composers who feature significantly in Boult's discography include Holst, Ireland
John Ireland (composer)
John Nicholson Ireland was an English composer.- Life :John Ireland was born in Bowdon, near Altrincham, Manchester, into a family of Scottish descent and some cultural distinction. His father, Alexander Ireland, a publisher and newspaper proprietor, was aged 70 at John's birth...
, Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
, and Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
. Despite his reputation as a pioneer in Britain of the works of the Second Viennese School
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...
and other avant-garde composers, the record companies, unlike the BBC, remained cautious about recording him in this repertory, and only a single recording of a Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
piece represents this side of Boult's work. In the core continental orchestral repertoire, Boult's recordings of the four symphonies of Brahms, and the Great C major Symphony of Schubert were celebrated in his lifetime and have remained in the catalogues during the three decades after his death. Late in his recording career he recorded four discs of excerpts from Wagner's operas, which received great critical praise. The exceptional breadth of Boult's repertoire has left some well-regarded recordings of works not immediately associated with him, among which are versions of Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
's Symphony (recorded in 1959), Dvořák's Cello Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...
(1958), and a pioneering recording of Mahler's Third Symphony taped live in 1947.
External links
- Adrian Boult at Bach Cantatas Website
- Westminster School website