Vaughan Williams' Visionary 'Dona Nobis Pacem'

This post is the latest in a survey of the classic 1960s-70s HMV recordings of Ralph Vaughan Williams' compositions. Today the focus is his haunting Dona Nobis Pacem, a magnificent work from 1936, here in a committed 1973 performance led by Sir Adrian Boult, transferred from a vintage pressing.

In his High Fidelity review of the disc, Abram Chipman writes of the composer's spirit, which is reflected in this music. He called Vaughan Williams "uncommonly generous, courageous, tender, bluntly honest, compassionate, and radiating a life-affirming optimism that occurs on such a scale rarely in the tonal arts."

"One couldn’t find a more sterling example of that greatness of heart than in the major work on this new release."

Sir Adrian Boult

While bitterly denouncing the horrors of war - which the composer well knew first hand - Vaughan Williams also maintains hope for the future, as expressed in the texts he chose for the work, largely from Walt Whitman, but also from the Catholic Mass and the Bible.

Let me quote again from Chipman: "Vaughan Williams, in his 'give us peace' [i.e., dona nobis pacem] plea, stressed the humanity of war's victims above all else. Thus, the second movement (Beat! beat! drums!) represents the angry juggernaut of militarism tramping over the everyday life of people at their studies, at their love-making, at the plow, and caring for their children.

"The third movement is a visionary elegy for solo baritone, who whispers the poignant truth that 'my enemy ... a man divine as myself is dead.' The awesomely solemn fourth section is a Dirge for Two Veterans, father and son.

"The finale returns to the Biblical and sacred vision of sources of the opening, with a brilliantly festive vision of a better and more peaceful world. In Vaughan Williams' rapturous vision (composed contemporaneously with the Fourth Symphony), cynicism and despair are banished. There is indignation and pain, of course, but dominating all is a caressing warmth for the human life that might have been."

Sheila Armstrong and John Carol Case

The performance of this important work is all that it should be. Sir Adrian leads the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra and has the great fortune to be working with two gifted soloists, soprano Sheila Armstrong, passionate and otherworldly at once in the opening Dona nobis pacem and the finale, and baritone John Carol Case, who presents the reconciliation elegy simply and eloquently.

Boult leads the Dirge for Two Veterans with great skill, the climaxes perfectly judged - as they are throughout this composition.

The recording from Kingsway Hall was considered to be a bit wooly on first release, but working from the original vinyl, the sound here is impressively live and impactful.

The LP is completed by Vaughan Williams' much earlier setting of Whitman's Toward the Unknown Region, which is well chosen for its compatibility with Dona Nobis Pacem, but is not in the composer's mature style. Its quality suffers only in comparison with the later work, however.

The download, as usual, includes complete scans, texts and reviews.

The link below is to the 16-bit, 44.1kHz version. A high resolution transfer is available upon request.

LINK to Dona Nobis Pacem and Toward the Unknown Region

The previous entries in this Vaughan Williams series have included:

• Five Tudor Portraits (Elizabeth Bainbridge, Jolhn Carol Case, conducted by David Willcocks)

• Riders to the Sea and Magnificat (Helen Watts, Margaret Price, conducted by Meredith Davies)

• An Oxford Elegy, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, Flos Campi (John Westbrook, Cecil Aronowitz, Willcocks conducting)

• Mass in G minor, Five Mystical Songs (King's College Choir, John Shirley-Quirk, Willcocks conducting)

• Sancta Civitas, Benedicite (Heather Harper, Ian Partridge, Shirley-Quirk, Willcocks conducting)

• Hodie (Janet Baker, Richard Lewis, Shirley-Quirk, Willcocks conducting)

• Serenade to Music (with Symphony No. 5) (16 soloists, Boult conducting)

Sir Adrian Boult, producer Christopher Bishop, Sheila Armstrong, John Carol Case

Boult and Jochum Conduct Brahms

Two Johannes Brahms symphonies today, with similar approaches although from different conductors and eras. First we have a follow-up to a recent post of Brahms' Symphony No. 2, as led by Sir Adrian Boult - the Symphony No. 1 in a splendid 1972 performance from the same cycle.

Then, a worthwhile version of the Symphony No. 3 as conducted by Eugen Jochum in a 1939 recording from Hamburg.

Boult Conducts the Symphony No. 1

"Judged by this performance, Sir Adrian [then 83] seems younger than ever. His Brahms performances have lost nothing of muscular buoyancy and exuberance in allegros ('bracing' is perhaps the best word), while his insight goes ever deeper, without in the least trying to make points." So wrote Trevor Harvey in The Gramophone when the record was issued. And even 50 years later, the performance seems fresh.

The performance is striking from the first bar. Harvey: "The very opening, for example, with pounding timpani is not very slow; it sounds perfectly marvelous without one feeling that the conductor is out to make the greatest effect possible."

Sir Adrian

The entire work is just as fine, the finale in particular - beautifully balanced and controlled but with great impact. The London Philharmonic is in prime form, and the recording could hardly be better. This symphony - unlike the second - was done in the more resonant Kingsway Hall. My transfer comes from a Korean pressing of the original issue.

1973 HMV ad

Jochum Conducts the Symphony No. 3

Today's reading of the Third Symphony comes from Hamburg, where Eugen Jochum (1902-87) was the music director from 1934-49. In his New York Times obituary for the conductor, John Rockwell called him "one of the last representatives of the traditional German school of conducting.

"From his earliest recordings, Mr. Jochum's interpretive profile seemed well formed. He was neither an intense literalist like Arturo Toscanini nor a brooding mystic like Wilhelm Furtwängler, whom he much admired. His conducting - in Bach, Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms as well as Bruckner - flowed purposefully but genially forward, responding to the music without imposing his will upon it in a self-conscious way."

Eugen Jochum in 1941

Although he was relatively young, Jochum was a seasoned recording conductor in 1939, having started making discs as early as 1933. He was to record the first and third Brahms symphonies in the Musikhalle Hamburg for the Telefunken company, turning to the other symphonies later in his career.

This transfer comes from a 1949 LP release on the US Capitol label, one of a series that the label reprinted from the Telefunken catalogue. The critic of The New Records was impressed: "Here is as fine a Brahms Third as we have ever heard. Jochum gives it a well knit, vital reading that is interesting, exciting, and satisfying, and all this without doing malice to the score. His tempo is a shade brisk occasionally, but his conception of the music is so valid, and his projection of it so convincing, that it stands as a great performance."

The sound is good for the time, and is now enhanced by ambient stereo. The Hamburg orchestra was not as skilled (or perhaps as large) as Boult's LPO, but more than adequate and responsive to Jochum's conducting.

The conductor has appeared here previously with Jean Françaix's Serenade for Twelve Instruments, also from Hamburg. It is now available in a new ambient stereo version.

Wieland Wagner in 1954 with three notable conductors: Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum and Wilhelm Furtwängler

Brahms from Sir Adrian and Dame Janet

Dame Janet Baker and Sir Adrian Boult

Two of the most distinguished and beloved British musicians of the 20th century - mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker and conductor Sir Adrian Boult - combined to produce this 1970-71 LP of Brahms' compositions.

On this record, Baker is heard in the Alto Rhapsody, while Boult conducts the second symphony. For Sir Adrian, it was the the second installment in his second cycle of the Brahms symphonies, succeeding his 1954 set. Dame Janet would go on to record a program of Brahms lieder with André Previn at the piano in 1978.

Original and reissue covers

Discussing the Alto Rhapsody, Trevor Harvey wrote in his Gramophone review, "Turgid Brahms, you may think. Yet How can anyone resist Janet Baker’s superb singing and vocal colouring, from a wonderfully veiled tone to great, thrilling outbursts, full of warmth and feeling. Sir Adrian knows exactly how to accompany his soloist with understanding."

Dame Janet, now retired at age 89, is a mezzo-soprano and the work was, after all, written for contralto. But the music is within her range and more importantly she brings great sensitivity to the part. To hear the Rhapsody sung by a true contralto, please look into previous posts by Marian Anderson (newly remastered in ambient stereo) and Aafje Heynis.

Recordings by Marian Anderson and Aafje Heynis

Boult takes a characteristically unfussy approach to the symphony. It may not glow with the radiance of Bruno Walter's late-career recording, but it is cogent in its own way, beautifully balanced and judged. George Jellinek wrote in Stereo Review, "For my taste, the finale does not quite move with the excitement toward which such a finely controlled interpretation should build, but the overall performance displays a maturity, sense of proportion, and delicacy of detail hard to find fault with."

The Alto Rhapsody recording is from a late December 1970 date in Abbey Road Studio No. 1. The symphony comes from January and April 1971 sessions split between Abbey Road and Kingsway Hall. The sound is very good. The excellent performances are relatively closely miked, and any sonic differences between the venues were not noticeable to me. 

The download includes scans from both the first and reissue pressings (the transfer is from the reissue). Along with several reviews, I've included an article about the Alto Rhapsody recording session, along with texts and translations (which HMV did not supply).

This was another of the recordings on non-English music that Sir Adrian undertook in the last years of his career. Earlier we heard from him in Mozart symphonies. Unlike those performances, Boult's Brahms symphonies were issued in the US, but this transfer is from a UK pressing.

HMV ad in the October 1971 Gramophone

Sir Adrian Boult Conducts Mozart

The English conductor Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983) was typecast as a specialist in the works of his home country, but he had vast experience in all kinds of music. After all, he had been conductor of the BBC Symphony and London Philharmonic for long periods.

In actuality, Boult did record quite a bit of non-English music, much of it in his early years with the BBC. And later on, he added to those recordings through his association with smaller recording companies such as Nixa/Westminster, Everest and Miller International.

Sir Adrian Boult

As he moved into the twilight of his career, EMI engaged him for a number of discs of non-English music. I am fond of his series of Wagner overtures, among other performances - and this particular record of Mozart symphonies is worth hearing as well.

In recording the 35th and 41st symphonies for HMV in 1974-75, Boult was returning to two works he had taken to the recording studio before - the Haffner for Concert Hall in 1959, and the Jupiter for HMV as far back as 1933. These later efforts are with the London Philharmonic, and come from Abbey Road Studio No. 1.

Writing in The Gramophone, Trevor Harvey contrasted Boult's handling on Symphony No. 41 with No. 35: "Sir Adrian takes a very big view of the Jupiter, even of its length, for he observes every single repeat - yes, even that in the slow movement" and "If Sir Adrian takes a big view of the Jupiter he seems intent on pointing the difference between it and the Haffner, which gets a swift and lightweight performance (even the slow movement) and in this Symphony he makes no repeats except, obviously, in the Minuet movement."

Harvey takes issue with the orchestral balances and recording, both of which strike me as perfectly fine. This is a good record, little noticed at the time, and not even released here in the US, to my knowledge. My transfer is from the English pressing.

Sir Adrian was 85 and 86 when he led these performances, and was not nearly done in the studio. In addition to English music, yet to come would be recordings of works by Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven and Brahms. He devoted his concluding session in 1978 to Sir Hubert Parry's fifth symphony, a favorite of the conductor.

This transfer is by request.

Solomon Plays Bliss and Liszt

My recent post of Arthur Bliss' Checkmate ballet score elicited a request for more music by that composer. So here is the first recording of his fascinating piano concerto, with the distinguished British pianist Solomon, who is making his blog debut.

The concerto was written for the 1939 New York World's Fair, and was premiered by the New York Philharmonic on a program that also included Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus (which can be heard here) and Bax's Seventh Symphony. Solomon was the pianist for that program, which was led by Sir Adrian Boult, who also is the conductor here.

Arthur Bliss in 1937

This particular recording comes from a 1943 session with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. It is in good sound, and the orchestra, while hardly glossy sounding, provides a sturdy backing. [Note (July 2023): this has now been remastered in ambient stereo and sounds even better.]

The concerto's first movement is in the knock-'em-dead virtuoso style that was even then out of fashion. It is all very impressive in its own way, not the least because of Solomon's sovereign command of the proceedings. The Adagietto second movement could not be more of a contrast. It is introspective and quite ravishing. The third movement is motoric, as was common in concertos of the time. Its conclusion is impressive.

My transfer comes from a World Records LP release, with a cover (at right) that gives Solomon's skin an unearthly glow. The album coupled the Bliss concerto with Solomon's fine 1948 recording of Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia, perhaps because the latter's romantic style is a predecessor of the Bliss concerto.

The Liszt was made with the Philharmonia Orchestra in Abbey Road Studio 1, and has quite good sound, displaying Solomon's beautiful tone and remarkable technical control. Conducting was Walter Susskind, then a 35-year-old Czech expatriate who had become the music director of the Scottish Orchestra in 1946. He later led the orchestras of Melbourne, Toronto and St. Louis.

Solomon's career was cut short by a 1956 stroke that paralyzed his right arm. He was 54.

1952 Steinway ad

More Tchaikovsky - Ballet Suites from Boult

Sir Adrian Boult

In posting these ballet suites from The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, it may seem like I am getting a head start on the holiday season. The timing is a coincidence, however; this particular transfer is in response to a request.

The conductor is Sir Adrian Boult, whose recordings are always welcome on this blog. We have heard him most recently in the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Indeed, I've only had Boult here in English music (Elgar, Britten, Arnold, in addition to RVW). 

That narrow focus does Sir Adrian a disservice; he was a distinguished conductor of all types of music, and often programmed the works of Tchaikovsky. Of course, he didn't know the Russian composer, as he did all the English composers mentioned above. Still, their lifetimes did slightly overlap, the conductor being born in 1889, and the composer dying in 1893.

Boult recorded music from The Nutcracker on three occasions; this was his only recording of music from Sleeping Beauty. The set was done with the Royal Philharmonic in 1967. This particular record, may have been, in fact, the first Nutcracker I owned. Many have come (and gone) since then. The Nutcracker music has appeared here as conducted by Arthur Fiedler, Frederick Stock, Sir Thomas Beecham, Paul van Kempen and Fritz Lehmann. You can hear music from Sleeping Beauty led by Nicolai Malko, Constant Lambert and Robert Irving.

The Studio 2 edition

The two suites from Boult and the RPO were first issued in UK Columbia's Studio Two series. That was EMI's answer to Decca's Phase 4. Both were designed to be "sonic spectaculars." At the time, that meant they employed multiple microphones for a close-up view of the proceedings, rather as if you were sitting on Sir Adrian's rostrum and getting in his way.

In practice, whether because of the close-in mikes or knob-twiddling by the engineers, the result was a much-elevated frequency response in the upper mid-range and high frequencies. I've not tinkered with the sonic balance; your tone controls, if you have them, should be at the ready.

The Seraphim edition

This transfer is from the US Seraphim edition of 1971. The record suffers from the usual poor surfaces of the time, which in this case started with drop-outs in the first few measures of The Nutcracker. These were present on two different pressings, so apparently were induced in mastering. I have replaced those opening few seconds with another performance sonically matched to the EMI edition. You may notice a shift in perspective when Boult takes over.

Even with some caveats about the sound, these are buoyant performances that will give much pleasure. Sir Adrian had experience as a ballet conductor early in his career, and his tempos are generally pleasing, although I doubt that any troupe of Russian dancers could keep pace with his accelerando during The Nutcracker's Trepak.

In The Nutcracker, in addition to the selections contained in Op. 71a, Sir Adrian inserts the Pas de deux (No. 14a) before the concluding Waltz of the Flowers.

I have to observe that of the two covers above, I much prefer the graceful ballet image chosen by EMI to the drab mash-up of Peter Max and Petipa offered by Seraphim.

Although this record was originally issued in EMI's Studio 2 series, it was actually taped in Studio 1 at Abbey Road. At the time of the sessions, Abbey Road Studio 2 was the lair of the Beatles. The Fab Ones and the great conductor apparently were not in the building simultaneously, however. Otherwise, Sir Adrian could have conducted "I Am the Walrus," which was on the group's docket at the time. He had the moustache for it.

Sir Adrian in the studio, 1969

Vaughan Williams' Pastoral Symphony and 'In the Fen Country'

My post of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 5 and Serenade to Music elicited a request for his similarly seraphic Pastoral Symphony, again in the definitive reading led by Sir Adrian Boult.

Longtime friend David Federman wrote, "Given the present circumstances, and the elegiac purpose of the Third, why don't you share it with your followers. I can't think of a better piece of music for the 20th anniversary of 9/11."

Nor can I, David. I have previously presented Boult's 1953 recording of this symphony; here is the worthy remake, dating from 1968. Sir Adrian conducted the 1922 premiere of the work.

As I wrote in my 2018 post, Vaughan Williams' composition was both a meditation on the English countryside and on the war-scarred terrain of World War I France, where he served as a corpsman and where he began writing the symphony. 

"Vaughan Williams was confronted by death constantly. His response was to produce a symphony of remarkable beauty, heartbreaking and elegiac," I wrote then. "Among its effects are a solo bugle, whose sound he would have heard each evening in France, and also at the military funerals he attended; and a wordless soprano solo, perhaps an angel's voice comforting the souls of the dead and welcoming them to a better world.

"Or so I imagine. The work does not really have any stated programmatic aim, and can be enjoyed simply as an extraordinary piece of music."

The soprano soloist here is Margaret Price.

Boult and Vaughan Williams in 1935

In the Fen Country

The "symphonic impression" In the Fen Country, from 1904, was the first orchestral work that Vaughan Williams acknowledged, although earlier items have come to light. It's an accomplished piece of music, and with its meditation on the Fenlands in Eastern England, well chosen as a disc mate for the Pastoral Symphony.

In an enclosed Gramophone review, critic Trevor Harvey disagreed that In the Fen Country is well-matched to the symphony. He considered it an "undistinguished piece" that is inferior to the composer's Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1. I don't agree; In the Fen Country is well shaped and has memorable themes; what else could you want? The Norfolk Rhapsody is built on folk tunes, and while it is enjoyable enough, to me the tragic Captain's Apprentice fits uneasily next to the jaunty On Board a Ninety-Eight. (Robert Tear's brilliant recordings of these folksongs are still available here, a decade later.)

Boult's was the first recording of In the Fen Country.

From a September 1968 ad in The Gramophone

On the Recording

I mentioned in my post on the Symphony No. 5 that vinyl sources are preferable to the digital remasterings of these works, and that the UK pressings are usually superior to their US counterparts. For the Pastoral Symphony (unlike the Fifth), I don't own the UK pressing, only my US copy from nearly 50 years ago. While the LP is in good shape, it shows the familiar characteristics that drove American music lovers mad way back when - low-level rustle and muted high frequencies. I have matched my transfer of the US LP to the UK sound as closely as possible; the results are pleasing, I believe.

September 11, 2001

Most American adults will, I am sure, remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001. I happened to be in New York on that day. I was staying in the city on business, and had just arrived at a meeting taking place across the river in New Jersey.

When we heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I thought it must have been an accident. We were in a building with a clear view across the river at the twin towers. Seeing smoke coming from the building was a strange site, but not as strange as the massive plume of dust - and nothing else - that soon would replace the iconic towers.

We soon were on our way home to the Midwest. So many people were not as fortunate as me - a spectator and not a victim or a participant in the aftermath. They all are in our thoughts today.

Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 5 and Serenade to Music

Ralph Vaughan Williams' middle symphonies can be neatly separated into the visionary 3rd and 5th and the anguished 4th and 6th. Many conductors prefer the latter variety: the 4th has inspired 32 recordings; the elegiac Symphony No. 3 half that number.

That said, the mystical Symphony No. 5 has reached an avid audience since its wartime premiere. Recorded 34 times, it has been more popular than the apocalyptic Symphony No. 6, with its 25 recordings.

My own preference is for the composer's spiritual side as expressed in the third and fifth symphonies (and many other works).

The Symphony No. 3 (or "Pastoral Symphony" as it is often called) appeared here in its first recording, led by Sir Adrian Boult in 1953. Today we add Boult's 1969 recording of the Symphony No. 5, which has an exceptional discmate - the second recording of Vaughan Williams' setting of the Serenade to Music from Shakespeare utilizing 16 soloists, as did the first performance and recording led by Sir Henry J. Wood.

Symphony No. 5

The fifth symphony shares themes with one of the composer's greatest works, a staged version of The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan's 1678 religious allegory. The latter work was not completed until 1951, even though Vaughan Williams had prepared one scene from it as early as 1921, which was mounted as The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains.

During 1938-43, however, the composer had all but abandoned activity in connection with The Pilgrim's Progress, and began using some of its musical materials for his fifth symphony. Perhaps for this reason the struggles of the Pilgrim at times can be detected just below the surface of the fifth symphony's radiant musical surface.

It is indeed an extraordinarily beautiful piece of music that, despite the Bunyan connection, has no programmatic theme. That said, its warm reception in the depth of the war was surely inspired in part by the sense that the symphony is a great and noble journey similar to that of the Pilgrim and the English people during wartime.

Boult in the studio

This recording was the second led by Sir Adrian, 16 years after his Decca effort with the same orchestra, the London Philharmonic. The performance is well controlled; while not severe, it also is not overtly emotional. The music's striking beauty and eloquence are in full display.

Henry Wood was to have led the first performance in 1943, but fell ill, so the composer conducted. John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra were responsible for the initial recording, in 1944.

Although Vaughan Williams completed The Pilgrim's Progress in 1951, it was not recorded until 1970-71, again with Boult in charge. However, Argo issued seven songs from the score with piano accompaniment in 1953, with John Cameron as the Pilgrim. These songs appeared here many years ago, and are still available.

Serenade to Music

Sir Adrian Boult, producer Christopher Bishop, Sheila Armstrong, John Carol Case

The Serenade to Music, with a text adapted from a passage in The Merchant of Venice, is one of Vaughan Williams' most beautiful and best-loved compositions. He wrote the work for Henry Wood to mark the 50th anniversary of Wood's first conducting engagement. In the score, Vaughan Williams indicated solo passages for 16 leading vocalists of the day. Sir Henry led the first performance on October 5, 1938, and he and the singers recorded the work with the BBC Symphony 10 days later. That recording is available on my other blog, along with five Vaughan Williams songs as performed by three of the Serenade to Music vocalists - Astra Desmond, Roy Henderson and Heddle Nash.

Vaughan Williams later arranged the work for four soloists, choir and orchestra, and a variety of other performing forces. There have been four commercial recordings of the original version; Boult's 1969 performance was the second, althougha live 1951 recording with the composer conducting also has surfaced. 

Boult's soloists included some of the best-regarded English vocalists of the time. The performers were: 

• Norma Burrowes, Sheila Armstrong, Susan Longfield, Marie Hayward (sopranos)
• Alfreda Hodgson, Gloria Jennings, Shirley Minty, Meriel Dickinson (contraltos)
• Ian Partridge, Bernard Dickerson, Wynford Evans, Kenneth Bowen (tenors)
• John Carol Case, John Noble (baritones)
• Richard Angas, Christopher Keyte (basses)

The download includes Shakespeare's text with a key as to who is singing what.

The photo above may be from the Serenade to Music session - or one of the 1970-71 Pilgrim's Progress dates, also led by Boult with Sheila Armstrong and John Carol Case among the vocalists, and the same producer, Christopher Bishop.

The download includes the usual cover scans, plus photos and reviews from The Gramophone, High Fidelity and Stereo Review.

The ad below proclaims that "the sound is magnificent, with unequalled internal balance which characterises Sir Adrian's work." This is not hyperbole: I transferred this record on request for its sound quality, which, I am told, is superior to the latter-day digital reissues. It comes from a UK pressing; as usual at the time, the sound on the English issue was and is superior to the American Angel release.  

Detail from ad in The Gramophone, March 1970

Boult's Scottish Elgar Second, Plus Reups

The young Adrian Boult was one of the first proponents of Sir Edward Elgar's Second Symphony. After Boult conducted a 1920 performance, Elgar wrote to him, "I feel that my reputation in the future is safe in your hands."

Boult was the first to record the symphony, save for Elgar himself, and went on to set down his interpretation another four times - three more than any other conductor.

Elgar and Boult at a 1932 recording session

Today we have the least known of Sir Adrian's five recordings, but not perhaps the least. It was made for the small and short-lived Scottish company Waverley in 1963, and tends to get lost among Boult's earlier and later EMI recordings, and even his 1957 effort for Pye.

The Waverley, set down in September 1963 in Glasgow Concert Hall, is a worthy contender, well played and truthfully recorded. I agree with Gramophone reviewer Trevor Harvey, who wrote that it main flaw is the underpowered strings. That's not an unusual fault with provincial ensembles - Harvey noted that the playing of the Hallé for Barbirolli in his Pye recording was no better, and even the London Philharmonic in Boult's 1957 recording was none too glamorous sounding. The Gramphone review is included in the download.

But I don't mean to make too much of this; it's a fine performance of a grand symphony. I transferred this symphony many years ago, but it has never appeared here. I've revisited the files and improved the sound for this post.

Reuploads

Let's stay with the music of English composers for today's two reuploads, which comprise Vaughan Williams' Mass, and the Mass and Symphony No. 5 of Edmund Rubbra. As usual, the links below take you to the original posts.

Vaughan Williams and Rubbra - Masses. The Vaughan Williams Mass is relatively familiar, not so the Mass setting of Edmund Rubbra (1901-86), whose music is too little known. Here we have 1953 recordings by the Fleet Street Choir under T.E. Lawrence, who premiered a number of important works.

Rubbra - Symphony No. 5. The composer wrote 11 symphonies in all; this was the first to be recorded. It is a typically passionate performance led by Sir John Barbirolli with the Hallé Orchestra. The recording sessions were in December 1950.

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The First Recording of Vaughan Williams' Pastoral Symphony

This post is of no significance other than I occasionally like to transfer some of my favorite compositions.

This is the first recording of what I believe to be one of Ralph Vaughan Williams' greatest works, although it is lightly regarded among his symphonies.

It is perhaps unfortunately titled A Pastoral Symphony, which consigns it to what has derisively called the "cow-pat" school of music. At the time it was written, and even at the time of this recording in 1952, it was presumed to be an elegy for the English countryside. In later years, it has been understood instead as a reflection on the composer's time in France as an ambulance driver during World War I.

Vaughan Williams in France

It's of course possible that Vaughan Williams intended the work to be both a meditation on the landscape he knew in England and on the scarred terrain of war-torn France - where so many men were interred. As a corpsman, Vaughan Williams was confronted by death constantly. His response was to produce a symphony of remarkable beauty, heartbreaking and elegiac. Among its effects are a solo bugle, whose sound he would have heard each evening in France, and also at the military funerals he attended; and a wordless soprano solo, perhaps an angel's voice comforting the souls of the dead and welcoming them to a better world.

Or so I imagine. The work does not really have any stated programmatic aim, and can be enjoyed simply as an extraordinary piece of music.

Adrian Boult, Ursula and Ralph Vaughan Williams

The recording could not have a better provenance. It is conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, who led the first performance in 1922. The wordless soprano solo in the final movement is by Margaret Ritchie.

Margaret Ritchie

This album was part of Boult's first recorded cycle of the composer's symphonies, all of which were supervised by Vaughan Williams himself. The sessions were in Kingsway Hall, the most famous venue of the time, with producer John Culshaw and engineer Kenneth Wilkinson.

The download includes the contemporary Gramophone review, together with an advertising insert for the Decca cycle of symphonies, which includes production photos, including the one above. These were among Decca's 1953 offerings in commemoration of Queen Elizabeth's coronation. 

I transferred the first two movements from an English Decca pressing (cover above) and the final two from the London pressing made for export to the US (cover below). [Note (June 2023): This transfer has now been enhanced with ambient stereo processing.]

Malcolm Arnold's English Dances

I have had this record transferred for some time, and it came to mind while working on the Sauter-Finegan post of last week. The bandleaders' breakthrough recording of "Doodletown Fifers" reminded me of one of Malcolm Arnold's English Dances (specifically, the fifth), as done here by Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic.

Aha, I thought - could this be artistic "borrowing" in one direction or the other? But now that I look at the timeline, such a connection is unlikely.

Arnold in 1948

Arnold's English Dances were published in 1950 and 1951. "Doodletown Fifers" was taped in 1952. But as far as I can tell, the Arnold pieces were not recorded until mid-1953, by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Robert Irving.

So while it's possible Sauter and Finegan saw the music or heard a performance of the Dances before their recording date, it's more likely that this is a coincidence.

You are welcome to investigate on your own via the aural evidence contained in this November 1954 traversal of the Dances from Boult and the LPO. I certainly recommend doing so; these are among Arnold's most famous and felicitous pieces, wonderfully memorable items that will brighten your day. The performances and Kingsway Hall sound are very good.

The English Decca cover

The awkward American cover above has good Sir Adrian recoiling from the sight of a chinless Elizabethan maid being courted by a fellow materializing from a pea-green fog. Boult appears to holding a cigar stub or worse; it is actually the handle of his baton. Instead of this strange tableau, the English were offered an image of the composer framed by an herbal garland emanating from England's green and pleasant land below.

Elgar with Sir Adrian

For years there has been something of a debate about who was the ultimate Elgarian conductor - Adrian Boult or John Barbirolli. They both had long careers and made many great records of Elgar's music. If forced to choose (and I am forcing myself via this rhetorical construction), I would point the critical finger at Sir Adrian. He's a particular favorite of mine.

So I am pleased to present this 10-inch LP of Elgar's lighter music in a 1954 recording with the London Philhamonic, which Boult led at the time. It comes to us through the good graces of my friend Don (aka Sacqueboutier), who offered this on Symphonyshare and simultaneously suggested it to me for presentation here.

The recordings were made in February and October 1954 in Kingsway Hall, one of the most famous venues of its time, with Kenneth Wilkinson engineering - one of the most famous engineers. A first-class production, to be sure.

These recordings also were issued on a 12-inch LP, which I have in my own collection, but which has previously been issued by my friend Fred on his blog Random Classics. There they were coupled with Malcolm Arnold's English Dances (which are delightful) - so if you want Boult's version of those pieces, go see Fred.

I've quite grateful to Don, who is a veritable transfer machine, because I am having trouble producing any posts whatsoever, having been working around the clock. I hope to enjoy some leisure (and music) soon.

LINK

Boult Conducts and Rehearses Britten

A break from the Christmas tunes - here we have some of Benjamin Britten's finest music in both performances and rehearsal by Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic.

The recordings were made in late 1956 by the American company Westminster in conjunction with the British Pye-Nixa. Included were the Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Britten's Peter Grimes and his Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (a set of variations and fugue on a theme by Henry Purcell).

The latter was written for a 1946 educational film that was conducted and narrated by the urbane Malcolm Sargent (there's an excerpt on YouTube).

Westminster issued the Boult-LPO Young Person's Guide in two versions - with narration and without, and then for good measure added a rehearsal recording. I've gathered all these versions together for this post. In brief, we have the unnarrated Guide and Peter Grimes music in stereo (cover above) and the narrated Guide and rehearsal in mono (cover below).

The transition from mono to stereo recording provided some interesting experiments in recording, illustrated to a degree by the rehearsal recording. As producer Kurt List says in the liner notes, the seating arrangement used for his recordings "never coincides with concert seating; thus quite a different span of attention is required of the conductor and the orchestral musicians." List's practice was to spread the orchestra out and use multiple microphones, and then fix the balances in the control room. He then has the conductor do a run through and asks him to adjust the balances further. The rehearsal recording on this disk is in fact a session where List asks Boult to change balances for recording purposes.

The irony of asking a conductor who was noted for stressing clarity and balance to rebalance the music because you have exploded the usual seating arrangement and put microphones all over the hall apparently doesn't occur to List. But to be fair, the results are not bad, if not to my own taste, in both mono and stereo.

The Young Person's Guide is nicely done, even if Boult doesn't capture Britten's mock pomposity very well. The fugue is predictably wonderful. The Peter Grimes music is also beautifully rendered, and if the struggles seem external more than internal, that also may demonstrate the difference in temperament between conductor and composer.

As a bonus to this post, I've added a recording of the original Purcell theme (a rondeau from his Abdelazer theatre music) in a performance by the Bath Festival Orchestra and Yehudi Menuhin.