The first in a limited edition three-volume collection of the complete Decca recordings of Sir Adrian Boult, this set represents the most complete survey ever issued of Sir Adrian Boult's British music recordings for Decca. It includes previously unpublished recordings of Holst and a pioneering cycle of Vaughan Williams. Boult began recording for Decca in 1950 once he had been forcibly retired by the BBC at the age of 60. The company lost no time in bringing the unrivalled authority of his British music interpretations to the record-buying public. Decca's engineering team and equipment was widely regarded as the best available at the time, led by the likes of producer John Culshaw and engineer Kenneth Wilkinson, and they captured the spatial aspects and colors of Vaughan Williams the symphonist with unprecedented fidelity at the time. Boult's later recording of the Ninth and speeches by both Boult and Vaughan Williams have been included. So has Boult's 1953 recording of incidental music to The Wasps, coupled with the much rarer Old King Cole ballet, and Boult's second, 1954 version of Job, a work with which he was so closely associated for many years. This collection features a notable first in the Boult discography: four previously unpublished recordings of music by his friend Holst. While recording other English repertoire back in the mono era Boult had attempted to carve out sufficient time in the sessions for a Holst LP which never came to fruition. Four pieces - the Somerset Rhapsody, Marching Song, the Scherzo from an unfinished symphony (all in mono) and Country Song (in stereo) are now published for the first time. Boult also worked extensively with the best young British composers of his day, and this underrated aspect of his conducting is represented in the collection by 1954 mono accounts of Malcolm Arnold's English Dances and from 1960 the First Symphony of Humphrey Searle - coupled for the first time since it's release with two pieces composed and conducted by the Hungarian émigré Mátyás Seiber, as on the original LP.
1 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 1 'A Sea Symphony'
- Disc 4 -
1 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 2 'A London Symphony'
- Disc 5 -
1 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 'A Pastoral Symphony'
- Disc 6 -
1 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 4
- Disc 7 -
1 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5
- Disc 8 -
1 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 6
2 Speech By Ralph Vaughan Williams
- Disc 9 -
1 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 7 'Sinfonia Antartica'
2 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 9
3 Speech By Sir Adrian Boult
- Disc 10 -
1 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 8
2 Vaughan Williams Partita for Double String Orchestra
- Disc 11 -
1 Vaughan Williams Old King Cole
2 Vaughan Williams the Wasps
- Disc 12 -
1 Vaughan Williams Job - a Masque for Dancing
- Disc 13 -
1 Walton Portsmouth Point; Siesta; Scapino; the Wise Virgins
- Disc 14 -
1 Butterworth a Shropshire Lad; the Banks of Green Willow
2 Bax Tintagel
3 Holst the Perfect Fool; a Somerset Rhapsody*; Scherzo from Unfinished Symphony*; Marching Song*
- Disc 15 -
1 Holst the Hymn of Jesus; the Perfect Fool; Egdon Heath; Country Song*
- Disc 16 -
1 Searle Symphony No. 1*
2 Seiber Elegy; Three Fragments
The first in a limited edition three-volume collection of the complete Decca recordings of Sir Adrian Boult, this set represents the most complete survey ever issued of Sir Adrian Boult's British music recordings for Decca. It includes previously unpublished recordings of Holst and a pioneering cycle of Vaughan Williams. Boult began recording for Decca in 1950 once he had been forcibly retired by the BBC at the age of 60. The company lost no time in bringing the unrivalled authority of his British music interpretations to the record-buying public. Decca's engineering team and equipment was widely regarded as the best available at the time, led by the likes of producer John Culshaw and engineer Kenneth Wilkinson, and they captured the spatial aspects and colors of Vaughan Williams the symphonist with unprecedented fidelity at the time. Boult's later recording of the Ninth and speeches by both Boult and Vaughan Williams have been included. So has Boult's 1953 recording of incidental music to The Wasps, coupled with the much rarer Old King Cole ballet, and Boult's second, 1954 version of Job, a work with which he was so closely associated for many years. This collection features a notable first in the Boult discography: four previously unpublished recordings of music by his friend Holst. While recording other English repertoire back in the mono era Boult had attempted to carve out sufficient time in the sessions for a Holst LP which never came to fruition. Four pieces - the Somerset Rhapsody, Marching Song, the Scherzo from an unfinished symphony (all in mono) and Country Song (in stereo) are now published for the first time. Boult also worked extensively with the best young British composers of his day, and this underrated aspect of his conducting is represented in the collection by 1954 mono accounts of Malcolm Arnold's English Dances and from 1960 the First Symphony of Humphrey Searle - coupled for the first time since it's release with two pieces composed and conducted by the Hungarian émigré Mátyás Seiber, as on the original LP.
