Boult's Legendary Proms Elgar 1 on ICA Classics

[Barbirollians]

I pre-ordered it from Amazon and it has arrived today. The Elgar 1 is as marvellous as I remembered but the transfer seems little different to the old Pickwick one. If you do not have that or the BBC MM CD then I cannot recommend it too highly - it is to me the finest performance of the symphony available and only Barbirolli's live King's Lynn performance has a similar charge.

I bought the disc for the Brahms and that is an absolute delight - the first movement is less thrusting than many but the detail and shading is just superb and the performance builds to a superb account of the finale . Greatly recommended .

[ARBurton]

This is great news. Though I wish that they had chosen his 1970 Proms Elgar 1 which I thought was even more wonderful, and hasn't been out before (whereas the 1976 performance has been, at least twice, as noted by other posters). The Brahms 3 from 1977 I'm really intrigued to hear again - I've very vivid memories of it (and of the rehearsal I went to), found the whole thing extremely absorbing, but also recall a slightly shaky Coda to the last movement. I hope I'm mis-remembering that though.

ICA has already done a wonderful job with the 1972 film of Boult's Job at the Festival Hall. Five years later (17 August 1977) he gave an absolutely glorious Prom performance with the BBC Northern SO (noting it in his diary as "A+"). I'd love to see that issued, but it would be unreasonable to expect ICA to put out two recordings of Job! It is great that ICA is mining Boult's late Proms for its series - there is a lot more, at least potentially. I would love to see and hear the filmed Gerontius from Canterbury (I think?) Cathedral - I've only ever heard a very imperfect copy of the audio from that, and it's a beautiful performance.

As for the EMI Brahms series, I totally agree it should be brought back, but it needs some very careful attention: the CD transfers I've heard have been really not well done: I have them on Disky (as a licensed reissue from EMI) and on Japanese Toshiba/EMI reissues. In both cases the sound has some horrible moments which the LPs did not. But the performances are superb - I remember first getting the LSO Third when I was at school and being overwhelmed by it (and by the amazing filler of Dame Janet's Alto Rhapsody).

I emailed ICA about the Boult Gerontius film - they said they`d looked into that, but found the filming quality too uninteresting to merit release (too many shots of gargoyles, apparently). And going even further off-topic, they`d also tried the film of the premier of Britten`s War Requiem at Coventry Cathedral (which would have been timely, this being its 50th anniversary) but that too had been ruled out on technical grounds.

[Lordgeous]

Very grateful for being made aware of the CD re-issue of the Boult Elgar 1 1976 prom recording which Ive now ordered. Had no idea it ever was on CD! I happened to tape the concert off air and have lived with and loved it for all those years. The eruption of the final applause still makes the hairs on the back of my neck bristle!

[Tony Halstead]

I emailed ICA about the Boult Gerontius film - they said they`d looked into that, but found the filming quality too uninteresting to merit release (too many shots of gargoyles, apparently). And going even further off-topic, they`d also tried the film of the premier of Britten`s War Requiem at Coventry Cathedral (which would have been timely, this being its 50th anniversary) but that too had been ruled out on technical grounds.

This is great news. Though I wish that they had chosen his 1970 Proms Elgar 1 which I thought was even more wonderful, and hasn't been out before (whereas the 1976 performance has been, at least twice, as noted by other posters).

I do remember Boult's 1970 Proms Elgar 1 very well... at the time I thought it was wonderful and it was a privilege for me to be actually playing in it!