Sir Adrian Boult - From Bach to Wagner

[Ferretfancy]

I may have missed it but I find it rather depressing that it seems that none of the three major magazines nor a national newspaper appears to have reviewed this set .

Barbirollians
The Sunday Times Magazine, in its very brief classical reviews section gave the Boult an enthusiastic recommendation a couple of weeks ago.

To forestall any gibes, may I say that I hate the Sunday Times, and only read it for Winner's Dinners !

[Thropplenoggin]

Barbirollians
The Sunday Times Magazine, in its very brief classical reviews section gave the Boult an enthusiastic recommendation a couple of weeks ago.

To forestall any gibes, may I say that I hate the Sunday Times, and only read it for Winner's Dinners !

I shall be most disappointed if this doesn't lead to a gibe frenzy.

[Thomas Roth]

I may have missed it but I find it rather depressing that it seems that none of the three major magazines nor a national newspaper appears to have reviewed this set .

I am one of the editors for a music magazine in Sweden called OPUS, www.opuspress.se and I eagerly wanted to review this set. So I asked EMI for a review copy and received the answer that it will not sell anyway so you cannot have a copy. There are a lot of Boult admirers here in Sweden so I bought a copy and wrote a glowing review.

[Parry1912]

I asked EMI for a review copy and received the answer that it will not sell anyway so you cannot have a copy.

There was a fair amount of interest on this forum before the set was launched but the EMI website was remarkably silent on the contents even when retailers were accepting pre-orders. EMI's marketing could do with some improvement. Good customer support though!

[PJPJ]

Good customer support though!

It is, sadly, no worse than at least one other big label in responding to enquiries from the music press. Track down the editorial* from Alan Sanders in the current edition of Classical Recordings Quarterly [crq.org.uk]; at least Thomas Roth got a reply.

*Not online.

[makropulos]

I may have missed it but I find it rather depressing that it seems that none of the three major magazines nor a national newspaper appears to have reviewed this set .

Fair enough, Barbirollians - but don't be depressed. Review copies can take a long time to reach magazines and, then, to get to the reviewers - and this is especially true of reissued material. My review will appear in November (IRR) as the lead piece (650 words) in a long historical roundup, but the timeline for that has been (working backwards): proofs due any day now; a copy deadline of a week ago; and the set only arrived with me on 16 September (having arrived at the office a week or so before that). Not sure how it could have been turned around much quicker...

Unlike a lot of new releases, companies don't usually send out advance (white-label or whatever) copies of reissues –so the magazines usually get them only once they've been released and put on sale. There's bound to be a time lag as a result. I imagine there will be more reviews in due course - at least I hope so, as I think it's magnificent.

[Barbirollians]

Fair enough, Barbirollians - but don't be depressed. Review copies can take a long time to reach magazines and, then, to get to the reviewers - and this is especially true of reissued material. My review will appear in November (IRR) as the lead piece (650 words) in a long historical roundup, but the timeline for that has been (working backwards): proofs due any day now; a copy deadline of a week ago; and the set only arrived with me on 16 September (having arrived at the office a week or so before that). Not sure how it could have been turned around much quicker...

Unlike a lot of new releases, companies don't usually send out advance (white-label or whatever) copies of reissues –so the magazines usually get them only once they've been released and put on sale. There's bound to be a time lag as a result. I imagine there will be more reviews in due course - at least I hope so, as I think it's magnificent.

Heartening news makropoulos - and the set now is down to £14.99 on Amazon !

[makropulos]

Heartening news makropoulos - and the set now is down to £14.99 on Amazon !

That's an incredible bargain, isn't it? When I've not been submerged in huge amounts of Solti and other things (most of them terrific I have to say) I've been returning to this Boult set as often as possible. I'm particularly pleased that they've done such a good job of the transfers too - a few years ago the only CD versions I could find of the Brahms symphonies were horrid (that Dutch reissue of the whole lot, and Japanese EMI separate issues of each one), but they've come up sounding very fine in the new set, I think. And what towering performances they are.

[Barbirollians]

I have been listening to the Brahms records over the last two days . His Brahms 1 has been rather off my radar and it is extremely fine and with a notable performance of the Haydn Variations too . Very few boxes hang around the CD player as long as this one.

[Mandryka]

I have now got past the 'difficult' first couple of discs (difficult in that I don't like Bach at all and don't much like Mozart, either) and am about to plunge into the Wagner. Actually, SAB did manage to make the Brandenburgs a tolerable, at times even pleasant, experience for me...normally, these works just fill me with a desire to shout 'STOP!' at the top of my voice.

[Barbirollians]

Seven years on I have not fallen out of love with this marvellous set .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - there are some peculiar choices made in the Wagner pieces (a T&I Prelude without a Liebestod; endings that leave the "bleeding chunks" unsutured), and whatever the instrument is that's pretending to be a Harpsichord in the Bach, it certainly isn't anything anyone from the 18th Century would have recognised - but the Brahms, Schubert,, & Beethoven recordings are magnificent, and, judging from his Mozart, I so wish that Boult had recorded more - and that we'd been left with a Haydn #102 that we could be discussing on the BaL Thread. As you say, a truly "marvellous set" - one that would be amongst the first in my bag to rescue if the house caught fire.

[Barbirollians]

Unlike Klemperer’s Wagner chunks Boult was not allowed any singers . Klemperer ‘s pre-eminence at EMI in the 1960s did seem to stop others recording as much as they should have Barbirolli in Mahler for example or Bruckner.

I digress Boult’s Schubert 9 is calling.

[antongould]

Seven years on I have not fallen out of love with this marvellous set .

Yes it is wonderful IMVVHO

[Master Jacques]

As you say, a truly "marvellous set" - one that would be amongst the first in my bag to rescue if the house caught fire.

I have it ever ready by my bed - it's interesting how this is one of the first sets so many of us reach for, when musical "comfort food" is needed. Apart from saying that I personally don't mind the Prelude without the Liebestod, in the belief that chunks ought to be bleeding, in order to tempt listeners to hear the whole operas, I can only echo what others have said!