VW and Boult - new book.

[makropulos]

Interesting... I'd never thought about Boult's lack of engagement with Delius, but now you mention it the only Boult Delius recording I have is a rather pedestrian Marche Caprice on a Lyrita LP. I don't know what else there is on disc, if anything, or how often he programmed Delius live. But with Beecham and Barbirolli championing Delius's major works, I expect Boult didn't feel the need to record him.

As for Britten, he had the inevitable Young Person's Guide and Four Sea Interludes (as well as the Rossini adaptations) in his repertoire, and recorded them all; but perhaps Makropulos would know whether he performed any of Britten's less usual concert works live? With Britten recording those exclusively for Decca, there were perhaps few alternatives encouraged on disc during his lifetime.

Boult conducted the first (I think?) London performance of Our Hunting Fathers with Sophie Wyss and BBC forces in April 1937, a few months after Britten gave the premiere at the Norwich Festival. On 29 September 1946, Boult conducted the first performance of the Occasional Overture (sometimes called 'Festival Overture') that Britten composed for the opening of the Third Programme. Otherwise, he stuck to the familiar pieces (I think he did the Sinfonia da Requiem with the LPO in the 1950s, but I can't track down a specific performance of it at the moment).

Incidentally, he conducted a few Delius pieces in his earlier years, starting with the first performance of the Violin Concerto with Sammons in 1919 and, later on, the Tertis version of the Double Concerto. There's some nice correspondence between Delius and Boult in 'Music and Friends' (the collection of letters to Boult), including a letter about a performance of Paris: Delius wrote that it 'gave me the greatest pleasure.I felt you were in entire sympathy with the work and your tempi were all just as I want them.' Of the other major Delius pieces, Boult conducted Brigg Fair quite regularly. I don't think Boult was unsympathetic to Delius's music, but with Beecham (and later Barbirolli) doing a lot of it, I suspect he was happy to put his energies into VW, Holst et al.

[Master Jacques]

Thank you very much makropulos for a most interesting reply, especially regarding the Boult/Delius correspondence: I should love to have heard Boult doing Brigg Fair, which I can imagine would have suited him down to the ground.

[makropulos]

Thank you very much makropulos for a most interesting reply, especially regarding the Boult/Delius correspondence: I should love to have heard Boult doing Brigg Fair, which I can imagine would have suited him down to the ground.

My pleasure. And now I have found one of those performances of the Sinfonia da Requiem that Boult gave with the LPO. It was at the Hastings Festival on 3 May 1955. The critic in The Times wrote about: 'the Sinfonia da Requiem, a work prompted by uncommonly forceful emotion and expressed with uncompromising, disturbing directness. Sir Adrian Boult made no attempt to tone down its harshness to appease timid ears, and entered into the spirit of the work with moving intensity.,The orchestra responded splendidly to the heavy demands made on it, so that all in all the arrival of this neglected masterpiece was the concert's outstanding achievement.'

That sounds like a performance I'd like to have heard. I can imagine Boult doing the piece very well (though I fear BB, always a Boult detractor, would not have agreed).

[edashtav]

Boult conducted the first (I think?) London performance of Our Hunting Fathers with Sophie Wyss and BBC forces in April 1937, a few months after Britten gave the premiere at the Norwich Festival. On 29 September 1946, Boult conducted the first performance of the Occasional Overture (sometimes called 'Festival Overture') that Britten composed for the opening of the Third Programme. Otherwise, he stuck to the familiar pieces (I think he did the Sinfonia da Requiem with the LPO in the 1950s, but I can't track down a specific performance of it at the moment).
.

From goodmorningbritten (on-line) discussing the commissioning of Britten’s Occasional Overture:

“Etienne Amyot (the Third Programme’s first planner) had given Britten and his publisher, Erwin Stein of Boosey & Hawkes, dinner the previous summer, to persuade him to write it. ‘It was a sticky dinner’, he reported. ‘The first half…was a tremendous attack against the BBC by Britten which threatened at moments to become quite hysterical. He said he had no faith in the new programme, and that we might for a week or two spend a lot of money and time in trying to get the things we wanted, the service…would disintegrate by Christmas and be indistinguishable from either A or B (i.e. Light or Home). But then he changed his manner and agreed to write the piece.”

… fortunately BB’s prediction of an early death for the Third Programme was well wide of the mark.

[Serial_Apologist]

… fortunately BB’s prediction of an early death for the Third Programme was well wide of the mark.

But farsighted...

[edashtav]

But farsighted...

Ha ha.

We may have lost the Third Programme (of Blessed memory) but not even its composer cherished the Occasional Overture.

[Barbirollians]

Looks fascinating duly ordered and thanks also for promotional code .

[silvestrione]

Looks fascinating duly ordered and thanks also for promotional code .

Yes, mine is arriving this afternoon. Really looking forward to a good read!

[Pulcinella]

Yes, mine is arriving this afternoon. Really looking forward to a good read!

Mine has recently arrived too (delivered next door while I was out helping the local Year 5s with their literacy and maths!).
Now: have I really got the self-restraint to keep it as my Christmas treat to myself?
I doubt it!


Thanks from me too, Nigel/makropulos, for giving us the discount code.

[edashtav]

Mine has recently arrived too (delivered next door while I was out helping the local Year 5s with their literacy and maths!).
Now: have I really got the self-restraint to keep it as my Christmas treat to myself?
I doubt it!


Thanks from me too, Nigel/makropulos, for giving us the discount code.

My copy has arrived, too, in perfectly condition having been carefully packed inside a flexible inner polythene sleeve.

I skimmed through it : very authoritative and comprehensive : it even mentioned ACB conducting the OdaC Orchestra in VW’s Tallis Fantasia in Birmingham City Art Gallery. I was there sitting only feet from Boult as I wanted to study his stick tehnique - the work sounded wonderful, partly through the Gallery’s fine acoustics

[smittims]

Sir Adrian was generous with his time in helping music making in many ways. When I was at school , aeons ago, he came to a place nearby to do a sort of masterclass on the Elgar string serenades . One of my classmates went. It was more or less open to all. Not many world-famous conductors of 80 years would bother to do this.

[makropulos]

My copy has arrived, too, in perfectly condition having been carefully packed inside a flexible inner polythene sleeve.

I skimmed through it : very authoritative and comprehensive : it even mentioned ACB conducting the OdaC Orchestra in VW’s Tallis Fantasia in Birmingham City Art Gallery. I was there sitting only feet from Boult as I wanted to study his stick tehnique - the work sounded wonderful, partly through the Gallery’s fine acoustics

How lovely to have been there! He did some surprising things with the OdaC including what was (I think) his one and only performance of Strauss's Metamorphosen. If I remember rightly, I quoted part of a rather a nice review of the Tallis Fantasia which explained how the instruments had been laid out in the Gallery.

[bluestateprommer]

I agree, and I do indeed have quite a bit to say about Job (which gets quite a long chapter to itself). As you know, of all the pieces dedicated to him, Job was the one of which he was proudest. How that dedication came about (and how Boult discovered it) is a delightful story too.

That will be interesting to read about, along with everything else. I've read the footnote in Michael Kennedy's biography of Boult that relates to RVW's dedication of Job to ACB, and I still don't get it. No doubt I'm overthinking it.

The larger point, of course, is that from this side of the pond, I am most definitely interested in your book as well. I wonder if the local university library system would splurge for it for the music library collection (translation: I suggest it to them and they go for it ;) ). Is the discount only for UK customers? Great news to hear about your book. (Also have been enjoying your Proms interval discussions.)

[makropulos]

That will be interesting to read about, along with everything else. I've read the footnote in Michael Kennedy's biography of Boult that relates to RVW's dedication of Job to ACB, and I still don't get it. No doubt I'm overthinking it.

The larger point, of course, is that from this side of the pond, I am most definitely interested in your book as well. I wonder if the local university library system would splurge for it for the music library collection (translation: I suggest it to them and they go for it ;) ). Is the discount only for UK customers? Great news to hear about your book. (Also have been enjoying your Proms interval discussions.)

The discount works for US customers as well as UK/Europe ones –with the same discount code (BB135). Not sure if that applies to institutional customers (i.e. your local university library) –I think it's just for individuals. There is also an electronic version (much cheaper) if that is your thing (it's certainly not mine, but I know some people love eBooks).

The Job dedication is indeed a complicated story, but to cut to the essentials: Oxford University Press was hesitating to publish a full score. Boult left his post at the Bach Choir and was asked what he would like as a leaving gift. His answer was to ask all the members to join together to pay OUP the publishing costs of Job so that the score could be printed. VW was so touched by this gesture that when Boult next conducted the work (still from the autograph manuscript) he opened up the first page to find that VW had added the dedication. VW later gave Boult the original manuscripts of both Job and A London Symphony and Boult later presented these to the British Library.

[bluestateprommer]

The Job dedication is indeed a complicated story, but to cut to the essentials: Oxford University Press was hesitating to publish a full score. Boult left his post at the Bach Choir and was asked what he would like as a leaving gift. His answer was to ask all the members to join together to pay OUP the publishing costs of Job so that the score could be printed. VW was so touched by this gesture that when Boult next conducted the work (still from the autograph manuscript) he opened up the first page to find that VW had added the dedication. VW later gave Boult the original manuscripts of both Job and A London Symphony and Boult later presented these to the British Library.

That part about OUP being hesitant to publish the full score of Job is exactly the missing piece of the puzzle that clarifies the whole situation. Many thanks for the explanation. I wonder now if Michael Kennedy took that knowledge for granted to the point that he simply didn't think to clarify it in his bio of Adrian Boult. Pure speculation, of course.

I will definitely have to suggest your book to the local university music library to add to its collection. Also, pretty close to the last performance I listened to from this summer's Proms on BBC Sounds, extremely close to the last minute deadline, was Constantin Hartwig's performance of RVW's Tuba Concerto, and I listened again to your interval discussion with Andrew McGregor.