Post pinned for perpetual Elgarian Enlightenment courtesy of Boult’s baton
Link removed for Bach orchestration.
Link removed for Suite 2…
‘Wild Bears’ from 14:19.
Link removed for Suite 1.
IS THERE A CONDUCTOR GREATER THAN ADRIAN BOULT IN THE WONDERFUL WAND OF YOUTH MUSIC?
IN MY OPINION, A RESOUNDING NO!
This is indeed one of the great records. And Nigel’s book is one of the great books. Readable, scholarly. These things matter!
Thank you for mentioning the Elgar/Boult book – looks absolutely fascinating! I can feel a visit to Amazon coming on!
For me, the Top 3 of orchestral transcriptions of Bach’s organ works are the Elgar Fantasia and Fugue in C minor; Stokowski’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and Respighi’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. Doubtless others will have their own choices! … Boult’s Bach-Elgar is among the top recordings of that particular arrangement, along with Leonard Slatkin’s.
Agreed – Boult’s moulding of ‘The Fairy Pipers’ makes it an exquisite and moving masterpiece. No-one recorded more of Elgar’s music and Simeone’s book makes it clear why, really, he had few equals in this music.Th recent release on The SOMM label of Boult’s live ‘Kingdom’ from 1957 only enhances his reputation and that of Heather Harper who is the equal of Margaret Price in ‘The Sun goeth Down’.
What a shame the YT posts have been made unavailable.
Alternatively, for Wand of Youth, Mark Elder…
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=DsOYp6Ene1o&list=OLAK5uy_kaMLiy8UpVkUjHG2WNcavr0NjWMQDLr74
And I had previously included the Boult of the Bach orchestration here…
https://www.colinscolumn.com/from-sir-adrian-boults-glorious-indian-summer-of-recordings-for-hmv-and-lyrita-from-first-issue-vinyl/
Wand of Youth, Suite 2, Boult (EMI), including ‘The Wild Bears’…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ext7SaHXL8
(direct link; not embedded).
Similarly Suite 1…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLOpu8g2sw
Best WILD BEARS I have heard was at Lincoln Center with the BBC Welsh and Otaka as encore after Enigma….Cherkassky in first half with the Rachmaninoff Paganini rhapsody
Once, very many years ago, I heard Boult conducts Rimsky’s “Scheherazade” with, if memory serves, the RPO at one of their cut-price concerts in the Swiss Cottage Odeon Cinema. He clearly loved a bit of off-beat casting with his long baton flailing around and whipping the orchestra up into a terrific performance.
You can get an idea of what Boult could do when letting his hair down in repertoire he was never associated with by listening to him conducting Richard Rodgers’ “Guadalcanal” March from a WRC LP of marches all taken at a hell of a lick …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiwi3GmeiuU
!!!