I write these words on Ralph Vaughan Williams’s 150^th birthday (he was born at Down Ampney, Gloucestershire on October 12^th 1872), on my desk a disc that in terms of both content and technology would have been unimaginable when I first encountered the composer’s music around 65 years ago. ‘Vaughan Williams Live Volume 2’ [SOMM Ariadne 5018], c£10.50 has as its centrepiece a concert performance of ‘Job: A Masque for Dancing’ that predates the conductor’s four commercial recordings and features an Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, that three years later was to play RVW’s Sixth Symphony under the Orchestra’s principal conductor, the great Serge Koussevitzky (a revealing rehearsal for that performance is available at https://pastdaily.com/2018/08/19/serge-koussevitzky-and-the-boston-symphony-rehearse-vaughan-williams-1949-past-daily-weekend-gramophone/). Boult’s Boston ‘Job’ has the players perched on the edges of their seats, or so it seems, their reactions lightning quick (‘Dance of Job’s Comforters’, track 8), fervently responsive (Elihu’s Dance of Youth and Beauty …’, the violin soloist presumably the Orchestra’s concertmaster at the time, Richard Burgin, a pupil of Joachim and Auer), or dramatic (the start of ‘Galliard of. the Sons of the Morning …’, track 10). Certainly Boult appears to convey the music’s profound essence, both to the Orchestra and to an appreciative audience, much as he did for other English scores with the NBC Symphony, the Concertgebouw, the Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna State Opera and other orchestras. But what registers above all else is the intensity of feeling generated, the idea that this is a musically overwhelming work, which it is.

But there’s more, two performances featuring Boult with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the first, recorded in the BBC’s studios on 5^th November 1944 as the Allied armies were being held up in Belgium. The work grew from plans for a musical celebration marking Hitler’s defeat. Victory in Europe Day was delayed until 8^thMay 1945 and RVW’s ‘Thanksgiving for Victory’ (renamed ‘A Song of Thanksgiving’ in 1952) was broadcast five days later. A proudly outstretched sense of gratitude rides high on the words of Shakespeare, Kipling and the Bible, the music celebratory in the extreme (so touchingly significant given that we’ve experienced a period national mourning so recently), the participating performers, all of them warmly dedicated, the soprano Elsie Suddaby, Valentine Dyall, narrator, George  Thalben-Ball and the Choir of the Children of the Thomas Coram Schools. The sound for the entire CD has been miraculously restored by Lani Spahr.

I thank Edward Johnson for altering me to a 40-minutes radio programme on RVW’s “Serenade to Music” (to words by Shakespeare) that has made its appearance on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ6yZWSo8Ck&t=696s), especially as the ‘Serenade’ is the third work on this priceless collection, part of a concert of English music given by the BBC forces under Boult on 29^th September 1946 on the opening night of the BBC Third Programme (later to be renamed BBC Radio 3).  The incomparable soloists are soprano Isobel Baille, the contralto Astra Desmond, the tenor Beveridge White and the baritone Harold Williams. The original version is for sixteen distinguished soloists, here reduced to four with chorus and orchestra, and that this gorgeous work – which opens like a cross between RVW’s ‘Lark Ascending’ and Brahms’s ‘Song of Destiny’ – should have appeared in that particular radio context proves beyond question that whatever the value of worthy Reithian principles, when it comes to broadcasting music to the people nothing works better than unsullied beauty. The disc’s excellent annotations are by Simon Heffer.

A PERSONAL PRELUDE

Among my most valued formative musical experiences from the late 1960s was the year I spent working for what had recently been called the BBC Third Programme but was by then Radio 3. The department I was assigned to, Concerts Management, dealt with the Proms and among the senior staff working there was Frieda Grove, a tall, bright, kindly lady with a keen sense of humour and a willingness to lend guidance to greenhorn fledglings such as me. 

I made it known to Frieda that I had ambitions to conduct and so she unexpectedly arranged for me to meet Sir Adrian Boult at his offices in Central London’s Wigmore Street. I was extremely excited at the prospect of our meeting though, inevitably, I was also very nervous. 

When the day eventually arrived, I took a tube to London, made my way to Wigmore Street and, once at the right address, was escorted upstairs to an office where Sir Adrian sat behind his desk. His gently expressive blue eyes instantly put me at my ease, as did an outstretched hand that seemed eager to shake mine. He made me a hot cup of Horlicks (a sweet malted milk drink) which, to my surprise, I rather enjoyed. Goodness knows what impression I made on him, but he talked me through some fundamental conducting issues, such as dealing with the finale of Schumann’s Piano Concerto, which alternates between 6/4 and 3/2, a tricky one to get right. He picked up his long baton and I heard in my mind’s ear what I saw, certainly, but had absolutely no idea how he arrived at the airborne patterns he was making.  Sir Adrian advised me to find a choral group as a training tool, shook my hand again, wished me good luck – and that was the last time I saw him. 

Alas, no choral group was to hand and the conductor in me remained an unfulfilled dream. But the experience of that meeting with Sir Adrian still takes pride of place in my musical memory bank. 

THE LEGACY

Boult was, relatively speaking, the ‘straight guy’ in the great British conducting ‘all-Bs’ triumvirate that also included Sir Thomas Beecham and Sir John Barbirolli. Decca Eloquence’s important three-volume retrospective Sir Adrian Boult: The Decca Legacy both confirms and contradicts that familiar rather conservative reputation. What we have here are collections of British Music (Volume 1), Baroque and Sacred Music (Volume 2) and 19^thand 20^th Century Music (Volume 3). 

Starting with Volume 3 (4842284, 16 cds, c£75.00) accompanying violinist Mischa Elman’s highly emotive but strong-willed way with Tchaikovsky’s Concerto would prove a challenge for even the most competent maestro but Boult keeps his cool, much as Barbirolli did in the same work with the same soloist pre-War (Warner Classics). Even as early as Elman’s first entry, there’s a very brief pause, a sort of ‘am I on yet?’ though his intonation is always true and even when climbing hills and sliding down dales he manages to cope, just. And that ‘sob’ to the tone, quite inimitable. Elman, Boult and the LPO also offer us the Bruch First and Wieniawski Second Concertos. My only quibble with Ruggiero Ricci’s 1952 recording of the Beethoven Concerto (with Kreisler’s first movement cadenza) is a very occasional tendency to evade the note’s centre but otherwise Ricci and Boult offer a broadly paced, noble reading of this great work, ‘old school’ it’s true but well worth the occasional visit. 

Other sympathetically conducted concertos include Alfredo Campoli playing the Mendelssohn E minor and the Bruch ‘Scottish Fantasy’, the latter impossible to dissociate from Heifetz, for us, and on the evidence presented here, for Campoli too, whose playing betrays Heifetz’s influence. It’s a lovely disc as is a coupling featuring Zara Nelsova of Cello Concertos by Saint-Saëns (his First) and Lalo, the latter for me quite spoiled by sforzando chords in the first movement that sound like a barking dog trapped in a nearby back yard. Take note that that’s my personal reaction to the music, whereas the performance could hardly be bettered. 

Another personal beef concerns Dohnányi’s ‘Variations on a Nursery Song’ for piano and orchestra, presented here twice (in mono and stereo) which opens to a portentously Wagnerian orchestral Introduction (as proof of Boult’s consistency it plays for exactly 3:43 on both versions) then switches to the solo pianist playing silly beggars with ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. The ‘joke’ works once, maybe twice, even three times, though nowadays I go straight to the nursery song, follow the course of Dohnanyi’s warming set of Variations and enjoy Julius Katchen’s superb playing. The coupling on both discs are brilliant, fleet-fingered accounts of Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody where Boult, the LPO and Katchen achieve watertight ensemble playing.

Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto is entrusted to Clifford Curzon whose rapport with Boult and the LPO is palpable. This is a grand, luxuriant performance, virtuosic where needs be and coupled with equally pleasing (stereo) accounts of Litolff’s ‘Scherzo’ and Franck’s ‘Symphonic Variations’. 

Rachmaninov’s First Concerto enjoys heartfelt and forthright advocacy from Peter Katin and the welcome coupling is Tchaikovsky’s rarely heard, and fairly sizeable, ‘Concert Fantasia’ which, again, is given a technically assured and emotionally engaging performance, Boult and his players fully supportive of their soloist in both works, while the stereo sound is excellent. Chopin’s First Piano Concerto is presented in an interesting version prepared by Balakirev and allows the young Friedrich Gulda to exhibit the full range of his musical and pianistic intelligence.

As to purely orchestral works, a mono LPO coupling of Tchaikovsky’s Overtures ‘Hamlet’ and ‘1812’ finds Boult on thrilling form in the former while leaving the latter dead in the water. The ‘Polish’, or Third, Symphony is extraordinarily exciting, especially the first movement, while the ‘Andante elegiaco’ slow movement is played with considerable reserves of feeling, especially by the LPO strings. The primitive stereo sound is best at the top end, leaving the bottom end of the spectrum rather fuzzy.

Rachmaninov’s Second and Third Symphonies, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter, although well enough performed, are similarly afflicted, sound-wise. Best of all is Tchaikovsky’s Third orchestral Suite with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, in credible stereo this time, a performance that to my mind is a considerable improvement on Boult’s EMI re-make with the LPO, even though there violinist Erich Gruenberg was on hand to perform his big solo in the last movement. Here it’s Pierre Nerini, a sweetly individual player very much in the tradition of the French violin school while Boult’s handling of the work’s witty scherzo – especially its perky ‘Jack in the Box’ trio – is infinitely more incisive than on the later London version. Also from Paris, a lively and vividly drawn ‘Lt. Kijé’ Suite (in stereo, with one of the best ‘Troikas’ I’ve ever heard), one half of an all-Prokofev CD that also includes ‘The Love of Three Oranges’ Suite in mono, the LPO on good form but no real match for ‘Kijé’. And lastly in this set, Mahler, whose music Boult conducted on numerous occasions, this time with the Vienna Philharmonic and Kirsten Flagstad in ‘Kindertotenlieder’ and ‘Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen’, stereophonically recorded performances notable above all for their sincerity and conceptual simplicity. The orchestra too plays beautifully. 

Turning to Volume 2 (13 cds, 4842302, c£70.00), the Baroque and Sacred selections are dominated by two recordings of Handel’s ‘Messiah’, one in mono, the other in stereo, but Flagstad is again represented, this time by a disc of Bach and Handel arias and one of ‘Great Sacred Songs’ (‘Jerusalem’, ‘O Come All ye Faithful’ and the like). The voice is both distinctive and much loved and those considerations are likely to prove decisive, rather than Boult’s heavy-handed LPO accompaniments. I have a particular liking for the singing of the Scottish tenor Kenneth McKellar, whose way with lighter fare made him exceedingly popular in years gone by, but hear his ‘Handel Songs and Arias’ album and the voice sits just as happily in ‘Ombra mai fu’ or ‘Silent Worship’, though if you are addicted to say Andreas Scholl in the former then McKellar’s full-throated lyricism is likely to prompt a show of red mist.  The same CD also adds bonuses including Benjamin Britten conducting the LSO and LSO Chorus in his own arrangement of the National Anthem, once out on a 7” ‘extended play’ vinyl record.

Kathleen Ferrier’s ‘Bach-Handel Recital’, her final studio recording, appears twice, first as originally taped in mono in 1952 then a ‘stereo’ version with ‘new’ accompaniments recorded in 1960 (Ferrier died from cancer in 1953). Where singing isn’t involved, there’s no problem: Boult and the team simply redid the tutti for stereo and that was that. But when Ferrier enters, the centralised voice sometimes remains bonded to surrounding instruments, especially if you’re listening on cans. Musically, I was interested to note from Peter Quantrill’s supplementary essay that Ferrier’s collaborating mentor in Mahler, Bruno Walter, felt that her special ‘spiritual’ qualities were especially suited to the religious music of Bach and Handel. A telling remark, that, especially as all we read of Walter on Ferrier tends to be about her singing of Mahler. But for me the solemn, even sombre combination of Boult and Ferrier in say ‘All is fulfilled’ from Bach’s ‘St John Passion’ has something ‘holier than thou’, even discomfortingly phantasmal about it, though I know that others will feel differently. The voice is certainly very beautiful, and Ferrier’s enunciation is impeccable.

The bigger works are excellent in their different ways. Handel’s delightful pastoral opera ‘Acis and Galatea’ stars Joan Sutherland, Peter Pears, David Galliver and Owen Brannigan, vocal stalwarts of the 1960s who perform well while Boult’s conducting of the St. Anthony Singers and the Philomusica of London keeps all concerned alert and on the ball. Of the two Messiahs (both use an edition by Julian Herbage) the principal difference is with the two orchestras, a tonally subdued but intensely communicative LPO in 1954 while for the 1961 remake Boult and his team switch to a keener-edged, better recorded LSO, the Orchestra known for its dynamic performances and recordings under the likes of Pierre Monteux and Antál Doráti. Compare the two versions of ‘For unto us’ and the difference is quite striking. As to the soloists, the superb ’54 line-up of Jennifer Vyvyan, Norma Procter, George Maran and Owen Brannigan is perhaps the more reverential-sounding of the two, whereas for the 1961 stereo remake Sutherland, Grace Bumbry, McKellar and David Ward lean more towards a bel canto style of delivery, Sutherland especially. I have to admit a marked preference for the more immediate 1961 version.

When it comes to Boult’s coverage of British music in Volume 1 (16 cds, 4842204, c£75.00), further comparisons are suggested by the set’s centrepiece, the first-ever complete recorded cycle of Ralph Vaughan-Williams’s nine symphonies, invariably with both the composer and his wife Ursula attending the sessions. The one main exception was the Ninth, recorded in stereo on the eve of the composer’s death (the conductor/producer John Carewe stepped in as supervisor) by the Everest company and issued by Decca under license from the label’s successors. Considering how recent the work was the performance is remarkably assured, both as playing and as representative of the Symphony’s powerful sense of foreboding.

Pitting Boult on Decca (mostly in mono, the entertaining Eighth being the sole exception) against his subsequent remakes for Warner Classics is tantamount to playing swings and roundabouts though for me the extra levels of concentration achieved in the 1950s invariably win the day. 

Best of all are Symphonies Nos. 2, or ‘London’, 3, or ‘Pastoral’, 4 and 6, the 2^nd combining a misty evocation of Big Ben’s chimes with fast traffic chaos, cockney-style ebullience and a good measure of mystery.  Boult balances these elements to perfection.  In the Third’s first movement only André Previn with the LSO come close to Boult’s sense of rapture while under Boult the offstage presence of Margaret Ritchie’s soprano leaves a disquieting impression in the closing ‘Lento’.

For years I’d unfairly daubed the dramatic Fourth as ‘Dad’s Army drama’, a failed effort to match the big guns of Mahler, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, but acquainting myself with RVW’s own pre-War recording, a real firecracker, and this iron-fisted Boult performance, where the work’s Beethovenian roots are laid bare, put me straight.  The Sixth is another apparent harbinger of trouble, specifically in the anguished first movement. Boult premiered the original version in 1948 and within a year it had achieved some 100 performances, prompted no doubt by imagined associations with the tragic close of war, which the composer tended to wave away as so much piffle.

‘Sinfonia Antartica’ draws on incidental music that RVW had written for the 1948 film ‘Scott of the Antarctic’. It’s a huge score calling for all manner of effects, including a wind machine, assorted percussion and, in the first and last movements, a soprano solo (Margaret Ritchie here) and a three-part women’s chorus. The score also includes a brief literary quotation at the start of each movement, spoken on this recording by Sir John Gielgud. Boult’s compelling performance is well captured by producers John Culshaw and James Walker though it’s worth mentioning at this juncture that if you don’t fancy the ‘black and white’ of mono sound then Pristine Audio offer a more colourful, widened spectrum (‘Sinfonia Antartica’ is on PASC 668, available from www.pristineclassical.com) that works especially well in the third ‘landscape’ movement though at the start of the ’Alla marcia’ Epilogue Decca’s ‘straight’ transfer has the greater impact. And there’s the ‘Sea Symphony’, a favourite with choral societies though not perhaps among the greatest of the symphonies, a first-ever recording that must have burst upon the listening public of the day like a holy declamation, the performance much lauded on its first release and that still stands the test of time. 

RVW’s friend Holst reckoned ‘Job, a Masque for Dancing’ to be the composer’s masterpiece, an understandable assessment widely echoed by RVW aficionados and while (to these ears) the weather-worn ‘Introduction and Sarabande of the sons of God’ suggests the ruggedly attired composer sitting in a tumbledown country shack, bible in hand, the subsequent movements more suggest the tortured complexities of Job’s tribulations and his continued devotion to God. It’s wonderful music and deserves wider circulation in concert than it has so far received. This is surely Boult’s consummate performance of the score on disc, though a forthcoming release from SOMM of a Boston Symphony broadcast looks fascinating. Other featured RVW works include the ballet ‘Old King Cole’ (the familiar nursery rhyme ‘Old King Cole was a Merry Old Soul’ is slammed out for all its worth at the beginning) and the Aristophanic Suite ‘The Wasps’.

As to the rest, I’d imagine that Boult and Campoli bring us fairly close to what Kreisler and Elgar would have sounded like in Elgar’s Violin Concerto, the warmth of it, the geniality too, and, where necessary, the brilliance. There are Elgar’s ‘Chanson de Matin’ and ‘Chanson de Nuit’, both charmingly done, his ‘Bavarian Dances’ and eight immensely likeable ‘English Dances’ by Sir Malcolm Arnold as well as distinguished performances of works by Butterworth (‘A Shropshire Lad’ and ‘The Banks of Green Willow’) and Bax (‘Tintagel’), Walton (his suite of Bach arrangements, ‘The Wise Virgins’, for one, though I don’t think ‘Portsmouth Point’ was quite Boult’s thing) and Holst including the wonderful ‘Hymn of Jesus’, ‘Egdon Heath’, two recordings of ‘The Perfect Fool’ and a quartet of first releases, ‘A Somerset Rhapsody’, ‘Scherzo from Unfinished Symphony’ (which sounds like a discarded off-cut from ‘The Planets’), ‘Marching Song’ and a stereo release of ‘Country Song’.

Humphrey Searle’s First Symphony is the set’s toughest nut, but Boult and his players don’t seem in the least bit fazed by it. The set closes with two interesting pieces by Matyás Seiber that don’t involve Boult but were on the same lp as the Searle.

A PERSONAL POSTLUDE

Summing up I must pay tribute to Eloquence’s Executive Producer Cyrus Meher-Homji OAM, Transfer Engineer Chris Bernauer, and the scholar and writer Nigel Simeone whose comprehensive annotations are not only invaluable but a joy to read, especially when it comes to Boult and Vaughan Williams. Simeone’s detailed 330-page study ‘Ralph Vaughan Williams and Adrian Boult’ is available from Boydell Press, ISBN. 9781783277292, price £32.50 (an offer from Pristine Audio at www.pristineclassical.com; the official RRP is £50.00).

If working on a budget and forced to choose just one set, I’d opt for Volume One, principally because Boult knew so many of the featured composers and the artistic bond with Vaughan Williams was so strong. Beyond that, Volume Three includes the biggest ratio of interpretative surprises and some star soloists and if Volume Two offers what one might nowadays term ‘Philharmonic’ Baroque, there are some great featured singers and the 1961 ‘Messiah’ is rather special.

At the head of this review I referred to Boult as the ‘straight guy’ in the great British conducting ‘all-Bs’ triumvirate that also included Sir Thomas Beecham and Sir John Barbirolli. How did these three masters differ? Barbirolli and Beecham both excelled in opera, which generally speaking was not really Boult’s bag; Beecham was a magician who could seduce with Delius or raise a storm with Wagner, Barbirolli a warm-hearted exponent of music with an emotional core, Puccini and Mahler especially. Boult was a cooler customer than either, but he could on occasion surprise his listeners with volatile Tchaikovsky or impassioned Elgar. Like his idol Toscanini, his heart was securely in his chest, not on his sleeve, but the pulse of his performances was nearly always strong which is why he so often confounded expectations. That ability to occasionally suspend belief is abundantly apparent throughout all three of these marvellous sets.

… or ‘Schubert 7’ if that’s your preferred reference point. But, boy, Jordi Savall and his period-instrument Le Concert Des Nations (Alia Vox AVSA9950, 2cds, c£13) give this masterpiece the outing of its life, with Toscanini-style timps firing from the turrets in big tutti passages and a cunning acceleration from Andante to Allegro ma non troppo to set the work on its way. No wonder the album is called ‘Transfiguration’. Note too the rustic phrasing of the first movement’s second subject (3:46), birdsong from the eaves you might say, and when the repeat arrives (which it does at 5:43) you’re grateful that – hey! – you can enjoy it all over again.

This is the most physical Schubert 9 I’ve ever heard; it gate-crashes Beethoven’s ballpark like no other even though Herbert Blomstedt (most recently), Michael Gielen, Abbado, Furtwängler and Walter offer viably satisfying (and quite different) takes on the same piece. Then there’s the Andante con moto second movement, it’s sombre tread ideally paced, its bassline stressed but never exaggerated, its dramatic interjections always well balanced, whereas the warring brass at 8:21 never upstage the strings. At this point on so many HIP recordings of the ‘Great’ C Major the strings get a raw deal.

Like Abbado (with Orchestra Mozart, DG) Savall takes the rarely-heard repeat in the finale but while Savall drives the Scherzo into a state of abject rage – the magnificent recording leaves no detail obscured – there’s a great deal to be said for Abbado’s warmer, more lilting approach. I’m happy to alternate them. And then there’s the ‘Unfinished’ (on disc 2) with its emphatically drawn opening, powerful brass and timps and an emphatic pulse. Lyrical, yes, (again the repeat is played) but otherwise not for the faint-hearted. Savall never pulls his punches and come the Andante con moto second movement, you move into a world that’s altogether brighter, even in spite of some thunderous sudden outbursts. It’s a contrast that convinces us – for however long is anyone’s guess – that whatever this work is, it certainly isn’t unfinished. If you love these works as much as I do you simply have to hear this magnificent CD. 

I’ve always thought that there are two basic ways of interpreting early music. One takes a scholarly imperative as sacrosanct, banning vibrato while often upping the tempo, inflecting the line, brightening textures and adopting whichever ornaments are deemed appropriate for the period. The other way is more emotionally direct, where musicians play or sing their hearts out, oblivious to the fads and fashions of ‘period style’, except in cases where the music benefits by employing them. Such was the preference of Michel Corboz, a baker’s son brought up in a Catholic family in the Swiss canton of Fribourg who was lost to us last year at the age of 87. The 74-cd set Michael Corboz: The Complete Erato Recordings – Baroque and Renaissance Eras, 9029621746, c£165.00 might seem like a costly enterprise but if you’re as yet unfamiliar with its contents then it’s cheap at the price, please believe me. In short, Corboz and his collaborators find a magical method of edging from one musical episode to the next with a sense of wonder, often a hushed sigh that recalls such Old-World conductors as Furtwängler, Jochum and Walter. To hear playing and singing of this quality and expressive power in Beethoven Brahms, Bruckner or Mahler is one thing, but in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s 17^th century Mass for All Soul’s Day ‘Messe pour les trépassés’ (performed complete), something else entirely. The ‘Kyrie’ opens with a solemn orchestral prelude, which then switches unexpectedly to quiet voices that suggest the veiled intensity of top-flight chamber musicians before the female chorus lets out a voluminous cry that if it weren’t so beautiful would be shocking. A powerfully angular ‘Dies irae’ follows, which soon starts to dance, the soloists led by the delightfully fresh-voiced Jennifer Smith, a frequent presence throughout the set.

Among the many Vivaldi inclusions is the Magnificat RV 610 in a 1975 recording, one of the many new re-masterings included (all are superbly realised by the way), the music the ideal corrective for those who accuse Vivaldi of stylistic sameness. Just try ‘Et misericordia’, a heart-stopping meditation that modulates with profound meaning, the performance dark-hued, the chorus deeply reverential though the closing chord lets the light in and the ‘Fecit potentiam’ sequence that follows allows for dramatic contrasts in tone and tempo.

Monteverdi is very generously represented with two versions of the ‘Vespro della Beata Vergine’, the earlier of the two – and a welcome first cd release – featuring the highly distinctive tenors Eric Tappy and, most famously, Hugues Cuénod, the later set, a more engaging performance overall, again featuring Jennifer Smith. The other Monteverdi inclusions, not least ‘The Most Beautiful Madrigals’ and six volumes of ‘Selva Morale’ are, in both musical and performance terms, quite simply glorious, the sort of music that were you to have it playing when non-musical guests visit would have them stop, listen (even if only for a brief moment) and enquire as to what they were hearing. Mozart’s fleshed out version of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ would no sooner replace the original than would Mendelssohn’s take on Bach’s ‘St Matthew Passion’ would, but it’s interesting to hear and the performance is full of vitality. Of the Bach Passions themselves Corboz is marginally more compelling in the ‘St.John’ – where his sense of theatre holds sway – than in the ‘St.Matthew’, though Kurt Equiluz is a supremely convincing Evangelist in both. There are three versions of the B minor Mass, all of them crowned by performances of the ‘Sanctus’ that sound is if the choruses can hardly contain their sense of zeal. Furthermore, Corboz makes sure that the music’s all-important descending bass-line is properly audible. There are pleasing first CD releases of ‘Le Chanson et La Danse’ (‘Paris vers 1540’) and a rather more modern, sometimes traditional programme  ‘La Chanson de Lausanne’.

So what else is on offer? J.C. and more J. S. Bach, Bassano, Bellavere, Carissimi (especially memorable), Cavalli (‘Ercole amate’ with Felicity Palmer and Yvonne Minton), D’Incerto, De Lalande, Donato, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, Goudimel, Guami, Ingegneri, Marcello, Merulo Da Correggio, Padovano, Parabosco, Purcell (‘Dido and Aeneas’ with Teresa Berganza), Alessandro Scarlatti, Vecchi, and Veggio. The way Corboz has his voices and instruments blend, his method of shaping phrases and varying dynamics all bear the mark of a true artist. He understood what the term ‘right style’ meant yet you’re never aware that ‘style’ itself is his objective, more the significance of the musical message, setting it in an ideal sound frame. Here I must pay tribute to his producer Michel Garcin, one of the last Century’s finest in my view, someone who, alongside some expert balance engineers, had the ability to combine pinpoint stereophonic clarity with overall warmth. And in case you’re wondering about Corboz’s Erato recordings of later repertoire (and there’s plenty of it), fear not, they should be with us before too long.

… are what Mr. & Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night.’ The amusing quip landed a celebrated BBC Radio 3 presenter in trouble with his bosses, though his humour was well placed: at the end of the work, before the return of the iconic opening ‘Aria’, Bach rounds off his sublime 30-strong variation sequence with a folksy, tuneful ‘quodlibet’ which, as Bach’s biographer Forkel explains, invokes a custom observed at Bach family reunions. ‘This kind of improvised harmonizing [meant] that they not only could laugh over it quite whole-heartedly themselves, but also aroused just as hearty and irresistible laughter in all who heard them.’ A joke then, and, more often than not, a pretty saucy one. This enriching variation is repeated numerous times – with its first half repeated – as played in 1981 by Glenn Gould for the sessions of the second of his two Sony recordings of the complete work. His first, made in Manhattan in 1955, was reported to have sold 40,000 copies by 1960, and had sold more than 100,000 by the time of Gould’s death in 1982.

Over the years Gould’s earlier Goldbergs have been in and out of my collection like a yo-yo. Sometimes the shock alternation of deep rumination and dazzling finger work at speed has me hooked, sometimes not. By 1981 Gould had forged a more even path from variation to variation and while his pianism is no less brilliant than it was in 1955, his mind seems more settled – and of course the digital sound is vastly superior to its analogue predecessor.  But whichever way you look at it, Gould’s Goldberg’s did as much to bring Bach to a wider public as did Stokowski’s orchestration of the organ Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 and Dame Myra Hess’s piano transcription of the chorale ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’.     

In April and May 1981, while often recording late into the night, Gould and the CBS
Masterworks studio team, headed by producer Sam Carter, were joined by the French filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon, who was making a documentary series about Gould; Monsaingeon can also frequently be heard in the recordings.

This is Gould’s 90th anniversary year and it’s also 40 years since the second Goldberg’s first release, which makes Glenn Gould: The Goldberg Variations – The Complete Unreleased 1981 Recording Sessions (Sony Classical 194399774229, c£110.00, a similar collection devoted to the 1955 recording has already appeared) a uniquely detailed window onto the creation of this classic recording. Spread across 11 CDs, the set includes the double GRAMMY-winning final release as well as everything recorded during the 1981 sessions, restored from the original ¼-inch analogue tapes and mastered using 24 bit / 96 kHz technology. In addition to the takes themselves, the session recordings include Gould and the producers’ often mirthful conversations, all of which are transcribed in a hard-cover coffee-table book which also contains an annotated score.

What we have is Gould performing each variation, then tailing what he plays with the first bar or two of the next variation so that he can pick up where he left off. His pleas about having played a wrong note or missed a note at the close of a phrase are lost on me, such is the level of his perfectionism. But one thing’s for sure, once you’ve travelled the course of this amazing performance you’ll know the Goldberg Variations more thoroughly than your musical friends – unless they’ve bought the set for themselves (do try to encourage them, in musical terms it’s a fabulous investment).

Gould was just 22 when he taped his first set of the Goldbergs. I wonder what the 23-years-old Japanese pianist Mao Fujita will think of his first complete recorded set of Mozart’s sonatas in say ten years’ time? There’s bound to be a second, maybe even a third, but as with Gould’s two Sony Goldbergs there’ll also likely be a marked curve of interpretative development between them. This ‘first’ Mozart set (Sony Classical 196587 10762, 5 cds, c£52.00, due for release 7^th October) recorded a couple of years ago in Berlin, is brilliant, imaginative but singularly unpredictable. 

Take the opening of the so-called Dürnitz Sonata K.284, motoric and bracing, then switch to the ‘Rondeau en Polonaise’ second movement and the ‘theme and variations’ finale where tempo shifts abound, and Mozart the Classicist anticipates his Romantic future self. Even more so the great A minor Sonata K.310 when in the dramatic first movement, taken at a fairly broad tempo, because of the way chords are weighted, Fujita’s left hand releases a wealth of harmonic colour (Peter Donohoe on SOMM is similarly effective). The late Lars Vogt (Ondine) has the main theme protest more loudly and in the second movement is less intent on seduction whereas for the movement’s great central episode Gould (Sony again) effects a noble arch that’s more striking than his quoted rivals, even though their chosen tempi are far slower. Then again Elisabeth Leonskaja (Warner Classics, my No. 1 digital choice in these works) nails the work’s tragic spirit with unique authority.

In the Andante of the F major K.533/494 Fujita’s sensitive but relatively straightforward approach doesn’t quite equal Mitsuko Uchida’s fastidious expressiveness (Philips/Decca). But to subject this excellent young pianist to such close comparative scrutiny seems a mite unfair. Mao Fujita is gifted almost to excess and everything he plays makes us wonder, what might he do next? It’s a question prompted in particular by hearing him play the Sonata No. 18 in D major K. 576. The bouncy opening Allegro suggests the hunt but come the Adagio second movement and we could as well be listening to a sketch for an aria for The Magic Flute. The idea had never occurred to me before I heard this memorable recording by Mao Fujita.

I’m sure many of you will know what it feels like to shift from the ballpark of losing your elders to the sad presence of death among those of your own generation, or thereabouts. Latest to leave me, at the age of 82, is my cousin Paul, who died this morning at 5 am, grandson to Simon and Leah, son to Donald and Frances, father to Joanna and wife to Frances (and Candy before her), much loved and respected by all (including numerous nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews), a probing thinker (Cambridge-educated, Christ College), ace saxophonist, jazz and film buff, voracious reader and above all, a funny, highly intelligent guy, as decent as he was kind. 

Years ago, when I was in my early teens, I walked out on an early-sixties equivalent of a ‘rave’ – bored out of my mind and deafened by what passed as music – trotted off to a nearby (South Kensington) pub, bought myself a pint and glumly found a seat. I looked up and there, sitting opposite, was a smiling Paul Zec, just what I needed for my late-night doldrums. Within seconds we were deep in conversation, principally about Mozart, whose works Paul adored, particularly recordings of the piano concertos by Ingrid Haebler. Mozart remained a shared passion across the years, as did the Classics generally, and a love of books. We were forever swapping recommendations – some more successfully than others (our disagreements were always good-humoured) – and Paul’s love and knowledge of philosophy helped me in my own amateur studies. Frances was a relatively late romance and I must pay tribute to her unstinting dedication to Paul, as much in the recent, difficult phase (his illnesses included having both kidneys transplanted and vascular Parkinson’s) as in brighter days when they could both enjoy life to the full. They deserved each other and they both knew that. I loved Paul and will miss him terribly as will all who knew him well and relished his company.   

America in the 1950s and 1960s hosted some of the world’s finest chamber groups. One has only to think of the Budapest, Stuyvesant, Yale, New Music, Fine Arts, Juilliard, Hollywood, Paganini and Guarneri String Quartets, not to mention such stellar aggregates as the Festival Quartet, the ‘Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts’ ensemble and the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, most of these combinations (and more) signed to the RCA-Sony stable. Many have made it to CD (though the wonderful Festival Quartet still awaits a dedicated boxed set), the Boston players most recently in a 10-disc collection (Boston Symphony Chamber Players: The Complete RCA Album Collection, Sony Classical 19439946802, c£45.00), the featured repertoire ranging from Mozart for winds or strings with or without piano, Beethoven’s winsome Serenade for flute, violin and viola, Piano Trios, Quartets and Quintets by Brahms and Schubert (with masterful pianists Richard Goode and Claude Frank), Spohr’s Nonet and a varied array of twentieth century pieces by Webern, Copland, Villa-Lobos, Colgrass, Poulenc, Martinu, Dahl, Milhaud, Piston, Carter, Fine, Haieff, Hindemith, Villa-Lobos, Coker and Barber. As to the players themselves, you could hardly hope for better; all are top-of-the-league … violinist Joseph Silverstein, flautist Doriot Anthony Dwyer, bassoonist Sherman Walt, violist Burton Fine, cellist Jules Eskin, oboist Ralph Gomberg and so forth, class acts all of them who made the Boston Symphony what it was in the mid-1960s.  And I can’t resist mentioning the bonus disc which finds the endlessly entertaining raconteur Peter Ustinov in musically illustrated conversation with Silverstein and Boston SO Maestro Erich Leinsdorf. Track 11 of the last CD also includes Ustinov talking about aspects of music that interest us all, posing as a mythical European avant-garde composer who has found ‘the 13^th note’ and written a piece based on the resulting principle. He even ‘performs’ it, mimicking all the instruments in the process. A hugely enriching set this, and an ideal Christmas gift, smoothly transferred from excellent analogue originals.

We’re told that as an ‘angel number’, 111 is a clear sign of the presence of angels, and with that awareness, it can bring you profound guidance and insight from on high. Certainly, when it comes to music, 111 spells an angelic or at the very least guiding presence …. specifically with Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, and Prokofiev. Here are the works in question, with a few guiding remarks that I hope might prove helpful. I also append a handful of favourite recordings.

Beethoven’s last piano sonata [No. 32] in C minor Op. 111 (1821-1822), conceived while he was working on his expansive and uplifting Missa Solemnis, runs the gamut from gruff, muscular argument (first movement) to radiant acceptance (end of the second), opposite poles where initial fisticuffs seem unlikely to achieve any semblance of closure …. but they do. The first movement needs storm clouds as backing, a colossal protest that shakes you to the core, which is where the ‘Arietta’ second movement takes over, the start, sublime, the journey to the equally peaceful close admitting among its pages bizarre jazz prophesies, prayer-like incantation and finally an angelic trip home floating on a sea of trills. This ‘angelic presence’ is all the more powerful for having arrived in the wake of tumultuous gales. To do Beethoven’s C minor Sonata full justice you need a pianist who tackles it head on, confronts both angels and demons.  In my book Artur Schnabel (Warner Classics or RCA/Sony Classical) has the work sussed 100%: once heard, there’s nothing more to be said. Schnabel has covered it all. Otherwise, Claudio Arrau or Solomon (both, again, from Warner Classics) and the Russian Maria Yudina (on various labels). All four players leave you in no doubt as to what Beethoven has put you through and, perhaps, how he has changed you in the process. These are mono recordings featuring artists who had known the challenges and privations of War. Maybe that’s why their performances carry such burning conviction. 

Critics tend to be in two minds about the works that Robert Schumann composed between 1850 and 1854, but for me among the masterpieces from this period are the Three Fantasiestücke for piano, Op. 111 (1851), rhapsodic and emotionally equivocal essays that if not angelic in themselves suggest a spirit withdrawing after having experienced some overwhelming vision( the ‘Gerontius factor’?).  In fact, Schumann is said to have written them as a tribute to Beethoven’s Op. 111. In September 1851 Clara Schumann wrote in her diary, “Robert has composed three piano pieces of a grave and passionate character which I like very much.” ‘Grave and passionate’ just about sums it up, the first piece like a hectic ramble across hills in autumn, the second consistently reflective, the third, proudly assertive. As to performers of Schumann’s Op.111, my view is that Vladimir Horowitz (Sony Classical) has them under his skin like no one else: his seductive touch, the way he splits chords and phrases – leaning this way or that – brings this strange but uniquely moreish mini-suite fully to life. 

No music could be less akin to Schumann’s questioning Op. 111 than the positive, fiery, light-flooded Allegro non troppo that sets Brahms’s Second String Quintet (1890) in G major, Op. 111 in motion. Brahms had originally intended this work to be his last, but no, two clarinet sonatas and various mostly reflective piano pieces followed it. The Quintet’s first movement evokes the same sense of unsullied optimism that characterises the opening movement of the Third Symphony, music that challenges angels to play. The winsome second movement conjures ghosts as much as angels, the impassioned middle section bringing to mind unstoppable weeping for joys long past. Placed third is one of Brahms’s incomparably wistful intermezzos, angels at dusk you might say, whereas the jaunty finale toys with various dance rhythms, as if drunk on its own exuberance. This is truly one of Brahms’s greatest chamber works and among numerous available recordings is a real classic from the 1952 Prades Festival featuring Isaac Stern and Alexander Schneider (violins), Milton Katims and Milton Thomas (violas), and Paul Tortelier (cello). A performance in the million, this, like facing the sun head-on though the work’s darker aspects are also beautifully realised. It’s currently available as part of a big Sony box featuring Isaac Stern’s analogue recordings. My only reservation is that it doesn’t include the first movement exposition repeat. This is such wonderful music that it’s only natural to reach the end of the exposition and exclaim – ‘that was truly fabulous, let’s have it again!’ If that’s an essential prerequisite than I’d recommend a 1998 Warner Classics recording by the Alban Berg Quartet with violist Hariolf Schlichtig, a big, beefy performance, confrontational and warm-hearted but not quite as insightful as Stern and his mates. 

Sergei Prokofiev briefly considered dedicating his Sixth Symphony (1947) to the memory Beethoven. Although the work shares the same opus number as Beethoven’s last piano sonata (see above), one of Prokofiev’s favourite works, the dedication was allegedly borne from “a desire to carry on the tradition of lofty intellectualism and profound tragedy that characterized Beethoven’s later works.” That said, many years earlier he also claimed that his Second Symphony bore a structural relationship to Beethoven’s C minor. Not that any of this springs spontaneously to mind while listening to Prokofiev’s gnarled symphonic masterpiece, which he started work on at end of the Second World War. If there are any angels present here, they’re hiding securely in the wings. After a stinging descent on four nasty chords, the first movement is dominated by a march motive that becomes excitable then turns loudly dramatic. The largo second movement is a crying lament, the finale, fleet-footed until a sense of rage sets in just before the jubilant (?) ending. The best Sixth on disc is conducted by the man who led the world premiere, Yevgeny Mravinsky, conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic (Praga, stereo). Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony (RCA/Sony Classical) are majorly successful in projecting the work’s sense of scale – it’s a real big’un, this, and an iron-clad structure. But Mravinsky’s recording comes closer to a definitive statement.

And not forgetting …..

Max Reger Three Duets Op111a: Waldesstille (forest silence), Fruhlingsfeier (spring festival), Abendgang (evening stroll). Impassioned duets that, in terms of style, cross Brahms with Hugo Wolf, intensely communicated by Juliane Banse (soprano), Brigitte Fassbaender (mezzo-soprano), Cord Garben (piano) (Koch Schwann) 

Anyone seeking a ‘go-to’ classic on Claudio Arrau: The Complete Warner Classics Recordings, 0190296245572, 24 CDs, c£73.00 need go no further than disc 10, a 1956-7 Schubert coupling, one half devoted to the disquieting ‘three Klavierstücke’ – the first of which flies off at a frighteningly fast pace – and the Wanderer Fantasy, a notoriously difficult work to bring off that Arrau interprets on the grandest scale possible. Of cause ‘grandeur’ was this Chilean virtuoso’s calling card. He was celebrated for a big, imposing tone with an intellect to match. He didn’t so much play as demonstrate, laying a composer’s cards on the table for all to see, to weigh up, to ponder and absorb, a facilitator less concerned with the niceties of pianistic colour than with the truths that lay behind the notes. That said, a 1939 recording of Schumann’s kaleidoscopic suite Carnaval (Disc 2) courts fantasy as vividly as did Cortot or Rachmaninov. His Chopin combines poetic sensibilities with a feeling for scale. In the Third Sonata from 1960 (Disc 21) he plays the long first movement exposition repeat – something that was virtually unheard of at the time – and come the close of an extremely brilliant scherzo launches into the largo without a break, something he also does on an SWR recital from the same year (SWR19054CD), so don’t suspect an editing glitch.

Needless to say Beethoven, an Arrau speciality, is generously represented, most notably with the last three sonatas, (Disc 14), Op. 111 arresting attention from the very first chords, a taut, powerfully voiced reading where the ‘arietta with variations’ second movement journeys from expertly placed chords at the beginning, through prophesies of ragtime to a sublime close. The Concertos, all with the Philharmonia, are represented complete under Alceo Galliera in stereo, confident readings that tell it as it is, and live mono recordings of Concertos Nos. 3-5 under Otto Klemperer, where the conductor’s imposing presence elevates the experience onto an altogether higher plane.   Arrau considered Klemperer’s accompaniment for the ‘Emperor’ to be ‘perhaps the finest he had ever experienced …’. The forceful ‘rum-ta-tum’ at 10:51 into the first movement is a stronger, more imperious call to arms than on the sonically superior stereo studio recording under Galliera from a year later. 

Two versions of Brahms’s First Concerto, both again with the Philharmonia, provide equally interesting points of comparison. The earliest, from 1947 (Disc 3) under Basil Cameron, is assertive and straight-backed whereas turn to the 1960 stereo remake under Carlo Maria Giulini (Disc 23) and the wheels are well-oiled, the manner more flexible and the overall impression, a meaningful partnership plumbing the depths. We’re also given a glitz-free Tchaikovsky B flat, tellingly considered versions of the Grieg and Schumann Concertos (the more lyrical sections of the Grieg’s first movement are especially lovely) and various other works. But perhaps the set’s most interesting disc, collector-wise, is the first, which opens, somewhat depressingly, with a nondescript 1921 version of Chopin’s F major Op. 34 No. 1. Turn then to track 4 and Arrau in 1928 is a quite different animal in the same piece: playful, impulsive and imaginative. Thereafter we hear him in Busoni’s ‘Chamber Fantasy on ‘Carmen’’, music by Liszt and Chopin and – this is the real prize – extracts from piano trios by Beethoven and Schubert with violinist Andreas Weissgerber and his cellist brother Joseph (both were destined to join the Palestine Orchestra, later the Israel Philharmonic). Apparently, although uncredited on the discs, Arrau was the trio’s pianist, although the Polish pianist Karol Szreter – whose playing is very similar to what we actually hear on CD 1 – is an equally likely contender.

Claudio Arrau wasn’t always the most inspired pianist on disc. Some of his Philips/Decca recordings are rather dull but these Warner Classics recordings are among his best and viewed as a whole this well produced set, which has been superbly transferred from analogue sources and is significantly enhanced by Jonathan Summers’s excellent annotations, is much to be recommended.  

The term ‘notebook’ suggests secrets potentially shared, but an ‘imaginary’ notebook takes in realms beyond the reach of dreams – or maybe nightmares. The German composer and artistic director Heiner Goebbels’ Imaginary Notebook ‘A House of Call’ (a quote from Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake), which uses, in addition to the instrumental skills of Ensemble Modern under Vimbayi Kaziboni, recorded voices that Goebbels sourced from wax cylinders, news reports and ethnographic sources, opens to a noisy, fidgety, cacophonous and chaotic response to Boulez’s Répons, a call to curiosity which, if you stay with it, pays generous dividends (The ECM release is on 4858039, 2 cds, c£20:25). 

With Goebbels, one thing is for certain, ‘certainty’ itself is never on the musical agenda. The second track, ‘Always the same stone’, features what I assume is the speaking voice of the German (formerly East German) dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director Heiner Müller, the accompanying music, initially pointillist then, at around 4:33, switching to a sort of sexy, indolent shuffle. Next, we’re transported to a Berlin construction site before, in ‘Grain de la Voix’, we visit the first three of featured vintage voices in ethnic chant, acoustically recorded and colourfully garlanded by Goebbels (the instrumentation includes a dulcimer). After a tonally distinctive introduction, ‘Agash Ayak’ calls on another intensely emotive voice from afar (recorded in 1926) which in turn prompts a restlessly percussive rejoinder, replete with growling low brass. 

The Persian poet Rumi dances in next, using a contemporary voice this time, the music, which sounds improvised, approximating Middle-Eastern incantations. Perhaps the work’s most beautiful track closes the first disc, ‘Krunk’ by Soghomon Soghomonian, ordained and commonly known as Komitas, an Armenian priest, musicologist, composer, arranger, singer, and choirmaster, who is widely considered the founder of the Armenian national school of music. Two voices in duet here, set widely apart and sparely accompanied.

Part three, ‘Wax and Violence’ is especially interesting. The first section, a ‘Toccata’, kicks itself into a stupor, ending with yet more ancient voices, whereas the second sets its pulse to doctored wax cylinder surface noise – ominously repeating grooves – and a Chernobyl-like hum in the background. The second and third sections recall Hans Lichtenecker who in 1931 (the date of the featured recordings) was in Namibia, formerly a German colony, where he collected what he called an archive of vanishing races. On track 3 we hear the distant voices of Nambia school children, hauntingly accompanied – no, frighteningly so, given what was soon to descend upon Germany. Track 4, ‘Some of them say’ is as catchy as anything on the set, a distant vintage solo voice cueing in (at 0:44) a modern calypso accompaniment. See what I mean about ‘certainty’ not being on the musical agenda? I’d strongly advise playing this track first. What starts out as calypso variation soon ends up sounding like an outgrowth of Charlie Parker – until the end when we could as well be listening to an eerie passage from Shostakovich’s 4^th.

The last section of ‘A House of Call’ is ‘When Words are Gone’, where aspects of language – speech act, rhymes, lament, incantation – alternate, initially with a hypnotically trudging dialogue-processional. But the last words go to Samuel Beckett who poses the question ‘who speaks when words are missing?’ No-one, of course. Music does, and Heiner Goebbels proves the point with the sort of brave, outspoken eloquence that is typical of his work at its best. Don’t miss this release whatever you do.