Sir Adrian Boult (conductor)
The Decca Legacy, Volume 2: Baroque and Sacred Music
rec. 1954-61
ELOQUENCE 484 2302 [13 CDs: 678]

I outlined the nature of the rejigging of these staples of Decca’s catalogue in my review of the first volume in this box-by-box Boult restoration. This central edition is devoted to Baroque and sacred music, which boils down to two recordings of Messiah, one of Acis and Galatea and recital discs by Kenneth McKellar, the Ferrier mono and stereo recreation, and two discs from Flagstad.

As before I’ll need to draw your attention to previous reviews on this site. Firstly to Paul Corfield Godfrey who reviewed Messiah (the 1954 version) when it appeared on Eloquence 484 0411 a couple of years ago and then to my review of Acis and Galatea in its incarnation on Chandos (review): PCG reviewed it when it appeared it on Pristine Audio coupled with the Sutherland recital material. The Ferrier and McKellar recitals have been reviewed largely or in whole by the late Brian Wilson on one of his round-up reviews of downloadable Beulah material. The Flagstad items have been reviewed in Eloquence twofer form (review).

The differences between the two recordings of Messiah (which both use the edition of Julian Herbage) are obviously that the earlier is mono, the later stereo, the first is with the LPO and the later with the rather classier LSO – though both have the same harpsichordist and organist, George Malcolm and Ralph Downes. In the 1954 recording none of the singers decorate their lines whilst in 1960 Sutherland does so, but she alone, which leaves a rather unbalanced effect. Of the two vocal quartets the earlier one is the more consistent, with the possible exception of the American George Maran who was best-known in Britain, at least, for a recording of Vaughan Williams’ On Wenlock Edge. He’s somewhat lightweight and timid but he does sing ‘accomplished/pardoned’ unlike Kenneth McKellar in Boult’s second recording who still sings the Old School ‘accomplish-ed/pardon-ed’ (which, the hell with it, I like). Brannigan is a good bass but not ideally resonant; Eric Bravington makes a fine impression with his trusty trumpet in ‘The Trumpet shall Sound’. Both Vyvyan and Procter, near the starts of their careers, are highly accomplish-ed.

For Boult’s second recording Sutherland’s divisions are more incisive and athletic than Vyvyan’s though in some places her diction is cloudy. Boult famously said that he was recording Sutherland’s Mad Scenes from Messiah and he must have had her decorations in ‘I know that my Redeemer Liveth’ in mind, which must have seemed remarkably daring and were presumably Richard Bonynge’s work. But in the context of the vocal performance as a whole, not least Grace Bumbry’s fine and reverential singing, they seem misplaced. I happen to like McKellar who is a more expressive singer, with a firmer core to his tone, than Maran. David Ward is sonorous but inclined to do an Al Bowlly croon from time to time. No one loves Bowlly more than me but everything in its place. Boult conducts empathetically and without much difference between the two readings. There’s a bonus in the shape of McKellar’s ‘Thy rebuke…’. In the recording it had been given to Sutherland to sing.

McKellar’s Handel recital album is accompanied rather-too-heavily by Boult and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1959-60. It’s the kind of thing Heddle Nash might have recorded twenty or thirty years before. All the old favourites are here including Arthur Somervell’s preux chevalier text for Silent Worship, another ‘Ev’ry Valley’ from Messiah, the usual suspects from Acis and Jeptha and so on. You can hear McKellar’s native Scottish twang in Jeptha’s ‘Waft her angels’ – and why ever not. It’s a lovely sound, whether lyric or clarion. This disc also contains the Air from the Orchestral Suite No.3, which had been one of Boult’s first recordings with the BBC Symphony, from it doesn’t much differ. Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary is here, too, conducted by Kenneth Alwyn. So is a piece by Benjamin Britten, who when he was a young man loathed Boult’s conducting. His arrangement of God Save the Queen, which he conducts, is just atrocious.

CD 10 contains Kathleen Ferrier’s famous Bach-Handel recital recorded in October 1952 and CD 11 contains the stereo remake. The latter is interesting for technical reasons. As Peter Quantrill relates in the notes Ferrier’s voice was relayed through a small speaker next to Boult but inaudible to the orchestra, the original strings, flutes and bassoons were filtered out and replaced by the LPO’s players in stereo. Boult may have been astonished by the results and they remain plausible, but no one could seriously prefer such a superimposition to the mono recording, statuesque though Ferrier can be from time to time. It’s a shame that Ferrier has significantly effaced another contralto contemporary of hers, Gladys Ripley, who, like Ferrier, died of cancer in her 40s.  

The last two discs are a Flagstad brace of Bach-Handel and ‘Great Sacred Songs’. Flagstad’s droopy swoons were hardly appropriate for this material and Boult doesn’t sound altogether enthused but if you’d like to hear her sing Abide with Me, the second disc offers you the opportunity.

This box has been expertly compiled and is very handsome but whether it makes a pressing demand on your hard-earned retirement fund will depend on how much of this material you already have in many previous permutations.

Jonathan Woolf         

Help us financially by purchasing from

Contents
CDs 1-3
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Messiah, HWV 56 edition by Julian Herbage
Jennifer Vyvyan (soprano): Norma Procter (contralto): George Maran (tenor): Owen Brannigan (bass-baritone)/London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir
rec. January 1954, Kingsway Hall, London

CD 4-6
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Messiah, HWV 56 edition by Julian Herbage
Joan Sutherland (soprano): Grace Bumbry (alto): Kenneth McKellar (tenor): David Ward (bass)
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Ambrosian Singers)
rec. May and August 1961, Kingsway Hall, London

CD 7-8
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Acis and Galatea – a masque in two acts HWV49
Galatea – Joan Sutherland (soprano)
Acis – Peter Pears (tenor)
Damon – David Galliver (tenor)
Polyphemus – Owen Brannigan (bass)
Thurston Dart (harpsichord continuo)/St Anthony Singers/Philomusica of London
rec. June 1959, Watford Town Hall, London

CD 9
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Serse: Ombra mai fu
Acis and Galatea: Love in her eyes sits playing
Tolomeo: Silent Worship
Waft her, angels, through the skies
Messiah: Comfort ye my people and Ev’ry valley shall be exalted
Semele: Where’er you walk
Judas Maccabaeus: Thanks to my brethren…How vain is man
Judas Maccabaeus: Sound an alarm!
Johann Sebastain Bach (1685-1750)
Sheep May Safely Graze, from Cantata BWV208
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV1068: Air (‘Air on a G String’)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Jeremiah Clarke (c.1674-1707)
Trumpet Voluntary ‘Prince of Denmark’s March’
Trumpeters of Kneller Hall Royal Military School of Music
London Symphony Orchestra/Kenneth Alwyn
Traditional
God Save the Queen arr Benjamin Britten
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Benjamin Britten
rec. November 1959 and May 1960Kingsway Hall, London (McKellar): December 1961 (Clarke, Britten)

CD 10 
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Mass in B Minor, BWV 232; Qui sedes (Gloria)
St Matthew Passion, BWV244: Buss und Reu, Part I
St John Passion, BWV245: Es ist Vollbracht, Part II
Mss in B minor, BWV232: Agnus Dei
George Frideric Handel (16985-1759)
Samson, HWV 57: Return, O God of hosts
Messiah, HWV 56: O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion
Judas Maccabeus, HWV 63: Father of Heaven
Messiah, HWV 56: He was despised
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
rec. October 1952, Kingsway Hall, London

CD 11
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Mass in B Minor, BWV 232; Qui sedes (Gloria)
St Matthew Passion, BWV244: Buss und Reu, Part I
St John Passion, BWV245: Es ist Vollbracht, Part II
Mss in B minor, BWV232: Agnus Dei
George Frideric Handel (16985-1759)
Samson, HWV 57: Return, O God of hosts
Messiah, HWV 56: O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion
Judas Maccabeus, HWV 63: Father of Heaven
Messiah, HWV 56: He was despised
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
rec. October 1952 with new stereo accompaniments February and May 1960, Kingsway Hall, London

CD 12
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Sheep May Safely Graze, from Cantata BWV208
St Matthew Passion, BWV244: Break in Grief
Jesu, bleibet meine Freude (from Cantata BWV147 ‘Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben’)
Bist du bei mir, BWV508
George Frideric Handel (16985-1759)
Sommi Dei! (Radamisto)
O, Sleep Why Dost Thou Leave Me? (from Semele)
He shall feed His flock (from Messiah)
Messiah: I know that my Redeemer liveth
Siegfried Ochs (1858-1929)
Praise ye the Lord
Kirsten Flagstad (soprano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
rec. December 1956, Kingsway Hall, London

CD 13
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Hear My Prayer…O for the wings of a dove, MWV, B49
St Paul; Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, MWV A14
Franz Gruber (1787-1863)
Silent Night arr Leslie Woodgate
Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Ah, turn me not away..o divine Redeemer
Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
Jerusalem
Dmytro Bortniansky (1751-1825)
Jubilate arr Leslie Woodgate
John Wade (1711-1786)
O come, all ye faithful arr Leslie Woodgate
Samuel Liddle (1867-1951)
Abide with me
Kirsten Flagstad (soprano)
Chorus/London Philharmonic Orchestra
rec. April 1957, Kingsway Hall, London