BOULT CONDUCTS TCHAIKOVSKY - SYMPHONY NO. 3; SUITE NO. 3; VIOLIN CONCERTO, OVERTURES (2 CDS)

Sir Adrian Boult was a conductor of much more ‘temperament’ than is commonly supposed, with ever-frustrated ambitions to lead a complete Ring cycle, and whose consummate professionalism and Edwardian moustache concealed an interpreter of often fiery passions in Romantic repertoire.This new collection invaluably gathers up all the Tchaikovsky recordings he made for Decca between 1952 and 1956.The first of them was the fantasy overture based on Hamlet, a recording produced in Kingsway Hall by the young John Culshaw. Later the same month came the 1812 Overture, recorded without cannon or bells but possessed of a strength and dignity not always present in more bombastic accounts.Tchaikovsky played a formative role in Boult’s development. At the age of twelve he attended what he later called ‘the most important concert I have attended from my own point of view’. Arthur Nikisch was conducting Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and the First Piano Concerto with Mark Hambourg as soloist. Boult was