Boughton: Symphony No. 2- Deirdre: A Celtic Symphony / Symphony No. 3

Rutland Boughton (Composer), Sir Edward Downes (Conductor), BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
• Conductor: Sir Edward Downes
• Composer: Rutland Boughton
• Audio CD (November 19, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Carlton / BBC Radio Classics
• ASIN: B000000TN1
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #370,252 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Symphony No. 2 ('Deirdre' A Celtic Symphony): The Young Girl: The Old King or the The Young Lover (Allegro vivace)

2. Symphony No. 2 ('Deirdre' A Celtic Symphony): Moonlight Idyll: Dierdre and Naisis (Adagio molto)

3. Symphony No. 2 ('Deirdre' A Celtic Symphony): Young and Death (Allegro moderato)

4. Symphony, No 3 in B minor: Allegro potente

5. Symphony, No 3 in B minor: Adagio con serenità

6. Symphony, No 3 in B minor: Allegro giocoso

7. Symphony, No 3 in B minor: Adagio

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BBC Please Reissue this Recording, September 24, 2009

By 

Sturgis (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Boughton: Symphony No. 2- Deirdre: A Celtic Symphony / Symphony No. 3 (Audio CD)

I doubt that anyone considering the purchase of this disc at the current price ($[...] at this writing) needs convincing of the value of Boughton's music. The second symphony will not disappoint anyone susceptible to the unique magic of this composer's exercise of a basically pre-WWI musical idiom.

This listener finds this particular piece lacking the musical coherence of Boughton's first and third symphonies. The reason is perhaps to be found in the fact that it began life as a ballet score for Ninette de Valois, which was rejected and subsequently performed as "Deirdre: a Celtic Symphony" with very little modification. It is not worth quibbling about genres, however. Nearly all of Boughton's music is dramatic, even the concertos, string quartets and symphonies. Like Boughton's other works, it yields new felicities with repeated hearings.

Edward Downes and the BBC Philharmonic make a compelling case for the piece in this 1985 broadcast recording. The same forces' 1983 performance of the Third Symphony makes, for my money, an even stronger stronger case for that work than Vernon Handley's 1988 recording for Hyperion with the same forces.

One can only hope that, barring a new recording of the second symphony, this BBC Radio Classics disc will be reissued.