Customer Reviews

Schubert: Symphony No. 9, Cherubini: Anacreon Overture

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The beloved Ninth Symphony is, for sure, among Schubert's major works and here we have a live account which further upholds the grandeur and fame of his artistic insight. The response of the BBC Symphony to their conductor is awesome. Recorded August 1969 at the Royal Albert Hall, the symphony reveals its many glories through an urgent reading : Boult was able to maintain a tension, though elusive, besides the intriguing dark tone of the orchestra, providing the work a "thickness" and subdued abandon that make it sound greater in magnitude. The playing is taut ; the musical integrity is reinforced as is the characterization of shadings--a true quality chez Boult, just as heard in his masterly English repertory. This is by all means a Ninth that compares, simply, with the best. Among my favorites you'll usually find the likes of Wilhelm Furtwangler, as well as a most splendid version by Wolfgang Sawallisch (Philips cd 422 977-2). Like them, Boult manages to preserve the "Germanic" quality of Schubert's music (i say this because some people have dismissed his adeptness outside the typical English repertory). The sound is good, on average. The filler tracks by Cornelius and Cherubini, certainly "obscure" material, are still good enough to satisfy the amateur of Schubert (in particular, the Overture to Anacreon which has its share of exquisite orchestral qualities). *****

These performances are all live, from the BBC archives. They absolutely sizzle!! Boult was famous for the Great C Major - his architectural approach always produced satisfying, 'right' results. Here, the live (Proms) performance has wisdom, proportion and electricity. The recording is fine, though the big audience is audible from time to time. The music always moves forward, is never stodgy, never gets stuck in lovely details (though the playing is good, and expressive, throughout). Boult's studio recording from the 70s is currently out of the catalogue, but in any case, very good as that is, this performance has just a little more sense of occasion. The two overtures are nice fillers, the Cherubini a real knock-out after a slightly untidy opening. This is a super disc - not one to hesitate over.

Boult was eighty when he led this Schubert Ninth at the summer Proms in 1969, and in many ways it's an eighty-year-old's reading. The opening Andante is almost an Adagio, led with quiet reverence before the Allegro section arrives, and it's a measured, not a propulsive Allegro. Anyone familiar with Furtwangler's famous account from 1953 will immediately recognize the same approach (Boult was born in 1889, which makes him all but contemporary with Furtwangler, born in 1886). The Schubert "great" was the composer's bid for admission to the high seriousness of the Romantic era, and Boult plays it for grandeur and sweep. Not many present-day conductors would dare to try such an interpretation, but if you love it, Boult's version is very impressive -- it's far more involving than his studio recording for EMI in 1972. As a previous reviewer says, this reading has a sense of occasion, and although the Proms crowd rustles around too much at the beginning, they are quickly caught up in the music-making.

This concert apparently marked a long-awaited reunion with the BBC Sym., which plays with poised, often affectionate phrasing. The sound is listenable broadcast stereo, not vivid but good enough. What makes the difference between this reading and the more impressive Furtwangler one is that Boult can let the line sag here and there; Furtwangler's intensity and focus never lapse. The andante con moto, which can seem endlessly repetitive, is approached with alertness and buoyancy, but it isn't as felt or imaginative as Furtwangler's account. The Scherzo is exuberant and basically straightforward. I tend to think that the finale is the most difficult movement to handle, and here Boult is quite satisfying in keeping the orchestra together and molding a real interpretation, measured but always moving ahead rather than a dash to the finish line.

The first filler is a trhilling reading from 1963 of Cherubini's once-popular Anacreon Over. (largely due, I think, to Toscanini's advocacy). The Royal Phil. starts off sloppily but soon gets its bearings' the sound is vivid broadcast stereo. The other filler is truly rare, the overture to Cornelius's opera, The Barber of Baghdad, recording in 1954 with the BBC. It's hard to believe that o less than elisabeth Schwarzkopf recorded the opera. Boult is highly energized in the rousing overture, and so is the BBC Sym., captured in reasonably good mono despite some murkiness.

In all, this is the best reading I've heard from Boult of the Schubert, which was a favorite piece of his, and for that reason alone the recording has real interest.