The 1956 Nixa-Westminster Stereo Recordings V1 (3CD) [Box set]

International Record Review:

An outstanding set from First Hand Records includes all the British repertoire recorded by Adrian Boult in stereo for Westminster/Nixa, at sessions in Walthamstow Town Hall during August 1956 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Some of these performances have been around on CD before, but they have never sounded anything like as resplendent as they do here. For the source material, First Hand Records has gone back to the original Westminster master tapes, and the results are a revelation. In my last roundup (April 2010) I was very enthusiastic about a Somm reissue of Walton's First Symphony and Belshazzar's Feast, and this remains very desirable for the Belshazzar that was made only in mono, but a direct comparison of the two transfers of the First Symphony reveals that the FHR version has a richness, focus and depth of perspective that makes this immensely satisfying performance even more thrilling - it is as if a gauze has been lifted, and the results are nothing short of marvellous. The opening of the first movement is a case in point: on the FHR transfer there's much greater detail in the sound (the energy in the string figurations becomes palpable, with much greater presence), and the orchestral sound in general has far more immediacy and warmth.
The rest of the set is just as desirable: Elgar is strongly represented. Boult's supremely coherent reading of Falstaff misses none of the changing moods of this complex work, its humour, pathos and ambiguity are all things that are relished by Boult, and well characterized by his players. There's an impressive Second Symphony too, similar in overall timing to Boult's Lyrita and EMI remakes, but with more sinew and fire than his later performances. The final Elgar item is something of a rarity in Britain: a Cockaigne Overture that was, I think, only issued in the USA.
The last disc is devoted to Boult's Britten recordings, which deserve to be much better known: the Matinées musicales and Soirées musicales, powerfully driven accounts of the Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter Grimes, and both Westminster versions of the Young Person's Guide, the first (in mono) with Boult's narration, and the second, without narration, in excellent stereo - the only performance in this set for which no stereo master could be found.
(Incidentally, the mono version was originally released on an LP - Westminster XWN 18372 - called Hi-Fi In The Making. This included a side of Boult in rehearsal and detailed discussions with Dr Kurt List, the producer of these sessions.) This generously filled First Hand set is one of the most musically rewarding historic reissues to have come my way in some while, and it's supported by very good notes, some unusual session photographs and detailed information about the sources used. A second volume is promised - the Berlioz overtures and Schumann symphonies recorded at the same sessions - and I really can't wait to hear them. Congratulations are due to all concerned for this magnificent release:
no lover of British music or of Boult's conducting should miss it.

Reviewed by: Nigel Simeone
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The Guardian - 4th June 2010 ***

To those who only saw Adrian Boult conduct at the end of his career in the 1970s, when his repertoire was confined to a handful of 19th-century symphonies and the major works of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Holst, he could have seemed like a survivor from a more genteel age. Watching this upright figure with immaculate white moustache, it was hard to remember that early in his life, when he was the BBC Symphony Orchestra's first chief conductor, Boult had conducted many contemporary works, including British premieres of modernist masterpieces, such as Berg's Wozzeck and Busoni's Doktor Faust.

This set of recordings from the start of the stereo era in 1956, which originally appeared on LP on the Westminster label, may not be quite as adventurous, but the performances of Britten and Walton do give a wider sense of Boult's sympathies as an interpreter. There's a reminder of his pre-eminence in Elgar, too: he would record the Second Symphony and the symphonic study Falstaff again in the 1960s and 70s, but this account of Falstaff, in particular, has never been bettered for its sense of drama and narrative flow, just as the performance of Walton's First Symphony held sway until André Previn's famous recording displaced it a decade later. The orchestral sound is slightly undernourished, but generally stands up well in these transfers.

Reviewed by: Andrew Clements
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Classical Source - May 2010

In addition to recording for HMV and earlier, Decca, Sir Adrian Boult made a substantial number of recordings in the mid- to late-1950s for Pye-Nixa, Westminster, Vanguard and Everest. Among these are included pieces he never recorded again, a splendid Mahler Symphony No.1, Hindemith Symphony in E flat and Shostakovich Symphony No.6 for Everest and the beginnings of a Beethoven cycle for Vanguard.
For the Pye-Nixa-Westminster collaboration in 1956, the early days of recording in stereo, works by Elgar, Walton and Britten were set down. Also Schumann's four symphonies and the eight overtures by Berlioz: these all to appear in another set from First Hand Records. Many of the works on this English music release appear for the first time in stereo or on CD.
The sessions began on 15 August 1956 with Boult's only commercial recording of Sir William Walton's Symphony No.1 (a live account from the 1970s has been available). It gets a tight performance, brimful of energy, the orchestra on knife-edge. The second movement's malice is well communicated, if a little less so than André Previn achieved a decade later with the LSO, and the third movement's moving melancholy holds the attention, grabbing the listener into its bleak intensity. The finale, with its late inspiration for including a fugue in its construction, shows how successful that conceit is, Boult's experience judging the climaxes in each movement perfectly. Oddly, the results here differ from earlier UK releases in so far as producer Kurt List used subtly different takes from the results assembled by Pye. The re-mastering for this release used Westminster's tapes now held in Hannover by Universal, and the overall sound quality is different from earlier issues on CD by PRT and Somm in that the original ambience has been retained, with no added reverberation. The result as far as the Walton Symphony is concerned is the greater contact the listener has with the performance. The orchestra is more tangible, the timpani sounding truly alarming shorn of the cloak of added reverberation, and little details previously masked become all the more evident.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra was billed for contractual reasons on the Westminster releases as the "Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra". Sir Adrian had a long and fruitful relationship with the LPO which lasted until his retirement and his last recording, music by Hubert Parry (for EMI), was completed with this orchestra on 20 December 1978. When these Nixa-Westminster recordings were made, Boult had been at the helm of the LPO for six years, a time when it was not considered as being in the same league as the Philharmonia Orchestra. I don't think the odd patch of loose ensemble in the Walton affects the integrity of the performance. Elgar's Second Symphony, recorded over the same few days as the Walton symphony, does not fare as well. The strings sound a little understaffed, and the patches of scruffy ensemble are laid all too bare by List's transparent recording technique. Boult's later recording for Lyrita (his fourth of five) also with the LPO is a tidier affair, though the vision remains the same.
These sessions also include an excellent rendition of Elgar's Cockaigne, bright and bustling, tender in the central section, the performance successful without the ad lib organ at the end. A couple of days later Elgar's Falstaff was set down and this fares very well indeed. Boult overall vision doesn't highlight episodes along the way, and he makes much work with the tiny variations in phrasing and tempo so necessary in this piece. The recording is crystal-clear, details, especially those of the percussion, seldom appearing with such open clarity on a recording. This performance appears also in an LPO box devoted to Elgar; it is less-well transferred from an LP and lacks the precision in sound achieved from the Westminster master-tape.
Boult was no stranger to performing and recording `light' music, such as by Eric Coates. Britten's takes on Rossini pieces for Soirées musicales and Matinées musicales sing with light-hearted energy and good fun, with excellent playing. Again, List's ideas on recording ensure the listener gets crisp life-like percussion. The `Sea Interludes' and `Passacaglia' from "Peter Grimes" receive very fine performances, Boult making sure the pictorial elements in the music are brought to life. The ebb-and-flow of the tide is superbly caught, and there's a suitably terrifying `Storm'. The Passacaglia is unfolded with consummate expertise, Boult having a complete grip on the shape of the music.
For the recording of Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra with Boult's narration, First Hand Records uses the Pye tape now owned by EMI. In mono, the sound is excellent. Boult has a warm speaking voice drawing the listener in. Unfortunately, the stereo tape for YPG (without narration) cannot be found, so included here is a transfer from a stereo LP. Read more ›

Gramophone, September 2010 issue

Editor's Choice - Reissue of the month

Followers of British music and its history on disc will inevitably be drawn to a neatly packaged and skilfully transferred three-disc collection on First Hand Records which features various 1956 Nixa-Westminster stereo recordings by the London Philharmonic under Sir Adrian Boult. Future discs in the same series will cover all four Schumann symphonies and the complete Berlioz overtures, but this particular collection is rather special on a number of counts. For starters, it includes a 1956 taping of Elgar's Cockaigne Overture that is receiving its first UK release, a keen-edged, spirited performance that displays all the usual Boult characteristics: textural clarity, rhythmic solidity, respect for the spirit of the musical moment and, of course, for the letter of the score.
Boult's 1956 Elgar Second Symphony, the second of five that have taught us so much about this indelible masterpiece, is in some key respects the best of all: energy levels are high, the slow movement peaks with unprecedented levels of eloquence, and although hardly the best played of the five it's not a wit less affecting and at times levels, artistically speaking, with the justifiably fabled 1944 BBC Symphony Orchestra recording. The sound quality is quite different to the last transfer I heard (Nixa, NIXCD 6011): there, a touch of added ambience leant the recording extra depth whereas here an extra degree of clarity is quite noticeable, especially at the start of the third movement where the woodwinds are far more "present" than before.
Boult's '56 Falstaff is full of adorable things, not least the tenderness of the "Dream Interlude", though in general its 1950 predecessor (now out on Testament) has firmer contours, especially in "Falstaff's March". Also Westminster's principal balance engineer Herbert Zeithammer favoured an unusually close placing of the percussion, upstaging even the drum-crazed Mercury team from around the same time, and that oddball bias is especially (and sometimes distractingly) present in the Nixa Boult Falstaff. Strings too are often heard from a rostrum perspective and that's where Boult's Walton First Symphony scores, or fails, according to your perspective on such things. In our May issue Andrew Achenbach sympathetically reviewed the more ambient Somm transfer, which makes nothing like the same impact (compare the two at the start of the Presto). I feel utterly drawn in, while the reading itself has real bite, with a first movement that builds patiently but inexorably.
Boult's perky accounts of Britten's adaptations of Rossini, the Soirées and Matinées musicales, are well worth hearing and his Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter Grimes suggest a markedly Sibelian bias. The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, the one mono item included, marries Boult's fatherly and rather formal presentation of the spoken commen tary to a well-paced and generally well-played account of the musical score. The Variations and a Fugue on a Theme of Purcell (the most sensible title for the work when divorced from its narration) is evidently the same performance, albeit in stereo. A rather more novel difference concerns one or two brief "extensions" at the front end of the piece that provide space for the narrator's words and which are kept in from the original, whereas most concert performances that I've heard don't include them. It's no big deal either way, but rather took me by surprise first time around.

Reviewed by:Rob Cowan

BBC Music Magazine - Sept 2010
Performance ***
Recording ***

In August 1956, Adrian Boult was working like a demon in the recording studio, and this set goes back to the original Westminster stereo tape masters where possible - earlier UK issues were sometimes available only in mono. It's amazing to hear Britten's Rossini arrangements for the first time in colour: performances are bright and breezy, though the Sea Interludes and Passacaglia are dimmer in sound, and rather underpowered, with a decidedly limp 'storm'. The mono version of The Young Person's Guide, with Boult's narration, is supplemented by the unadorned stereo mix. Again, the performance lacks the glitter that we expect from this showpiece, and it's a pity that space couldn't be found for the rehearsal sequence which was issued in America.
Boult's on more familiar ground in the Elgar works: the Symphony No.1 [sic Sym No.2 not No. 1] is nearer to the dynamic BBC Symphony Orchestra version from 1944 than the magisterial LPO taping of the mid 1970s, and the sound is an improvement on previous CD incarnations, with a wide stereo image, though still a little dry and boxy. That's something which seems better in Cockaigne, and even more so in Falstaff, where Boult makes the sometimes episodic structure of the music compellingly coherent.
The Walton Symphony also comes up more brightly than previously: it's an intensely rhythmic performance: though accents could be sharper, especially in the scherzo. But the slow movement builds surely and passionately, and the finale comes as the cumulation and catharsis that it sould be.

Reviewed by: Martin Cotton

Music Web International - July 2010

These recordings all emanate from a series of sessions that the American label, Westminster, and their British partner, Nixa Records, organised in August 1956. One of the first things to note is their sheer productivity. Many people would consider that Boult and his players had done a pretty sterling job in the time available on the basis of the eight works listed above. However, the same sessions also produced a complete set of the four Schumann symphonies and all the overtures by Berlioz - these are promised in a companion volume to be released by First Hand Records in due course.
Unusually for the period, the recordings were made in stereo only - according to a most interesting booklet note by Peter Bromley, mono versions were mixed down from the stereo tapes for separate issue. Apparently the stereo master tape of The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra can't be traced so in this set we are offered a stereo version of the score without narration, transferred from LP, and a mono version, with narration, transferred from the mixed down mono master. FHR assure us that, as far as they know, the mono version with narration was only ever released in mono, and thus no stereo edited version exists. All these recordings were issued in the USA as stereo LPs by Westminster but Nixa limited themselves to a partial release of the material in the UK and on mono LPs only. Most of the performances have made it onto CD previously but the account of Cockaigne has never before been released in the UK in any format.
Before discussing the performances I must say that the sound quality on these recordings is really very good indeed. True, there are some instances where the recordings slightly betray their age but, in all honesty, few allowances need to be made and one soon forgets that one is listening to performances that are over fifty years old. Truly, the Westminster engineers did a first rate job and their skill has been matched by Ian Jones, who made these transfers.
The performances are well worth preserving, partly for their quality but also partly because they add to our appreciation of Boult. His Elgar interpretations are very familiar to collectors - this set contains, for example, the second of his five recordings of the Second Symphony and the second of the three recordings of Falstaff that he made. On the other hand, the music of Britten featured much less in his recorded repertoire at least - indeed, I can't immediately recall any other Britten recordings by Boult. And Walton was similarly an infrequent feature in his programmes. I'm sure this is the only studio recording he made of the B flat minor symphony, though I do recall attending a concert in Bradford, probably in the late 1960s, when he performed it with the Hallé.
This recording of the Walton symphony has recently been issued by Somm (review). I haven't heard that transfer but I note that my colleague, Jonathan Woolf, a most experienced judge of vintage issues, commented that "The recording isn't, to be honest, any great shakes even for this vintage". Perhaps that impression owes something to the transfer, for I thought the sound offered by First Hand was decent enough. Having said that, the sound quality in most of the other performances struck me as being a bit brighter. It will be noted that the Walton was recorded fairly early on in the sessions - I wonder if it was the very first recording made? - and perhaps the engineers refined their work as the sessions progressed. I used to have this recording of the symphony many years ago on LP but it was eventually eclipsed by the electrifying Previn performance on RCA (see review) and discarded. I think Previn's account, still my favourite, eclipses this Boult reading for sheer panache and verve but I plead youthful misjudgement as my excuse for discarding Boult completely because now, with better acquaintance with the score, I can see that his performance has much to offer. The first movement is more sober than Previn - and some other versions - but Boult still plays the music with purpose and ensures that the rhythms, which are so crucial in this movement, are strongly articulated. One has a sense of patience and feeling for structure. The scherzo, taken at a good speed, as Jonathan noted, is well played. However, to my ears it's just a bit on the polite side: the essential menace and malice is not quite there. But Boult comes into his own in the slow movement. His reading has the necessary intensity and is well controlled. The main climax (from around 7:00 to 8:14) is very powerful. Read more ›

On my first listen to this superb 3 cd set, I couldn't believe the recordings are over 50 years old. Yet on a closer read of the extremely detailed booklet notes I noticed that First Hand Records had re-mastered these excellent recordings from the original master tapes. Makes a refreshing change to the numerous amount of classical LPs transferred to CD on the cheap. However, not only was I blown away by the audio quality, the performances of the Walton and Elgar are exceptional but that's not to take anything away from the fine performances of the Britten!