Sir Adrian Boult conducts
ARIADNE 5024-2 (SOMM Recordings, CD, 2 discs)
AAD
Mono
COMPILATION (17 November 2023)
Playing time: 65'34"/81'25" - TT 146'59"
Tracks: 10 + 14
Booklet pages: 16
℗ 2023 SOMM Recordings
© 2023 SOMM Recordings
Main country of recording: United Kingdom
Country of manufacture: European Union
Review received and scheduled for publication
Heinrich Nillius (Wozzeck) (CD1 tracks 1-4 and 6-10, CD2 tracks 2-4)
Suzanne Danco (Marie) (CD1 tracks 3, 5, 8 and 9 and CD2 tracks 1-3)
Parry Jones (Captain) (CD1 tracks 1 and 7 and CD2 track 4)
Frans Vroons (Andres) (CD1 tracks 2, 9 and 10)
Otakar Kraus (Doctor) (CD1 tracks 4 and 7 and CD2 track 4)
Margaret Godley (Marie's child) (CD1 track 3 and CD2 tracks 1 and 6)
Mary Jarred (Margret) (CD1 track 3 and CD2 track 3)
Walter Widdop (Drum Major) (CD1 tracks 5, 9 and 10)
John Kentish (The Idiot / Soldier) (CD1 tracks 9 and 10)
Gordon Clinton (First Apprentice) (CD1 track 9)
Fabian Smith (Second Apprentice) (CD1 track 9)
BBC Symphony Chorus (CD1 and CD2 tracks 1-6)
BBC Symphony Orchestra (CD1 and CD2 tracks 1-6 and 8-10)
Noel Mewton-Wood, piano (CD2 tracks 8-10)
Royal Opera House Orchestra (CD2 tracks 11-14)
Adrian Boult, conductor
Alban Berg:
Wozzeck (complete) (first release)
CD1
Act I
1 Scene 1: The Captain's Room
2 Scene 2: An Open Field Outside the Town
3 Scene 3: Marie's Room
4 Scene 4: The Doctor's Study
5 Scene 5: Street Before Marie's Door
Act II
6 Scene 1: Marie's Room
7 Scene 2: Street in Town
8 Scene 3: Street Before Marie's Door
9 Scene 4: Tavern Garden
10 Scene 5: Guardroom in the Barracks
CD 2
Act III
1 Scene 1: Marie's Room
2 Scene 2: Forest Path by a Pool
3 Scene 3: A Low Tavern
4 Scene 4: Forest Path by a Pool
5 Orchestral Interlude - Adagio
6 Scene 5:
7 Adrian Boult recalls his years with the BBC Symphony Orchestra,
in conversation with Bernard Keeffe
Igor Stravinsky:
Capriccio (first release)
8 Presto
9 Andante rapsodico
10 Allegro capriccioso ma tempo giusto
Vaughan Williams:
Symphony No 4 in F minor
11 Allegro
12 Andante moderato
13 Scherzo: Allegro molto
14 Finale con epilogo fugato: Allegro molto
SOMM announces the first appearance on disc of three historic recordings by Adrian Boult to mark the fortieth anniversary of the pre-eminent British conductor's death, including his complete 1949 account of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Stravinsky's Capriccio (1948) and Vaughan Williams's Fourth Symphony (1965). Boult had led the UK premiere of Berg's excoriating setting of Georg Büchner's play about a war-scarred veteran driven to madness and murder in 1934, although only Act II of that performance survives. This complete 1949 recording with the BBC Symphony Orchestra , Heinrich Nillius' Wozzeck and Suzanne Danco's Marie adds to Boult's and the opera's stature on disc. Recorded live in London's Royal Albert Hall, it is a remarkable document of an exhilarating performance. Boult's pioneering championing of 'new' music is also heard in his recording of Stravinsky's Capriccio, with the BBCSO and Australian pianist Noel Mewton-Wood. Boult's rare outing in 1965 with the Royal Opera House Orchestra saw him returning to a work he gave the first performance of thirty years earlier: Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony. A bonus track features Boult's revealing discussion of his nineteen-year tenure at the head of the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Bernard Keefe for BBC Radio in 1965.