*** LIMITED EDITION ***

The second volume of Sir Adrian Boult’s Decca legacy brings together the conductor’s Messiah recordings of 1954 and 1960, plus Baroque and sacred music recitals from Kenneth McKellar, Kirsten Flagstad and Kathleen Ferrier.

While hardly a ‘period-instrument’ pioneer, Sir Adrian Boult had a much surer sense of authentic Handelian style than most of his contemporaries. Editions and performances of Handel’s masterpiece were still often cut and loaded with Romantic trappings in 1935 when Julian Herbage prepared the most complete version of the score yet made, with Handel’s original instrumentation. Boult began performing this version in 1942 and it was the obvious choice for a new, refreshing perspective on the piece when he came to record it for Decca in 1954.

Listeners and critics alike were struck by the energy of Boult’s direction, the purity and simplicity of the solo singing and the vivid Decca engineering. These qualities also distinguished the stereo remake, made with similarly slimmed-down forces and featuring Dame Joan Sutherland on the top line. She also contributed to the success of Boult’s Acis and Galatea from 1959, and the box is completed with a series of glorious vocal recitals, from the tenor Kenneth McKellar, the soprano Kirsten Flagstad and the contralto Kathleen Ferrier, all accompanied by Boult in Baroque repertoire with the sensitivity to line that made him so underrated and underused as an opera conductor.

Ferrier recorded this selection of Bach and Handel arias a year before her death in 1952, but eight years later Boult and the LPO returned to the studios to produce a stereo accompaniment for the album, which the Decca producer James Walker mixed with Ferrier’s part from 1952: an early and remarkably successful example of the technology later used to ‘update’ classic recordings of Caruso and Callas.

“An orchestra precisely the same as was used when the oratorio was first produced in Dublin in 1742. Hearing it this way is indeed a revelation and the fact that it is given complete is an added pleasure.” – Irish Monthly, June 1954 (Handel: Messiah, mono version)

“The outstanding feature is apparent at once: it has a beautifully engineered sound. Balance is exceptional in all directions, a rarity in choral recording … and the strings are satiny. Since Sir Adrian has accomplished a projection of the tenderest and the most forceful dynamics, the pianos, in this realistic seizure of sound, are feathery, delightful.” – High Fidelity, September 1954 (Handel: Messiah, mono version)

“[Flagstad] sounds completely happy and relaxed in her singing of ‘Sheep may safely graze’, and her voice doesn’t seem to have one tremor of age. In fact, to these ears, it sounds more beautiful than ever … One of the most powerful utterances of Flagstad on records.” – High Fidelity, August 1957 (Bach and Handel arias – Flagstad)

“The singer’s beautiful dark tones and the gravity of her style admirably suit ‘He was despised’ and ‘Es ist vollbracht’ … The more joyous ‘Thou that tellest’ is equally well done.” – Musical Times, May 1954 (Bach and Handel arias – Ferrier, mono version)

“The record is equally moving to hear as a purely musical experience, even without the emotional coloration imparted to it by Miss Ferrier’s passing.” – High Fidelity, January 1954 (Bach and Handel arias – Ferrier, mono version)

“[Ferrier’s] matchless voice singing Bach and Handel in three dimensions, fuller and more detached than I ever heard it before … It was as though a great singer whose career we thought rounded with a sleep had awakened radiant in the light of day.” – High Fidelity, September 1960 (Bach and Handel arias – Ferrier, stereo version)

“Before her last illness Ferrier’s voice was at its finest, and the sense of presence, of an actual performance, is made all the more vivid in stereo.” – Musical Times, February 1961 (Bach and Handel arias – Ferrier, stereo version)

“A splendid performance of one of Handel’s freshest scores … Boult leads a clear, transparent rendition … [Pears] has few peers today in the styling of this kind of music.” – High Fidelity, July 1960 (Handel: Acis and Galatea)

“David Ward is a tower of strength … The orchestra and chorus, under Boult’s firm but sympathetic direction, are both first-rate.” – Musical Times, December 1961 (Handel: Messiah, stereo version)

“Boult has done it again … The new set calls for cheers and genuine rejoicing … A towering performance of this towering masterpiece … The power of the Hallelujah Chorus practically lifts you out of your chair, tradition or no.” – High Fidelity, January 1962 (Handel: Messiah, stereo version)

“[McKellar’s] voice is of the right sort – light and flexible, but not white. He handles it expertly, carrying off the runs with dash, and sustaining the long, soft phrases with care … Boult’s accompaniments are incisive and well-paced, Decca’s sound top-notch.” – High Fidelity, September 1961 (Handel Arias – McKellar)

“These old chestnuts never had it so good, and Flagstad makes ‘Silent Night’ her own much as did Schumann-Heink. It is a perfect record with which to say ‘good night’ to your friends.” – High Fidelity, July 1970 (Sacred Songs – Flagstad)