Likeable Coates from Wordsworth, but the Boult compilation is sheer magic

Fans of Eric Coates and Sir Adrian Boult are in for a field-day as Lyrita at long last restores to currency the 87-year-old maestro’s much-loved 1976 concert with the New Philharmonia alongside an entirely new collection delivered with polish and enthusiasm by the LPO under Barry Wordsworth (Lyrita 213). I say “new” but it was in fact set down many moons ago (one of the tracks – the rollicking “The Man from the Sea” from The Three Men suite – even made a tantalising appearance on a sampler way back in 1993). Still, there can be no real grumbles with the production values (though I’d have preferred a touch more ventilation and bloom), and Wordsworth directs proceedings with chipper ebullience.

Especially valuable here is the 1938 ballet The Enchanted Garden, Coates’s biggest orchestral canvas, opulently scored and full of the most warm-hearted invention. Other plums include the roistering “20th Century Rhythm” from the 1941 Four Centuries suite, glittering concert waltz Footlights (1939) and exuberant 1934 march London Bridge (the follow-up to the previous year’s indelible “Knightsbridge”).

However, there’s no disputing the step-up in class when one turns to Boult’s famous selection, which radiates a tingling spontaneity and beaming affection that are very special. For evidence of a master at work, just listen to the way Boult caresses the glorious second subject in The Merrymakers; and what vernal freshness and unruffled elegance he brings to the witty Three Bears fantasy and entrancing Summer Days suite (a great favourite of Elgar’s, and whose fragrant centrepiece possesses a truly heady beauty). The rest of the CD is filled out with seven treats from Lyrita’s 1978 “Sir Adrian Boult conducts Marches” anthology (SRCS71). Grainger’s irresistible Over the Hills and Far Away in particular fairly bounds along with irrepressible vigour – as, for that matter, does Coates’s The Dam Busters – and Delius’s Marche-caprice has a captivating twinkle in its eye. The sound remains crisp and nicely detailed, perhaps not quite as rich and glowing as I recall from the Coates LP (SRCS107) but perfectly respectable none the less. A joyous tonic indeed – they don’t make ’em like this any more!

-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone [5/2007]