Koussevitzky Conducts Sibelius – Boston Symphony Orchestra – Pristine Audio

by Audiophile Audition | Jan 28, 2021 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39; Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. Fifth43; Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 82; Symphony No. 6 in D Minor, Op. 104; Valse Triste, Op. 44; The Swan of Tuonela, Op. 22, No. 2; Finlandia, Op. 26 – Boston Symphony Orchestra/ Serge Koussevitzky – Pristine Audio PASC 617 (2 CDs) 79:35; 77:47 [pristineclassical.com] *****:

Record producer and recording engineer Andrew Rose returns to the legacy of Russian maestro Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951) and his especial relationship to the music of Jean Sibelius; here, in live broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1945-1948. The addition of the First Symphony and Sixth Symphony and selected tone-poems of Sibelius should warrant collectors and connoisseurs to seek out this set, given that Koussevitzky, along with Robert Kajanus and Sir Thomas Beecham, virtually set the standard for Sibelius interpretation in the first half of the 20^th Century.     

Rumbling tympani and a solo clarinet announce the Andante, ma non troppo – Allegro energico of the 1899-1900 Symphony No. 1 in E Minor (rec. 13 October 1945). The entry of Koussevitzky’s first tutti literally shatters our sound space, and the musical heraldry only increases. This movement vacillates between E Minor and G Major, with an F-sharp pedal point, the various themes traceable to the clarinet motif at the beginning. Koussevitzky imposes a taut, melancholy cohesion upon the musical materials, fluid and transparent in the conductor’s strong suit, his patented string tone.  The second movement Andante exploits strategies we find in both Brahms and Tchaikovsky – a stormy section in the midst of a slow movement. Balanced between E-flat Major and C minor, the predominantly bucolic music has both the bassoon and French horns evolve motifs found in the first movement.

String pizzicatos and tympanic hammer blows initiate the Scherzo: Allegro, executed in almost Brucknerian ecstasy. The swirl of colors proves intoxicating as Koussevitzky whips up a lithe fugato over a grumbling pedal.  Georges Laurent’s flute invokes Nature to us, prior to a convulsive mediation that will lead to the da capo. The Finale: Andante unifies the work cyclically, in a Quasi una fantasia style. The opening clarinet motif, transformed and lushly orchestrated, holds sway and evolves into a dark vision of the natural landscape, rife with passionate defiance, here in the form of a mournful chorale close in spirit to Finlandia.

So far as the Symphony No. 2 in D Major (1901-02) by Koussevitzky is concerned, the conductor competes only with himself in two commercial recordings for RCA, of which the second of 29 November 1950 marks a miracle in recorded sound, a “perfect record.” The D Major Symphony documented here (8 December 1945) transports us with the same epic vision, with a first movement Allegretto built up of selected fragments and impulses that eventually germinate, mostly based in the Finnish landscape. The emotional interruptions, sudden convulsions, particularly in the Tempo andante, ma rubato second movement, in the Aeolian mode, deliver a pungent commentary on the confrontation between Nature and human will. Even after the colossal propulsion of the third movement Vivacissimo and the superhuman, melodically expansive, heroic Finale: Allegro moderato, critic Virgil Thomson called this music “parochial.” Go figure.

The Fifth Symphony (1915-19) supposedly owes its opening colors to a flight of sixteen swans, although the original impetus comes from a commission from the Finnish government in celebration of the composer’s 50^th birthday. Koussevitzky (5 January 1946) establishes a shimmeringly intense series of colors for the Tempo molto moderato, building a gradual crescendo on the “swan theme” over a series of pedal points and stretti.  The throbbing energy and elastic tension of the score have been totally integrated by the BSO in glorious homogeneity of sound, what Koussevitzky would often boast of in his remark, “I worked 25 years to get that tone!”  The music culminates in some thrilling work in strings, brass and tympani.

The second movement, marked Andante mosso, quasi allegretto, offers a theme and variations, with the same carefully articulated pizzicato work that marks the corresponding movement in the Symphony No. 2.  The oboe and surrounding instruments create an aura of subtle colors and gradations of Northern landscape painting infiltrated by a sense of deep yearning. The frenzied tremolando that sets the tone for the last movement, Allegro molto, has a seamless impetus that carries us through the pulsating scalar passages that resonate in virtuoso form throughout, lifting the original “swan motif” well into the stratosphere. The relationship between tympani and silences has yet to be unraveled, so far as meaningful, perhaps tragic, riddles exist for the composer’s ultimate intent.

The Sixth Symphony (1914-1923) less frequently appears in the concert halls, a fate it shares with the C Major Symphony No. 3.  The most successful performance this reviewer experienced occurred at Davies Hall in San Francisco, with that city orchestra’s having been led by Michael Tilson-Thomas.  This symphony unfolds as a musical continuum whose (Dorian) modalities seem to be spurred by pure sound rather than by the dictates of sonata-form, what the composer freely admitted as a “fantasia” impulse.  Koussevitzky (March 1946) generates from the outset of the Allegro molto moderato – Poco tra nquillo a sterling sound space, rich in woodwind colors and brisk figures in his ever-active strings. The segue into the brief, second movement Allegretto moderato proves so smooth we hardly know of the transition, especially given the through-composed nature of the musical material. The lyricism of the movement wanes, so the third movement Poco vivace, despite its fluent and skittish character, has a dark hue. The transparency of texture marks the Koussevitzky reading with its special character. There are woodwind pipings from Northern climes, but the singular martial energy assigns a sense of menace to the scene, which breaks off abruptly. The last movement, Allegro molto – Allegro assai – Doppio più lento– projects a valedictory, chorale-like atmosphere. The dialogues amongst the BSO woodwinds warrants the price of admission to a beautifully paced and graduated interpretation, whose last pages convey a hymn of personal depth and conviction.

The three tone-poems enjoy the lush Koussevitzky treatment, and we may well wonder why RCA simply did not consign them to their label.  Valse Triste (13 October 1945) proceeds very slowly, almost funereally paced, gradually achieving its lyrically sweeping fullness. Flute George Laurent has his day in the brief sun. My personal favorite among the numerous recordings of this moving work belongs to Hans Rosbaud. The mythical lament The Swan of Tuonela (8 December 1945) features Louis Speyer in the marvelous English horn part. Eminently atmospheric, the Koussevitzky reading brings an intense, mystical sadness to the Sibelius nether realms. The ever-popular 1899 Finlandia (rec. 3 August 1948), played for Sibelius’ 80^th birthday, urges Finnish nationalism with the same force and monumental conviction that informs the same spirit in Chopin. Dramatically majestic, stentorian, then grandly lyrical, the performance captures the severe dignity of the moment, a protest against the Russian domination of his beloved country.

—Gary Lemco

Willem Mengelberg – Concertgebouw Columbia Recordings, Vol. 2 – Pristine Audio

by Audiophile Audition | Jan 4, 2021 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

Mengelberg Concertgebouw Columbia Recordings, Volume 2 = WAGNER: Tannhauser  – Overture (Dresden version – 2 recordings); Lohengrin: Prelude, Act I; BRAHMS: Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80; Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68: Un poco allegretto  e grazioso; Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90; SUPPE: Poet and Peasant Overture; J. STRAUSS II: Perpetuum Mobile, Op. 257; BIZET: Adagietto from L’Arlesienne; GRIEG: Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34; MAHLER: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor; RAVEL: Bolero; TCHAIKOVSKY: Serenade for Strings – Waltz – Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam/ Willem Mengelberg – Pristine Audio PASC 616 (2 CDs) 73:07; 65:22 [www.pristineclassical.com] *****:   

Producer and Recording Engineer Mark Obert-Thorn provides us a second installment of Willem Mengelberg’s Columbia shellacs made with his own Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, 1926-1932.  We realize the significance of Mengelberg’s contribution in specifically Romantic musical literature, particularly in his rare document in Mahler, where only a complete Mahler 4th and a performance of Songs of a Wayfarer (with Hermann Schey) exist from what had been an ongoing, creative relationship between Mahler and the conductor.  The music of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, and Grieg prove no less important to our appreciation of the Mengelberg style, a vital and thoroughly energized approach to structure and interior details, particularly in rhythm, where the use of portamento, ritenuto, and tempo rubato, selectively applied, add a discernible drama to Mengelberg’s interpretations.    

Franz von Suppe’s 1846 Poet and Peasant Overture (11 May 1932) provides a perfect case in point: a brass, stentorian flourish leads to sudden change of tempo to introduce the cello solo (Marix Loevensohn), over lulling harp arpeggios.  We hear a diaphanous texture in the winds, a gradual acceleration, not merely of tempo rubato, but of tempo giusto, the maintenance of the pulsated momentum. The ensuing waltz, the can-can syncopations, and the frenetic Allegro strepitoso enjoy a luxury of affect and a startling homogeneity of attack. We have here true, virtuoso playing from a master of articulation and phrase.  So, too, the rarity in Mengelberg, the document of Johann Strauss, II: his Perpetuum Mobile, also from 11 May 1932. The speedy polka shows off virtually every choir in the Concertgebouw’s color arsenal, including an active tympani. The music embodies the Gemütlichkeit spirit of 19^th Century optimism, whatever the political realities.  Usually, a piece like this would “belong” to Clemens Krauss, but Mengelberg makes its Viennese charm very much his own.

The two Grieg Elegiac Melodies: Heart Wounds and The Last Spring (3 June 1931) demonstrate the deep resonance of the Concertgebouw strings, with luftpausen adding to the unfolding drama. Grieg himself demanded Mengelberg and his orchestra for a planned festival of Norwegian music, his claiming that no Norwegian ensemble was up to the task! “Heart Wounds” from Mengelberg, with its excruciatingly lovely melody, has a major competitor from Koussevitzky, who unfortunately never recorded Op. 34, No. 1. The transparency of sound Mengelberg achieves remains a model of orchestral discipline.

To return to Mengelberg’s strong suit, Obert-Thorn restores – in vivid sound – the splendid 9 May 1932 Tannhauser Overture of Richard Wagner, a lushly tempered rendition that emanates grandeur and sensuous volatility, at once. Once more, we concede the conductor’s penchant for slides and rubato, but his fundamental mode remains his accuracy in tempo giusto. The gestures become thrilling and heroic, the middle section’s evocation of the lures of the orgiastic Venusberg underlined by selective ritenutos. The whirlwind last pages have the two impulses collide, the pietest and the sensualist; in my opinion, only Otto Klemperer in London comes close the majesty Mengelberg realizes. As an addendum, Obert-Thorn proffers a slightly more expansive Tannhauser Overture from May 1926, whose own riches cannot be denied.

If ever the key of A Major invokes spiritual radiance, the tones of Lohengrin: Prelude to Act I fulfill its purpose, an elevated anticipation of the Holy Grail. Mengelberg (10 June 1927) does not spare the portamento here, and the slides effect an emotional urgency.  For a comparative discipline in string sound, we would have to look to Leopold Stokowski and his Philadelphia players.  In Mengelberg’s case and unlike Stokowski, he did not transfer his idiosyncratic slides and rhythmic tugs to other ensembles when Mengelberg guest conducted. The brass, string, and cymbal work at the climax convey a potent and reverential effect.

Mengelberg claimed a stylistic lineage to Brahms via Franz Wüllner (1832- 1902).  The melancholy emphasis in the Brahms style, its innate pessimism, would, in the context of a burgeoning post-Romanticism, give birth to a desire for a new ideal of community, one that transcended the individual, but that vision died with the Weimar Republic. The Academic Festival Overture (30 May 1930) reveals quickly its alternately martial and elegiac character, finishing of course, with a humorous homage to drink and to boisterous, collegiate life and the reception of an honorary doctorate from Breslau University.  Mengelberg injects dash and explosive energy into his rendition, fully resonant in the string and brass sections.   The sublime melody of Der Landesvater enjoys the standard, Mengelberg rhythmic formulas. The five-bar melody for the Un poco allegretto e grazioso provides some relief from the dark tensions of the Brahms C Minor Symphony No. 1, Op. 68. Mengelberg (32 May 1930) takes the music at a brisk tempo but without sacrificing the fine lines of his woodwinds. An intense, gripping reading, it must stand for the conductor’s never having committed the whole symphony to commercial lacquers, though a live broadcast performance exists on Pristine (PASC 221). 

Mengelberg’s Brahms 1883 Third Symphony (10 May 1931) – his shortest and most economical of the four – possesses drive and breadth, with Mengelberg’s taking the first movement repeat, letting us savor the richly nuanced sound of his elastic strings and pungent woodwinds.  No less an authority than Antonin Dvorak, a rare initiate into the Brahms creative process, heard Brahms in the preparatory stages of the work and remarked on its vibrant coloration, “magnificent melodies,” and metric flexibility, challenges and goals that Mengelberg accepts with dynamic finesse.  Once more, the impulse, tempo giocoso, reigns as the layered climax – with its constant F-A-flat-F mantra – of the opening Allegro con brio reaches voluptuous proportions. A brisk but ardent Andante leads to the Poco allegretto, whose elegant 12-bar phrase, waltz structure undergoes a series of Mengelberg adjustments, all of which contribute to an autumnal beauty. Mengelberg exploits the music’s constant ambivalence between F Major and F minor, now ripe in the Allegro finale, bristling with dramatic tension. Besides the excellent work in the bassoons and trombones, the Concertgebouw strings project every kind of “fateful” menace that soon announces itself blatantly via Beethoven’s Fifth.  Given the muscular power of Mengelberg’s reading, that the music cyclically and quietly succumbs to its F Major opening seems even more miraculous.

The controlled intimacy Mengelberg elicits in Bizet’s Adagietto (11 June 1929) seems a natural extension of his sublime work in Mahler’s Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony of May 1926. The score already contains several written-out portamentos, including large intervals on G and on E in the strings, which demand what one Mahler scholar has termed “portamento distribution” between strings. Surprisingly brief in duration (7:15), Mengelberg’s reading does not move in rushed terms but proceeds as a series of melodic slides over harp figurations that combine in an agonized, often convulsive, bliss. 

After the Mahler on Disc 2, the Ravel Bolero (31 May 1930) comes as an anomalous juxtaposition, with its “instrumental texture lacking music” in perpetual crescendo.  In his accompanying note, Obert-Thorn mentions the technical issues involved in the recording, the stops for 78 shellac timing requirements and the variation in sound levels, but I find the concept direct and engaging, with some fine instrumental acuity in the oboe and trumpet. The collection end with an unpublished take from Tchaikovsky’s C Major Serenade for Strings, the Valse (rec. 12 May 1928). The opening chords alone almost evoke Furtwaengler, but the remainder of this rejected moment of music history is pure Mengelberg; and Obert-Thorn suggests a bit of mishap a minute before the end may have prompted the conductor’s rejection of a still-fascinating moment of artistic style. 

—Gary Lemco

Sir Adrian Boult – A Musical Legacy – London Philharmonic Records

by Audiophile Audition | Jan 4, 2021 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

Sir Adrian Boult – A Musical Legacy– London Philharmonic Orchestra – London Philharmonic Records –  LPO-0119/1-5 (5 CDs) 87:12*; 82:59; 69:11; 78:00; 71:47 (9/25/20) [Distr. by PIAS] ****:

A Musical Legacy, 5 CDs (complete list of ontents below):
The Early Years
Beethoven and Beyond
Music from the Ballet
The Versatile Conductor
Champion of British Music

Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983) embodied much of the true British spirit – despite his apprenticeship under the Germans Fritz Steinbach and Arthur Nikisch – of quiet demeanor and fiery musicianship, an undemonstrative but thoroughly controlled approach to a huge range of compositions in diverse styles. In these respects, Boult paralleled the French maestro Pierre Monteux, but Boult’s linear, tautly economical conducting style more often resembled Arturo Toscanini for drive and orchestral discipline. Noted for his adherence to any composer’s intentions, Boult often received plaudits for his “affectionate care” (Edward Elgar) of works given their world premieres

Boult enjoyed a long and genial association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, established in 1932 by Sir Thomas Beecham, and inviting Boult to lead in 1940, when Beecham found engagements overseas. In 1950, Boult succeeded an ailing Eduard van Beinum as Principal Conductor. The present collection assembles various Boult commercial recordings of familiar and rare repertory in order to suggest the breadth of his musical culture. Among the more renowned collaborations that appear, from Disc 3, “The Versatile Conductor,” Vaughan Williams’ lovely 1914The Lark Ascending from 1952 with violinist Jean Pougnet (1907-1968), captures the bucolic lyric of poet George Meredith with transparent, improvisatory finesse. In fact, the entire “Versatile” experience testifies to a mastery of distinct musical styles that includes a rousing Clarke Trumpet Voluntary, Walton’s salty Portsmouth Point, the fleet and whimsical Wedding Cake of Saint-Saens, a broodingly potent Lemminkainen Return of Sibelius, and a percussively spicy and lyrical Cuban Overture of Gershwin from 1968.The real surprise to most of us Boult connoisseurs comes in the form of Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta from 1955, in which the second movement Allegro packs an incisive punch the equal of anything Reiner, Dorati, or Fricsay might have delivered.

Disc 2, “From the Ballet,” opens with a menacing Ritual Fire Dance of Falla, the oboe, trumpets, and strings in scathing form. The major works, the suites recorded in 1955 from Leo Delibes’ 1876 Sylvia, an Arcadian lyric, and Coppelia, the 1870 score taken from E.T. A. Hoffmann proceed in an understated but poised manner, of which his Intermezzo et Valse Lente from Sylvia and the Prelude et Mazurka from Coppelia, which make me wish Boult had recorded Le Cid by Massenet. The Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre from 1967 moves quite quickly but retains its eerie and plastic allure. The Holst ballet suite (1923) from his opera The Perfect Fool allows Boult to lavish mock-Wagnerian harmonies and pungent accents into music dear to the conductor’s heart, having championed Holst’s work and having given the premiere of The Planets. Although Boult led a 1936 performance of Le Sacre du Printemps in Paris, the recording of the lithe parody, Circus Polka (1967), is all we have of Boult in Stravinsky’s music.

Boult (rec. 1949) on Disc 1 certainly respects Elgar’s demand for the first movement of his 1908 Symphony No. 1 in A-flat Major to be played Andante: Nobilimente e semplice, although the harmonic structure, often reliant on the tritone relationship between A-flat Major and D minor, invokes a series of chromatic allusions and leitmotifs imbedded in Wagnerian style. Boult captures the music’s tensions between ideality and bucolic recollection and fateful, ominous passions. The F-sharp minor scherzo (Allegro molto) Boult realizes as an aggressive march that manages to find moments of repose, utilizing two harps in the texture. The conductor Hans Richter well admired Elgar’s third movement, a D Major Adagio that Richter thought “worthy of Beethoven.” Boult imparts a mystical, plangent tone to the music that easily rivals the “Nimrod” section of the Enigma Variations. The clear influence in the Lento – Allegro finale, Brahms, makes his presence known in martial allusions from that composer’s Third Symphony. In terms of structure, the return of the processional motif from movement one parallels the Brahms, who too quotes his opening motif cyclically at the coda. But whereas Brahms ends his symphony resignedly, Elgar ushers in a splendid, throbbing peroration, after Boult’s having well lulled us with the lushly ardent passages that manage to compete with the militancy and struggle for a sense of spiritual liberation.

Few orchestral works prove so personal to Sir Adrian Boult than the Sixth Symphony in E minor of Vaughan Williams, which Boult premiered in 1948.  Composed 1944-1947, this music (rec. 1953) possesses a grim, revolutionary spirit in British music that startled the public as no other work since the Elgar A-flat Symphony forty years prior.  The clash of E minor and F minor sets off a battleground sensibility, only occasionally assuaged by a sense of humanity in E Major. The low E segues to the Moderato, which Boult delivers with percussive mania. Vaughan Williams cared deeply for the Café de Paris nightclub in London, and its destruction warrants the sarcastic Scherzo: Allegro vivace that features a solo tenor saxophone.  Fugal and pianissimo, the Epilogue: Moderato is supposed to have a T.S. Eliot “this is the way the world ends. . .in a whimper” ethos, a post-apocalyptic bleakness.  We would have had an uncompromising vision – and do, up to movement 3 – performed without compromise. The projected time for this CD, however, at 87:12 exceeds the capability of the medium.

Boult used to comment in rehearsal that certain music “plays itself,” and his Beethoven Eroica seems to conform to his relaxed philosophy, until we realize its direct, dramatic and lyrical assertiveness. Recorded in 1957 for Vanguard Records as part of a set of four Beethoven symphonies, this performance gleaned much praise in its era, and it holds up well, much in the Toscanini tradition. The LPO winds and brass projected an alert, elevated sense of motion, and Boult’s cadences bear the stamp of a conductor attuned to Beethoven’s architecture. The 1967 performance of the Bruch Kol Nidre features the cello talent of Christopher Bunting, whose thoughtful lyricism will remind many of the classic reading by Casals. Disc 2 ends with the 1914 Variations on a Nursery Song, Op. 25 of Dohnanyi “live” from 21 November 1955. Here, Boult has as his soloist pianist Patricia Bishop in a work he had prior both performed and recorded with the composer himself. The work’s ominous, Wagnerian beginning yields to the simple C Major tune from Mozart, better known in its English equivalent as “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.” A clever blend of musical styles, the work passes through Vienna in a waltz at Variation 7 and in imposing figures in C minor at Variation 9 (Presto). Something of Dohnanyi’s antiquarian strain informs his Variations 10 and 11, a Passacaglia and Choral, respectively, that lead to a “learned” conclusion, Fugato that closes – in most of its original innocence – his most popular, concerted work.

Disc 5 offers Sir Adrian Boult in his home environs, as a “Champion of British Music.” From that 21 November 1955 St. Cecilia’s Day Concert, Boult is joined by baritone Frederick Harvey in Stanford’s 1910 Songs of the Fleet, settings of four poems by Sir Henry Newbolt that celebrate Britain’s naval glories. Two of the poems directly revere Lord Nelson. The work as a whole enjoys a jingoistic swagger a sense of awed entitlement from Harvey and the Croydon Philharmonic Society Chorus. 

Once more, from that same, live concert we have Malcolm Arnold’s 1954 Concerto for Organ and Orchestra, with Canadian organist Hugh McLean. Much in the style of Handel, the three-movement concerto features three (high) trumpets, timpani, and strings. Two themes dominate the opening Vivace movement: galloping strings in octaves and the organ theme, intruded upon by a vehement tutti. The canonic elements will appear again in the last movement, Allegretto. The Lento middle movement presents a simple, meditative song-form. The last movement, a clever fugue, varies, cyclically, the motives of movement one. At the climax, violins and violas play the fugue against the first movement tune in the organ and trumpets. 

Boult had great affection for the few surviving works of George Butterworth (1885-1916), whom the Great War snuffed out. His Rhapsody- A Shropshire lad comes in this performance from the BBC Maida Vale studio from 2 March 1969. A richly layered idyll, the piece incorporates the song “The Loveliest of Trees” into a score that bears the hallmarks of the later music for John Barry’s Out of Africa. No less affectionately rendered, the Arnold Bax symphonic poem 1916 The Garden of Fand (rec. January 1962) invokes Celtic folklore and the conceit of the sea itself as a “garden” onto which a ship has been cast ashore. Utilizing parallel thirds and whole tones, the piece reflects the influence of Debussy, while its scoring retains colors emblematic of the Bax’s unique ear for tone painting. At last, Boult conducts Elgar’s 1904 In the South Overture- Alassio (rec. 1955), his fond recollection of a spring day in Italy, in the Valley of Andorra, which raises in the composer’s mind lines from Byron’ Childe Harold of a “land mightiest in its old command. . .the garden of the world.” Boult leads a virile, driven rendition of the work, from its opening E-flats and string tremolandos and lulling moments to the development, marked con passione, and ultimately to dreams of Rome’s ancient, militant pride, and the return to the bucolic reverie of the present. Boult manages to make the work’s episodic material a sustained, personal epic of power and subjective delight and pride of life.  

–Gary Lemco
*Performance incomplete due to timing restrictions

Sir Adrian Boult – A Musical Legacy, Contents:
ARNOLD: Concerto for Organ and Orchestra, Op. 47
BARTOK: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
BAX: The Garden of Fand;
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 “Eroica”
BRUCH: Kol Nidre, Op. 47
BUTTERWORTH: A Shropshire Lad
CLARKE: Trumpet Voluntary from Suite in D Major
DELIBES: Sylvia – Ballet Suite; Coppelia – Ballet Suite; Naila Ballet Suite: Valse
DOHNANYI: Variations on a Nursery Song, Op. 25
ELGAR: Symphony No. 1 in A-flat Major, Op. 55; In the South, “Alassio,” Op. 50
FALLA: Ritual Fire Dance from El amor brujo
GERSHWIN: Cuban Overture
HOLST: The Perfect Fool – Ballet Suite;  – Symphony No. 6 in E minor
WALTON: Portsmouth Point Overture
WOLF-FERRARI: Intermezzo from The Jewels of the Madonna