Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Matchless mono

issue 24 November 2012

Record companies: if you insist on sending CDs to my home address without so much as a covering note or a press release, well, that’s just fine by me. West Hill Radio Archives, I can’t say I’d heard of you, but the discs of Toscanini and the BBC Symphony Orchestra that landed on my doormat last week were a lovely surprise, in more ways than one.

Toscanini refused to allow these concerts at the Queen’s Hall in June 1935 to be recorded, but thank goodness HMV ignored him. In the case of Elgar’s Enigma Variations the result is a revelation. Where Boult takes us on a bracing walk across the Malverns, the Italian maestro plunges us into a witches’ sabbath worthy of Berlioz; you almost expect the din to be silenced by a church bell, as in the Symphonie fantastique. The BBC woodwind don’t sound happy at being made to sprint at such an incredible speed, but the audience love it.

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