When only Elgar will do

★★★★☆

There are days when only Elgar will do. When the skies are low and the politics grim, a wash of Elgarian orchestral colour relieves existential gloom like no other remedy. The first symphony delivers pull-your-socks-up bluster and the second a subtler encouragement. Elgar always does it for me.

This extraordinary double-album, titled Boult’s Elgar, brings together unpublished recordings by the composer’s young friend, Sir Adrian Boult. The sleeve notes are by Nigel Simeone, whose new book, Edward Elgar and Adrian Boult, chronicles a friendship that was interrupted for seven years by the composer taking umbrage at something the conductor had said. Both the record and the book are indispensable to Elgar lovers and vastly enlightening to anyone who loves music.

Boult, a disciple of the Hungarian conductor Arthur Nikisch, wielded a long stick and spoke very little. The record industry dismissed him as uncharismatic, which goes some way towards explaining why these phenomenal recordings have never before appeared on CD.

The second symphony was recorded with a BBC orchestra for a Scottish label in 1963, when Boult was 75 and the symphony half a century old. The interpretation, far from looking back with affection, is tautly paced and finely tuned. In places where Elgar sometimes seems to coast along, Boult finds a subliminal anticipation of dangers ahead. The dramatic tension is knife-edge. I have never heard a performance quite like this, quite so close to the composer and his world.

A March 1944 BBC performance of the concert overture In the South is no less evocative. Elgar’s South is Italy, which British forces are fighting to liberate from Fascism: you hear that in the music. There is a sheaf of Elgar songs on the second CD and, most precious, an interview by Boult with Elgar’s daughter, Carice, and another with Sir Adrian himself in conversation. As I said, indispensable.