Adrian Cedric Boult, CH /boʊlt/ (Chester, 8 April 1889 – London, 24 March 1983), was an English conductor. Raised in a prosperous merchant family, he studied music in England and Leipzig, Germany, soon working as a conductor in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev's ballet company. His first major post was as conductor of the Birmingham City Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him musical director in 1930, he founded the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its principal conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence rivaled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later.

Forced to leave the BBC in 1950, on reaching retirement age, Boult took over as head of the LPO's orchestral management. The orchestra had fallen from its 1930 peak, but under his leadership its fortunes revived. He retired as its principal director in 1957, and later accepted the position of president. Although in the second part of his career he worked with other orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and his former Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, it was the LPO with which he was primarily associated, the management of concerts and recordings until 1978, in what was widely called his "Indian Summer".

Boult was known for his advocacy of British music. He gave the first performance of The Planets, by his friend Gustav Holst, and introduced new works, among others by Bliss, Britten, Delius, Tippett, Vaughan Williams and Walton. In his years at the BBC he presented works by foreign composers, including Bartók, Berg, Stravinsky, Schönberg and Webern. A modest man who disliked the limelight, Boult was equally at home in the recording studio or on the concert podium, making recordings throughout his career. From the mid-1960s until he retired after his last session in 1978 he recorded extensively for EMI. In addition to a number of recordings that remained in the catalog for three or four decades, Boult's legacy includes his influence on important conductors of subsequent generations, including Colin Davis and Vernon Handley.



Type of autograph:Autograph typed letter



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