Adrian Boult

One of the greatest British conductors of the 20th century, Adrian Boult was born in Chester (Cheshire) on April 8, 1889, and knighted in 1937. Born into a family of shopkeepers, he studied at Westminster School (1901-1908), then at Christ Church, Oxford (1908-1912), before completing his musical training at the Leipzig Conservatory (1912-1913), where his teachers included Max Reger and Arthur Nikisch, who taught him conducting. He returned to England and made his debut in 1914, when the First World War broke out. Declared unfit for active service, Adrian Boult worked as a translator and organized concerts for the troops, notably with the London Symphony Orchestra. In 1919, at the request of composer Gustav Holst, he conducted a partial premiere of his landmark work The Planets. That same year, he worked with Serge de Diaghilev, then set up a conducting class at London's Royal College of Music, where he taught until 1930. Appointed Director of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1924, he went on to become Director of the BBC Symphony Orchestra until 1950. Adrian Boult raised the resident orchestra to international stature, not only with concerts in Vienna, Salzburg, Boston and New York, but also with his interpretations of symphonic works by Vaughan Williams, Elgar and Holst, and his promotion of composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg. He also collaborated with Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, and conducted London's Bach Choir between 1928 and 1931. In 1942, he was appointed associate conductor of the Promenade Concerts, the famous Proms, until 1950, when he left the BBC to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra until 1957. His legendary recordings for the Decca label date from this period. After his departure, he conducted the orchestra only as a guest conductor, and continued to record works by British composers that had made his name. Between 1959 and 1966, he took over the musical direction of the City of Birmingham Orchestra for one season, before returning to the Royal College of Music to teach from 1962 to 1966. Sir Adrian Boult, who retired from conducting in 1981, was the dedicatee of works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax, Herbert Howells and Malcolm Williamson. He premiered works by Arthur Bliss, Gerald Finzi, Paul Hindemith, Michael Tippett and Vaughan Williams' symphonies No. 3, known as "Pastoral", No. 4 and No. 6. On February 22, 1983, Sir Adrian Boult died in London at the age of 93.

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