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Symphony "With all its faults I love it still — indeed it is my favourite of my family of six," wrote Vaughan Williams to Sir John Barbirolli in 1951. Nearly half a century (and a further three symphonies) later, A London Symphony remains perhaps the composer's single most endearing, instantly...

Apart from two versions made for Columbia by Sir Dan Godfrey and the LSO — the first (from 1923) comprising merely an abridged first movement and scherzo (1/24 — nla), the second (made two years later) more complete, yet still featuring a sizeable cut in the finale (4/26 — n la) — the...

Not surprisingly, Boult's 1971 EMI re-make enjoys an incomparably more lustrous sound quality than its wispy mono predecessor (both versions were recorded in Kingsway Hall), but in terms of sheer grip and vitality it can't honestly match it. Boult's direction, though still admirably lucid and...