Adrian Boult

One of England's greatest conductors, Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983) is best known for his 20 years with the BBC, from which, the author notes, he was unjustifiably and ignominiously fired, and for his many subsequent years of freelance concertizing and recording. In this detailed, well-balanced work, based on hitherto unavailable material, a British critic and biographer describes a man of wide and cultivated tastes to whom music was really all that mattered. Boult would have liked to conduct opera, and he was a great interpreter of Beethoven, Schubert and Brahams, but cirumstances and his own genius molded him into a champion of contemporary British music and a supreme conductor of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. He seemed gentle, unassuming, sometimes indifferent, but to his musicians he showed commitment and passion, according to Kennedy. For the increasing number of American devotees of 20th century British music, this will be an essential volume. Photos. (Jan.)