Elgar's 'part-songs' were later promoted, so far as the titles were concerned, to being 'choral songs'; the music, however, does, at this distance of time, somewhat evoke the part-song then beloved by publishers. ( ''I don't want any more Elgar symphonies or concertos, but am ready to take as many part-songs as he can produce, even at extortionate rates'', wrote Elgar's publisher, enshrining in one sentence the guiding forces of a great deal of musical history.)
Whatever they may be called, these pieces, based on Italian, English and Russian poetical sources, are innocently enjoyable, and sometimes a bit more than that. Today's ears, however, will here and there feel that the singers of soloist quality, but also of soloist vibrato, who constituted the BBC Chorus in 1967 do not always sound quite right for ensemble singing. There will be those who would be readier to listen to the music in the hands of an accomplished (and vibrato-less) solo vocal group; and a clearer, more forward recorded quality would also help. Nevertheless, conducted by Boult, these versions are undoubtedly classics.
So, too, are the two speech-bands. Taken from live BBC recordings of the day, these reflect the Corporation's then stifling rulings about the exact use of a literal script; if he survived the rehearsal arguments about whether he should say 'the Mahler symphonies' or 'the symphonies of Mahler' an accomplished speaker was indeed also an accomplished actor if he managed when actually on the job to sound at ease, to sound natural. Boult does exactly this, and conveys movingly much indispensable information about Elgarian background. Unhappily, Elgar's daughter, no doubt less experienced in the particular field, does not sound natural at all—in which she will today have everybody's sympathy—but nevertheless is allowed to read (all too obviously) a few sentences of what is now valuable history before being cut off.
These speech-bands make the record indispensable for the committed Elgarian. The music, too, may be regarded—a little less compulsively, I think—as an historical document.'