Editing Adrian Boult (section)

===First conducting work===
[[File:Gustav-Holst-1921.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=head of a man, wearing glasses, and resting his head on his right hand|[[Gustav Holst]], whose suite ''[[The Planets]]'' Boult premiered in 1918]]Boult made his début as a professional conductor on 27 February 1914 at [[West Kirby]] Public Hall, with members of the [[Royal Liverpool Philharmonic|Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra]]. His programme comprised orchestral works by [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]], Butterworth, [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]], Wagner and [[Hugo Wolf]], interspersed with arias by Mozart and [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]] sung by [[Agnes Nicholls]].<ref>Moore, p. 19</ref> 

Boult was declared medically unfit for active service during the [[First World War]], and until 1916 he served as an orderly officer in a reserve unit.  He was recruited by the [[War Office]] as a translator (he spoke good French, German and Italian).<ref>Kennedy, pp. 61–62</ref> In his spare time he organised and conducted concerts, some of which were subsidised by his father, with the aims of giving work to orchestral players and bringing music to a wider audience.<ref>Kennedy, p. 60</ref>
{{Quote box |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=center | quote =Just before the Armistice, Gustav Holst burst into my office: "Adrian, the YMCA are sending me to [[Thessaloniki|Salonika]] quite soon and [[H. Balfour Gardiner|Balfour Gardiner]], bless his heart, has given me a parting present consisting of the Queen's Hall, full of the Queen's Hall Orchestra for the whole of a Sunday morning. So we're going to do ''The Planets'', and you've got to conduct." | source =  Adrian Boult<ref name=boult35/>| align=left| width=33%}}

In 1918, Boult conducted the [[London Symphony Orchestra]] in a series of concerts that included important recent British works. Among them was the première of a revised version of Vaughan Williams's ''[[A London Symphony]]'', a performance which was "rather spoilt by a Zeppelin raid".<ref name=boult35>Boult, p. 35</ref> His best-known première of this period was Holst's ''[[The Planets]]''. Boult conducted the first performance on 29 September 1918 to an invited audience of about 250. Holst later wrote on his copy of the score, "This copy is the property of Adrian Boult who first caused ''The Planets'' to shine in public and thereby earned the gratitude of Gustav Holst."<ref name=boult35/>

Elgar was another composer who had cause to be grateful to Boult. His [[Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)|Second Symphony]] had, since its premiere nine years earlier, received few performances. When Boult conducted it at the [[Queen's Hall]] in March 1920 to "great applause" and "frantic enthusiasm",<ref>Lady Elgar's diary, ''quoted'' in Moore, p. 42</ref> the composer wrote to him: "With the sounds ringing in my ears I send a word of thanks for your splendid conducting of the Sym.&nbsp;... I feel that my reputation in the future is safe in your hands."<ref>''Quoted'' in Moore, pp. 42–43</ref> Elgar's friend and biographer, the violinist [[William Henry Reed|W. H. Reed]], wrote that Boult's performance of Elgar's neglected work brought "the grandeur and nobility of the work" to wider public attention.<ref>Reed, p. 130</ref>

Boult took a wide variety of conducting jobs in the years following the war. In 1919, he succeeded [[Ernest Ansermet]] as musical director of [[Sergei Diaghilev]]'s ballet company. Although Ansermet gave Boult all the help he could in his preparations, there were fourteen ballets in the company's repertory – none of which Boult knew.  In only a short period, Boult was required to master such scores as ''[[Petrushka]]'', ''[[The Firebird]]'', ''[[Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)|Scheherazade]]'', ''[[La Boutique fantasque]]'' and ''[[The Good-Humoured Ladies]]''.<ref>Boult, p. 79</ref> 

In 1921, Boult conducted the British Symphony Orchestra for [[Vladimir Rosing]]'s Opera Week at Aeolian Hall.<ref>"Opera Intime", ''The Pall Mall and Globe'', June 26, 1921.</ref> He also took on an academic post. When Hugh Allen succeeded [[Hubert Parry|Sir Hubert Parry]] as principal of the [[Royal College of Music]], he invited Boult to start a conducting class along the lines of Leipzig – the first such class in England.<ref name=simeone63>Moore, Jerrold Northrop, in Simeone, p. 63</ref> Boult ran the classes from 1919 to 1930.<ref name=who/> In 1921 he received a Doctorate of Music.<ref name=osborne/>

When [[Raymond Roze]], the founder of the [[British Symphony Orchestra]] died in March 1920, Boult took over. He conducted the orchestra, made up of professional musicians who had served in the Army during the First World War, in a series of concerts at the [[Kingsway Hall]].<ref>Boult, p. 53</ref>{{refn|Boult made a [[British Symphony Orchestra discography#Acoustic Recordings 1919–1923|number of recordings]] with the orchestra from November 1920, including ''The Good-Humoured Ladies'',{{refn|Boult's first recording includes 14 numbers (out of 19) from the full score,<ref>{{cite web |title=Le donne de buon umore (Scarlatti, Domenico) |website=IMSLP |url=https://imslp.org/wiki/Le_donne_de_buon_umore_(Scarlatti%2C_Domenico) |access-date=29 June 2019 }}</ref> which Boult conducted for [[Diaghilev]]'s [[Ballet Russe]] at the [[Empire, Leicester Square]], October–December 1919. More information with a downloadable .flac file: {{cite web |website= Jolyon |title=Orchestral – Adrian Boult: The British Symphony Orchestra  |url=http://www.jolyon.com/orchestral.htm |access-date=18 May 2019}} }} and the first recording of [[George Butterworth]]'s ''[[A Shropshire Lad]]''. In June 1921, he conducted for [[Theodore Komisarjevsky]] and [[Vladimir Rosing]]'s small-scale ''Opera Intime'' week at London's [[Aeolian Hall (London)|Aeolian Hall]] with the principals of the British Symphony Orchestra.<ref>Boult, p. 48</ref><ref name=Kalisch_Aug_1921 >{{cite journal |journal=The Musical Times |last=Kalisch |first=Alfred |title=Opéra Intime |volume=62 |issue=942|date=1 August 1921 |pages=569–570 |jstor=910014}}</ref> In 1921 and 1922 Boult conducted the orchestra in a series of concerts at the [[Queen Mary College#People's Palace|People's Palace]] (now part of [[Queen Mary College]]) in [[Mile End Road]], London.<ref name=Observer_1921 >[https://www.theguardian.com/music/from-the-archive-blog/2016/feb/16/from-the-classical-archive-adrian-boult-observer-interview-1921 Adrian Boult's orchestral outreach in East London: 'a bit of genuine decentralisation']. ''The Guardian'', 16 February 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2019.</ref> His final appearance with the orchestra was at the 1923 [[Aberystwyth]] Festival, where Elgar conducted his own arrangement of Parry's "[[Jerusalem (hymn)|Jerusalem]]", including Sir [[Walford Davies]] at the piano.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=The Musical Times |title=Letters to the Editor: Elgar and Jerusalem|last=Parrott |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Parrott |volume=110 |issue=1522  |date=December 1969 |page=1243 |doi=10.2307/954527|jstor=954527}}</ref>|group=n}}