EMI is repackaging its archive of Adrian Boult's recordings with the same diligence it applied to its Klemperer discography. After a collection devoted to Boult's Vaughan Williams comes this even more extensive set of the other great English composer with whom the conductor was indelibly associated. Though the earliest recording here dates back to 1932, it's the series of Elgar discs Boult made with the London Philharmonic in the last two decades of his career that contain some of the catalogue's greatest interpretations. For me, Boult's final version of the Second Symphony, for instance, remains peerless in its sweep and often tragic depth. His accounts of the overture In the South, the Introduction and Allegro for strings, and the symphonic study Falstaff are also hard to beat. Aside from the orchestral song cycle Sea Pictures, all the major works from the Enigma Variations onwards are here, including Yehudi Menuhin's 1965 recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto and Boult's versions of the three great oratorios – though the performance of The Dream of Gerontius, with Nicolai Gedda as Gerontius and Helen Watts as the Angel, has never seemed quite on a par with his recordings of The Kingdom and The Apostles. Most Elgar lovers will surely possess a number of the recordings, but the comprehensiveness of the set makes it extremely valuable.