Boult was a passionate admirer of The Kingdom and, as ever, the unaffected devotion and authority of his advocacy is hard to resist. The two formidable contenders in the work are Leonard Slatkin and Richard Hickox. All three performers have much going for them. In short, Boult enjoys the strongest team of soloists, Hickox obtains the most disciplined and full-bodied choral work, and Slatkin secures the finest orchestral playing – indeed, the LPO are on inspired form, responding with an exemplary sensitivity, commitment and concentration which also marked out Slatkin's magnificent account of the Symphony No 2 set down with this same group some 17 months later.
Slatkin also benefits from perhaps the best engineering, with Boult's Kingsway Hall production now sounding just a little pale and hard-edged in comparison. Where the EMI release really comes up trumps, though, is in the shape of its generous fill-up, Philip Ledger's superb, swaggering reading of the Coronation Ode. Ultimately, then, the Boult, must take the palm, especially at mid-price, though no devoted Elgarian should miss hearing Slatkin's gloriously lucid conception either.