Van Beinum's poor health obliged him to resign in 1950. Sir Adrian Boult, who had been forced out of the BBC by internal politics, accepted an invitation from the LPO's managing director, Thomas Russell, to take up the principal conductorship. With Boult the LPO began a series of commercial recordings, beginning with Elgar's "Falstaff", Mahler's "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" with the mezzo-soprano Blanche Thebom, and Beethoven's First Symphony. The work of the new team was greeted with approval by reviewers. Of the Elgar, the reviewer in "The Gramophone" wrote, "I have heard no other conductor approach [Boult's] performance. ... His newly adopted orchestra responds admirably".