One of Ralph Vaughan Williams' most enduring scores, A Sea Symphony is usually credited with inspiring the English symphonic tradition of the 20th century, and recordings of it are plentiful today, an improvement over the time when Adrian Boult's classic 1953 Decca LP was the only commercially available version. For this 2018 Hyperion release, Martyn Brabbins leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a sonorous and surprisingly transparent performance that largely succeeds. Soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn delivers ...
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One of Ralph Vaughan Williams' most enduring scores, A Sea Symphony is usually credited with inspiring the English symphonic tradition of the 20th century, and recordings of it are plentiful today, an improvement over the time when Adrian Boult's classic 1953 Decca LP was the only commercially available version. For this 2018 Hyperion release, Martyn Brabbins leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a sonorous and surprisingly transparent performance that largely succeeds. Soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn delivers ecstatic passages in the outer movements with secure presence, though Marcus Farnsworth has a rather light baritone voice that is no match for the combined forces of the chorus and orchestra; yet he is well-suited to the softer second movement, On the Beach at Night Alone. The BBC Symphony Chorus is a solid mainstay of this performance, delivering Walt Whitman's visionary poetry with a mix of hushed awe and bold declamation, as befits the texts. The choral scherzo, The Waves, is...
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