This Marco Polo CD offers premiere recordings of the suites from the film scores for Story of a Flemish Farm and Coastal Command. (Chandos issued a recording of the former work in 2005.) Neither of these World War II-inspired works is a great masterpiece, for while there are compelling moments ("U-boat Alert" and "Battle of the Beauforts" from Coastal Command, and "The Wanderings of the Flag" from Flemish Farm, to cite just three cues) the music elsewhere at times utters pale echoes from some of the composer's symphonies, ...
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This Marco Polo CD offers premiere recordings of the suites from the film scores for Story of a Flemish Farm and Coastal Command. (Chandos issued a recording of the former work in 2005.) Neither of these World War II-inspired works is a great masterpiece, for while there are compelling moments ("U-boat Alert" and "Battle of the Beauforts" from Coastal Command, and "The Wanderings of the Flag" from Flemish Farm, to cite just three cues) the music elsewhere at times utters pale echoes from some of the composer's symphonies, especially No. 4 and No. 6. But even here the music is atmospheric and programmatically effective, especially in its scoring. A somewhat more worthwhile effort is Portraits (3) from the England of Elizabeth, an arrangement by Muir Mathieson of music from the film score The England of Elizabeth (1957). The suite is quite engaging in the festivity and exoticism of the opening "Explorer," in the stately lyricism of the "Poet," and in the colorful regality of the closing movement "Queen."...
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![Vaughan Williams: 49th Parallel [Rté Concert Orchestra, Andrew Penny] [Naxos: 8573658]](https://www1.alibris-static.com/cover/o22774iqy17_t.jpg)
