To commemorate William Alwyn's centenary in 2005, Naxos began its series of his complete symphonies and other orchestral works with recordings of the single-movement Symphony No. 5, "Hydriotaphia"; the Concerto for harp and orchestra, "Lyra Angelica"; and the two-movement Symphony No. 2. This composer is most famous for his scores for numerous British films from the 1930s through the 1950s, but his concert music was actively supported by Sir John Barbirolli, and his reputation as a symphonist and opera composer was firmly ...
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To commemorate William Alwyn's centenary in 2005, Naxos began its series of his complete symphonies and other orchestral works with recordings of the single-movement Symphony No. 5, "Hydriotaphia"; the Concerto for harp and orchestra, "Lyra Angelica"; and the two-movement Symphony No. 2. This composer is most famous for his scores for numerous British films from the 1930s through the 1950s, but his concert music was actively supported by Sir John Barbirolli, and his reputation as a symphonist and opera composer was firmly established by the 1970s. Alwyn's music in his symphonies is sumptuous, sinuous, and lavishly orchestrated, and always sounds professionally polished, like his soundtrack music. Yet as a consequence, his form and overall trajectory seem less symphonic than freely rhapsodic; and pursuing the development of Alwyn's themes through his seductive scores seems almost beside the point: this is an inventive colorist, not a rigorous theoretician. Alwyn's relaxed, late-late Romanticism is...
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