Andrew Palmer, Group Editor

Classical Music: Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antarctica & Symphony 9

Ralph Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antartica & Symphony No 9 BBC Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins (conductor)

Elizabeth Watts BBC Symphony Chorus


Hyperion CDA68405 https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/


From the opening of Vaughan Williams' Sinfonia Antarctica one feels the heaviness and brooding grief of landscape.

The large forces needed in the orchestration superbly capture the darkness in the struggle of human endeavour against the overwhelming forces of nature. Its effectiveness as a film score is powerful as is the playing of the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins.
This disc marks the conclusion of their RVW cycle with two symphonies that date from the composer's old age.

Symphony 7 Sinfonia Antarctica started out as the brilliant cinematic score for Charles Frend’s 1948 film, Scott of the Antarctic about Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed expedition to the south pole. The work has a lot of startling orchestral sound.

According to Robert Matthew-Walker’s excellent notes, RVW became a staunch convert to composing for film, producing no fewer than eleven film scores from full-length dramatic features to documentaries.

In the first and last movements, soprano Elizabeth Watts paints an evocative aural landscape and, along with the BBC Symphony Chorus in the Epilogue, captures the haunting poignancy of how we finally must acquiesce to the power of nature.

The sound from every section is glorious, throughout the brass are formidable as is the organ, the strings and wind in the fourth movement adeptly colour enabling the listener to sense the inevitable is about to happen.

As the icy blasts from percussion and brass lead into the Epilogue the orchestra sounds resplendent and, as the opening theme is heard, the dramatic elements create an emotional tension confirming, as Matthew-Walker notes, it is a work of musical genius a symphonic work of art.

The performance certainly has a cinematic feel. The wind machine that the score calls for has been replaced by audio samples of actual wind, which are highly effective especially at the conclusion when all we are left with is the atmospheric and authentic sound of a biting wind rounding of a moving rendition. For me the subtleness of the drama and the audile visualisation worked.

In RVW’s ninth symphony we hear more of his fascination in these later compositions, innovative orchestral colourations incorporation of flugelhorn (opening of second movement) and a trio of saxophones.

Once again under Brabbins' baton the orchestra respond brilliantly with confident playing and a full sound. The serenity at the end of the andante is delightful as is the peacefulness in the Finale, the strings expressive playing is delightful. In the Scherzo the saxophones introduce a fugal passage and RVW’s originality in using different textures is terrific. The dynamics are executed well sealing the end of a wonderful symphonic cycle.

RVW passed away from a coronary thrombosis the night before Sir Adrian Boult was to conduct the first recording of the ninth symphony; Matthew-Walker points out he never heard the work in the finite detail a recording session can give a composer if they are present.

An enjoyable disc that has been splendidly recorded at Watford Colosseum by recording engineer Simon Eadon and his team.