Search - Ralph Vaughan Williams, London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus :: Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4 / Mass in G Minor / Six Choral Songs - Richard Hickox Singers / London Symphony Chorus / London Symphony Orchestra / Richard Hickox

Balance and Clarity

Dr. Debra Jan Bibel | Oakland, CA USA | 05/02/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Having recently heard the San Francisco Symphony perform this symphony and realizing that I did not have it in my collection, I chose this Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra recording for its high quality engineering and additional choral compositions. I was not disappointed. Symphony 4 has been compared in structure and its shock-and-awe effect with Beethoven's Symphony 5: after Vaughan Williams' lyrical and majestic Sea, London, and Pastoral Symphonies, this composition was strikingly complex and brazen. An orchestra can easily go awry with over and under emphases of sections. Hickox achieves perfect balance within and throughout the work and brings added cohesion. SFO was good, but this recording of the LSO is great. Moreover, the sound was crystal clear and the SACD surround sound was well balanced, although I felt the orchestra a little too distant for my taste. I especially enjoyed the bonus of the mass, with one foot in the Renaissance, and six brief but lovely songs, the latter based on poems of Shelly. If you have never heard this symphony and are familiar with Vaughan Williams mainly from his gentle Lark and London Symphony, discover his other side with this excellent album."