FULL A Sea Symphony (Vaughan Williams) London 2013 Roderick Williams, Sally Matthews
Popular Singers in this Opera Recording
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: A Sea Symphony
- Composer: Vaughan Williams Ralph
- Libretto: from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass
- Venue & Opera Company: Royal Albert Hall, London, UK, BBC Proms
- Recorded: September 10, 2013
- Type: Concert Live
- Singers: Roderick Williams, Sally Matthews
- Conductor: Sakari Oramo
- Orchestra: BBC Symphony Orchestra
- Chorus: BBC Proms Youth Choir, BBC Symphony Chorus
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: BBC
- Date Published: 2013
- Format: Broadcast
- Quality Video: 3 Audio:3
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
From 1903 to 1909, Ralph Vaughan Williams worked intermittently on a series of songs for chorus and orchestra that were to become his most lengthy project to date and his first true symphony. Originally titled The Ocean, A Sea Symphony was first performed in 1910 at the Leeds Festival on the composer’s 38th birthday. This is generally cited as his first large-scale work; although Grove lists some 16 other orchestral works composed by Vaughan Williams before he completed A Sea Symphony, including two with chorus; the vast majority of those are juvenilia or apprentice works that have never been published and are long since withdrawn from circulation. Nevertheless, Vaughan Williams had never before attempted a work of quite this duration, or for such large forces, and it was his first of what would eventually be nine symphonies. Like Brahms, Vaughan Williams delayed a long time before composing his first symphony, but remained prolific throughout the end of his life: his final symphony was composed from 1956–58, and completed when he was 85 years of age.