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The Sea & The Sky
Barts Choir, Ivor Setterfield and the Philharmonia Orchestra present an evening of stunning classical works by Vaughan-Williams, Parry & Britten
Add to my Calendar 13-03-2017 19:30 13-03-2017 21:30 36 The Sea & The Sky “Behold, the sea itself”! With a brass fanfare and this dramatic choral declamation, Ralph Vaughan Williams launches his first and longest symphony on a wave of sound. He set words by Walt Whitman, the American poet, depicting the sea in all its aspects, reflecting in doing so on the larger questions of humankind’s place in nature and the cosmos, art, and exploration (spiritual as well as physical). In this piece he attained maturity as a composer in his handling of large-scale symphonic form and choral and orchestral writing. The Sea Symphony is complemented by Britten’s very different, but no less dramatic, response to the sea, in the Four Sea Interludes from his opera Peter Grimes, set in a tight-knit coastal community, where the sea is ever-present in its different moods, sometimes calm, sometimes threatening; Parry’s setting of Milton’s reflection on the partnership of “voice and verse” in Blest Pair of Sirens; and Vaughan Williams’s own evergreen The Lark Ascending. The experience of hearing a large choir and full symphony orchestra live in these four British masterpieces is not to be missed. Royal Festival Hall, London DD/MM/YYYYDetails
Royal Festival Hall
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Rd
South Bank
London
SE1 8XX
England
Programme
Ralph Vaughan Williams – A Sea Symphony (Symphony no.1)
Benjamin Britten – Four Sea Interludes, Op.33a
Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry – Blest Pair of Sirens
Performers
Ivor Setterfield – Conductor
Barts Choir
Philharmonia Orchestra
Programme Note
“Behold, the sea itself”! With a brass fanfare and this dramatic choral declamation, Ralph Vaughan Williams launches his first and longest symphony on a wave of sound. He set words by Walt Whitman, the American poet, depicting the sea in all its aspects, reflecting in doing so on the larger questions of humankind’s place in nature and the cosmos, art, and exploration (spiritual as well as physical). In this piece he attained maturity as a composer in his handling of large-scale symphonic form and choral and orchestral writing.
The Sea Symphony is complemented by Britten’s very different, but no less dramatic, response to the sea, in the Four Sea Interludes from his opera Peter Grimes, set in a tight-knit coastal community, where the sea is ever-present in its different moods, sometimes calm, sometimes threatening; Parry’s setting of Milton’s reflection on the partnership of “voice and verse” in Blest Pair of Sirens; and Vaughan Williams’s own evergreen The Lark Ascending. The experience of hearing a large choir and full symphony orchestra live in these four British masterpieces is not to be missed.
