Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

"A bit more than half of this recording is excellent. The rest, not so much. We'll start there. Martyn Brabbins simply lacks the fire that the Fourth Symphony requires ... The performance of A Pastoral Symphony, on the other hand, is beautiful".

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"Brabbins has reached a point where the BBC Symphony Orchestra responds readily to his merest gesture, and as a bonus, listeners get a hitherto unknown work, the Saraband "Helen" for tenor, chorus, and orchestra, a 1913 setting of text by Christopher Marlowe, realized by Brabbins himself from a voice-and-piano score. Essential listening for Vaughan Williams fans".

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"This second release in Manze's ongoing Vaughan Williams cycle, containing A Pastoral Symphony and Symphony No. 4, isn't quite as good as its predecessor. It could be that Manze has spent a bit too much time in the early music world, because the latter work's fleet delivery and clipped articulation sound almost neo-baroque, when the music demands heaviness and power ... Throughout, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic plays very well, giving Manze exactly what he wants".

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"The first two symphonies in this Vaughan Williams series with Andrew Manze conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra met with high praise. This second album has the same persuasive mix of poetry, raw splendour and poignancy, with exceptional playing from the RLPO".

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"Orchestral choice: This is a really good performance [of the Pastoral]. On one level Martyn Brabbins is superbly alert to the intricacies of the musical texture. After on hearing I got the score and listened again - so many details I'd hardly noticed before, but there they were. On another level I've rarely, if ever, been so aware of this symphony as a subtle but sustained emotional narrative ... Brabbins's Fourth has many of the same virtues, plus an edgy, uncomfortable intensity of its own".

"Manze's approach, at once equable and gently intense, produces fine results in the first movement [of A Pastoral Symphony] ... Manze keeps a tight rein on all the eruptive orchestral happenings [of the Fourth], which is fair enough in principle, and makes for strikingly coherent results ... An upside throughout is the immaculate quality of the orchestral playing in both works".

"Vurdering: BBC music choice - Vurdering: Recording of the month" - "What makes this special is Elder and the Hallé's interpretation of the Pastoral Symphony". Rather than supplanting its all too few predecessors, this reading compliments them by shedding new light on the work".