Ideally this splendid concert should have been broadcast at the time (May 24, Barbican Hall) – live is always preferable – but this was a Friday, and the Radio 3 schedule currently only allows then for the revived Friday Night is Music Night (which would be better on Radio 2, IMO, as much as I enjoy the lighter side of music, but what really irks, on the two occasions I have started listening to FNIMN, is having presenter Petroc Trelawny raising his voice – shouting – to give us the programme’s title: enough for me to switch off I’m afraid).

A few words regarding this close-of-season BBC Symphony Orchestra concert … good to hear Cleveland Pictures again, performed with scrupulousness and relish, equally true of the Britten (a student work orchestrated by Colin Matthews) with well-attuned soloists and sympathetic accompaniment, and, finally, A Sea Symphony (to Walt Whitman’s words) in an exhilarating and moving account, of sea-spray and vivid depiction.

Recorded at the Barbican on Friday 24th May 2024.

Oliver Knussen: Cleveland Pictures

Benjamin Britten: Double Concerto for Violin and Viola

Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony (Symphony No. 1)

Silja Aalto (soprano) & Morgan Pearse (baritone)

Vilde Frang (violin) & Lawrence Power (viola)

BBC Symphony Chorus

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Sakari Oramo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001zvk7

https://www.colinscolumn.com/category/light-music-gems