Product Review

The penultimate album in the critically acclaimed Vaughan Williams symphony cycle from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Manze features the Symphony No.1, entitled ''A Sea Symphony.'' Set to words by Walt Whitman, it premiered in 1910. The start of this work is one of the most dramatic of any symphony, and one that displays an extraordinary, epic self confidence in handling such large forces. The work had been in the composer's mind since 1907, just before his studies with Ravel in Paris. The Lark Ascending, a romance for violin and orchestra dating from 1914, is probably the composer's most popular work, and will forever be associated with the horrors of World War I. The version for orchestra heard here was made in 1920. It is a revolutionary work in the context of British music of the time.