Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 in D major

“Elder's way with Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony is one of those interpretations that grows with repeated hearings. As expected from the current Halle vintage, it's finely played in every department, with true live-recording atmosphere.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2013 *****

“An unexpectedly rewarding disc” Financial Times, 13th April 2013

“Elder's sense of atmosphere and specific locality win out...The Scherzo shows the Hallé winds and brass to excellent effect and I was warmed by Elder's well-aimed use of string portamentos in the 'Cavatina'...I would recommend it unreservedly.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2013

“Elder’s is the most satisfying performance of RVW’s Symphony 5 that I’ve heard. Why? For me it’s because he gets the tempi just right. He isn’t afraid to be unhurried and yet at the same time a flowing, forward pulse is always apparent...The glory of this CD from Elder is that it offers a consistent and sustained appreciation of the reflective aspects of these RVW symphonies.” MusicWeb International, April 2013

“It is the performance of the Fifth...that sounds special here...Elder and the Hallé claim this music as much their own as they do their Eighth.” Sunday Times, 17th March 2013

“Vaughan Williams’s outwardly serene Symphony No. 5 is a difficult work to get right...Which is why Sir Mark Elder’s recording does succeed; he manages to inject a hint of drama into the static opening movement and brings the Scherzo to life...Elder plays up the [Eighth] symphony’s offbeat battiness...It’s wonderful – trust me.” The Arts Desk, 16th March 2013

“Elder's account of the Fifth has a wonderful easy breadth, a sense of inevitable unfolding that pays most dividends in the third-movement Romanza...it's the shimmering tuned percussion in the outer movements [of the Eighth] that defines the work, and Elder makes the integration of those textures seem the most natural thing in the world.” The Guardian, 28th February 2013 ****

“These wonderfully affectionate recordings of the Fifth and Eighth Symphonies ...are essential listening for devotees of English music...Both are gloriously played.” The Times, 30th March 2013 ****

“Fenella Humphreys's performance is a wonder, and Christopher Watson, too, though backwardly balanced, sings with total conviction...The performance is very fine...The Romanza is as passionate and richly euphonious as you are likely to hear, and the return of the symphony's opening music shortly before the end is most convincingly handled...I warmly recommend this beautifully recorded disc.” International Record Review, May 2012

“Wright's idiom - both listener-friendly and superbly skilled, with never a wasted note - has no problems sustaining a 35-minute design. Violinist Fenella Humphreys responds to its elegiac reflection and technical display at top-flight level, offering emotional depth and weight of tone...The performance [of the Vaughan Williams] is as moving, and as beautifully paced and played...as any I have heard.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2012 *****

“The Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony is feather-light and luminous throughout, for example, and though the tempo is relatively relaxed, the music dances with an attractively cool grace. In the Preludio and Romanza, however, I want a greater sense of rapture (Previn and Haitink capture this elusive quality, each in his own way). Spano builds impressively tremendous climaxes, spotlighting the work's large-scale architecture with unusual clarity, but the overall result is oddly cool.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2007

“This is an exceptionally powerful yet deeply moving account of the Fifth. Aided by glowing, wide-ranging engineering, Hickox's is an urgently communicative reading. The first and third movements in particular emerge with an effortless architectural splendour and rapt authority, the climaxes built and resolved with mastery.
The Scherzo is as good a place as any to sample the lustrous refinement of the LSO's response. Hickox ensures that the symphony's concluding bars positively glow with gentle ecstasy: here's a Fifth that can surely hold its own in the most exalted company.
Material from The Pilgrim's Progress made its way into the Fifth Symphony and two of the five enterprising couplings here provide further links with John Bunyan's timeless allegory: the 1940 motet for mixed voices with organ, Valiant-for-truth and John Churchill's 1953 arrangement for soprano and mixed chorus of Psalm 23 (originally sung by The Voice of a Bird in Act 4 of The Pilgrim's Progress). The latter receives its finely prepared recorded début on this occasion, as do both The Pilgrim Pavement (a 1934 processional for soprano, chorus and organ) and Helen Glatz's string-orchestra arrangement of the solo-piano Hymn-tune Prelude on 'Song 13' by Gibbons. Which just leaves the Prelude and Fugue, originally written for organ in 1921, but heard here in a sumptuous orchestration.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Bakel's performances are extremely exciting…[they] are first rate in every way.” Classics Today