Alan Rawsthorne - Symphony No.1 • Symphony No.2 (A Pastoral Symphony)** • Symphony No.3***

Tracy Chadwell, soprano**
London Philharmonic Orchestra* **
BBC Symphony Orchestra***
Sir John Pritchard, conductor*
Nicholas Braithwaite, conductor**
Norman Del Mar, conductor***

Label: Lyrita
Copyright: 1995 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England
Catalogue number: SRCD.291
UPC/EAN: 5020926029126
Format: CD
Analogue / Digital recording: ADD/DDD
Number of discs: 1
Total playing time: 74.47
Price: £ 14.99 (+ postage & packing)

Tracks 1 - 4: Recorded at Kingsway Hall, 25 March 1975, Producer: Richard Beswick, Engineers: Philip Wade, John Pellowe
Tracks 5 - 8: Recorded at Watford, 25 August 1993, Producer: Andrew Keener, Engineer: Mark Vigars
Tracks 9 - 12: No recording information available

"What a valuable and rewarding release! These vintage recordings [Symphony No.1 & No.3] (made in Kingsway Hall and dating from 1975 and 1967 respectively) have come up as fresh as new paint … turn up the volume just a little and the Third Symphony in particular sounds astonishingly fresh nearly 30 years on. Rawsthorne’s three symphonies form a powerful triptych. The First (1950) impresses with its urgency and polish. It is a substantial utterance, turbulent and serene by turns, rich in strong ideas, and passionately essayed here by Pritchard and the LPO. The Second (1959) inhabits an altogether more relaxed and delicate landscape … yet with no diminution in terms of concentration or proportional elegance. Braithwaite and the London Philharmonic have the measure of this likeable score, and the Watford Town Hall sound is full and airy to match. Del Mar and the BBC SO prove themselves to be no less eloquent protagonists of the Third Symphony (1964). This is at once the darkest, most extended and profound of the three …its emotional kernel comprises the second movement “Alla Sarabanda”, a noble, deeply felt processional, which contains some of Rawsthorne’s most intense, anguished inspiration." Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone