Grace Williams - Ballads for Orchestra • Fairest of Stars for soprano & orchestra* • Symphony No.2

Janet Price, soprano
BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra*
Vernon Handley, conductor
Sir Charles Groves, conductor*

Label: Lyrita
Copyright: 1996 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England
Catalogue number: SRCD.327
UPC/EAN: 5020926032720
Format: CD
Analogue / Digital recording: ADD
Number of discs: 1
Total playing time: 69.15
Price: £ 14.99 (+ postage & packing)

No recording information available for this CD


"[The Second Symphony is] an absorbing work whose mix of styles and models serves as a reminder that pluralism in music is not just a phenomenon of the years since 1980. The symphony begins by evoking Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams but, by the finale, it is late-romanticism recalling both Wagner and Mahler that provides the source for William’s most powerful utterances. The orchestral compositions reveal a distinctive personality, but Williams is still more impressive in the neo-Straussian opulence of Fairest Stars, a setting of Milton whose vocal line seems to reflect the wonder and ecstasy of Ariadne auf Naxos … here projected with admirable sensitivity by Janet Price" Arnold Wittall, Gramophone


Ballads for Orchestra Grace Williams 17.12
1 1. Allegro moderato 4.39
2 2. Alla marcia solenne 3.50
3 3. Andante calmante 5.22
4 4. Allegro furioso 3.21
5 Fairest of Stars, for soprano and orchestra Grace Williams 14.09
Symphony no.2 Grace Williams 37.51
6 1. Allegro marciale 9.11
7 2. Andante sostenuto 11.58
8 3. Allegro scherzando 7.15
9 4. Largo 9.27