In the darkest hours of World War II, the 70-year old Ralph Vaughan Williams offered a vision of peace. And from misty opening to visionary finish, the Fifth is the Vaughan Williams symphony par excellence: expansive, eloquent and rapturously beautiful. But it’s got teeth, too, and if anyone can unlock its latent drama, it’s Nicholas Carter. He’s paired it with another haunted vision of a better world by Vaughan Williams’s friend and mentor Ravel, and set them both against the soaring lyricism and dazzling sheen of Barber’s Violin Concerto, performed here by Valeriy Sokolov.
To be recorded for future broadcast on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3
