GREAT RECORDINGS phase 11

BRITTEN: SINFONIA DA REQUIEM
FOUR SEA INTERLUDES &
PASSACAGLIA ('PETER GRIMES')
HOLST: EGDON HEATH
BALLET ('THE PERFECT FOOL')
London Symphony Orchestra
André Previn

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'Very welcome indeed: performances that exploit Previn's natural sympathy for English music. The recording of the Britten is one of the richest and fullest I have ever heard, setting the composer's masterly scoring against a vividly real-sounding acoustic.' (Gramophone)

The American André Previn established a particularly fruitful relationship with the London Symphony Orchestra, and held the position of chief conductor for over a decade from 1968 to 1979. The success of the relationship extended beyond the concert hall and into the studio, where they made many important recordings, some of which are now regarded as classics of the gramophone.

Previn's passion for and mastery of 20th-century English music, particularly Vaughan Williams, Holst, Walton and Britten, has been quite extensively captured on disc, including these fine recordings of well-known orchestral works by Holst and Britten.

The CD couples two masterpieces both written as tributes: Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem (1940), in memory of his parents, and Holst's Egdon Heath (1927), in homage to the novelist Thomas Hardy. Complementing these are extracts from an opera by each of the two composers: the evocative seascapes from Britten's masterly Peter Grimes (1945) and the ballet from Holst's one-act comic opera The Perfect Fool (1923).