| Commemorating Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): |
| - Finzi’s For St Cecilia was written to a commission from the St Cecilia's Day Festival Committee and first performed in 1947. Written for choir and tenor soloist to words by Edmund Blunden, the work mixes moments of ceremonial grandeur with moments of intense lyricism in a rousing celebration of the patron saint of music. |
| - Sea Pictures, a setting by Elgar (1899) of five songs for mezzo soprano and orchestra, is a reflective and moving evocation of the sea and seafarers. |
| - We commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams with a performance of his choral symphony. With text from Leaves of Grass by the American poet Walt Whitman, and first performed in 1910, the overall impression is of a work that is panoramic in scale and as big as the sea itself. The flavour and sound of the sea is everywhere. |
