Gramophone Magazine November 2017 Editor's Choice

Vaughan Williams’s London Symphony (the composer’s favourite of the nine) makes a rare appearance in its 1920 first publication. Three lesser-known works complete a highly desirable programme, while Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra understand how this music should be played like few others. This is mandatory listening.

Brabbins masterminds a superbly involving account...Clocking in at around 52 minutes, it’s a canvas of thrilling sweep, evocative power and vaulting ambition...Above all, Brabbins exhibits a very real love for this remarkable score...The fill-ups are a joy, too. Elizabeth Watts makes a radiant showing in Orpheus With His Lute...An irresistible anthology, in sum. Gramophone

Brabbins conducts the [Symphony] with a sense of purposeful directness, likeably enhanced by the expressive warmth of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s response. BBC ****