Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony

St Georges Singers, Poynton

For their final concert of this season St George’s Singers will once more join forces with Stockport Symphony Orchestra, this time to present Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony. This dramatic work is Ralph Vaughan Williams’s first symphony, written between 1903 and 1909, and his first major large-scale work. In preparing to write it he studied the works of Elgar and particularly The Enigma Variations, and The Dream of Gerontius which SGS and SSO performed together last year. A Sea Symphony was one of the first symphonies to use the chorus as an integral part of the musical. In its four movements: A Song for all Seas, all Ships; On the Beach at Night Alone; The Waves; and The Explorers, A Sea Symphony paints a vivid musical picture of the sea in all its moods from fearsome waves to gentle lapping ripples on the shore. The text is taken from the anthology Leaves of Grass by American poet, Walt Whitman, whose verse attracted Vaughan Williams for its humanistic philosophy and its vision of a world inspired by human and scientific endeavour and the spirit of adventure.

We are delighted to welcome again two rising stars, soprano Alison Rose and our President, Marcus Farnsworth as soloists. Alison, who was also a soloist in our November performance of Mozart Mass in C minor, will be appearing at this year’s “Last Night of the Proms”. Marcus who gave us a thrilling performance last June in The Dream of Gerontius, has performed extensively in the UK and Europe in opera and recital and last year was appointed as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.

Other works in this concert are four of Holst’s beautiful Ave Maria and four of his Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, inspired by the ancient Sanskrit poems of praise and thanksgiving from Hindu scripture, performed by the ladies of the Choir with harpist Louise Thomson. Louise will also give us Walter-Kühne’s Fantasy on themes from Tchaikovsy’s Eugene Onegin.