Synopsis
Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (16 mins) Ireland - These Things Shall Be (22 mins) Delius - The Walk to the Paradise Garden (10 mins) Walton - Belshazzar's Feast (36 mins) Jonathan Lemalu: bass-baritone London Brass BBC Symphony Chorus BBC National Chorus of Wales BBC National Orchestra of Wales Tadaaki Otaka, Conductor Tadaaki Otaka, a notable enthusiast of British music, opens with Vaughan Williams’s much loved classic before revisiting a BBC commission that has fallen into neglect in the half-century since its composer’s death: Ireland’s These Things Shall Be is a mini-oratorio with a utopian text. The massed choirs and the commanding bass baritone of former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Jonathan Lemalu return after the interval to animate Walton’s brazen Old Testament tale, but first we hear from another anniversary composer, here at his most poignant.