Gramophone Awards 2023
Finalist - Orchestral

Presto Recording of the Week
3rd February 2023

Gramophone Magazine
March 2023
Editor's Choice

Sinfonia of London, John Wilson

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Howells: Concerto for string orchestra
Delius: Late Swallows
Elgar: Introduction & Allegro for strings, Op. 47

This keenly anticipated album from Sinfonia of London and John Wilson features two of the greatest British works for string orchestra: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and Sir Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro. Elgar’s ground-breaking work, commissioned for the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra and premièred in 1905, is inspired by the baroque concerto grosso, and features a solo string quartet contrasted with the full symphonic string section. These orchestral forces were also adopted by Herbert Howells in his Concerto for String Orchestra, from 1938. Delius’s Late Swallows is the only piece not originally composed for string orchestra; it was arranged (from the slow movement of Delius’s String Quartet) by his amanuensis, Eric Fenby. Recorded in Surround Sound and available as a Hybrid SACD, and digitally in Spatial Audio.

"Yet again I must express my amazement at the quality and beauty of the string sound that Wilson achieves with his orchestra. The initial chord of the Vaughan Williams shimmers in a way that few other recordings can match, giving way to the sumptuously rich sound of divided violas and cellos and later to restlessly surging violins." - James Longstaffe, Presto Music, 3rd February 2023.