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Dutchman Kees Bakels presides over a notably clear-headed and consistently warm-hearted account of Vaughan Williams's breathtakingly evocative and stirring
Sinfonia Antartica of 1952 (the Seventh of the composer's nine symphonies, drawn from material from his score for the 1949 Ealing film
Scott of the Antarctic). With the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra on impressive form--and fine contributions from the women from the Waynflete Singers, soprano Lynda Russell and organist Christopher Dowie (whose entry in the awesome central "Landscape" has plenty of tummy-wobbling grandeur)--Bakels's sympathetic reading generates a endearing cogency and (more important still) humanity. What's more, Naxos allow the listener to programme in separately the published superscriptions at the head of each movement: David Timson delivers the texts most eloquently. The Eighth Symphony (completed three years after its bigger brother here) also comes off well but is perhaps rather less memorable as an interpretation, and in the gorgeous "Cavatina" slow movement one tends to notice the marginal lack of refinement in the hard-working Bournemouth string section. All the same, if your budget won't extend to André Previn's identical LSO coupling on mid-price RCA Gold Seal, rest assured that this bargain-basement Naxos issue represents very decent value indeed.
--Andrew Achenbach