City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Elgar: Sospiri, Op. 70
Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20
Walton: Symphonic Suite: Troilus & Cressida, arranged Palmer
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla's fascination with British music stems from her role as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), which between 1920 and 1991 worked closely with each of the composers featured on this recording. The CBSO's most significant contribution to 20th century British music came in 1962, with the world premiere of 'Britten's War Requiem'. The 'Sinfonia da Requiem' - a symphony for large orchestra, whose three movements carry titles from the 'Latin Requiem Mass' - dates from 1940: an expression of the same lifelong pacifism by a 26-year old composer. Waltons Troilus and Cressida was the great passion-project of the composers later life; an opera on an heroic scale, based on Chaucer and filled with full-blooded emotion and long singing melodies that the composer called 'English bel canto'.