Symphony Nos. 2, 3 & 5

"William Alwyn is a leading member of the 'lost' generation of British composers, who wrote important music in the central decades of the twentieth century. His symphonic style is in a post-Sibelian tradition, with motives and ideas appearing in embryo, cogently argued and always finding some kind of apotheosis, inspiring or with an element of disillusionment, which surely reflects human experience. [The music] is for me so much more immediately rewarding than the Boulez school, and I hope to tempt you to explore it further. The performances are passionately authoritative and the vintage recording, from the 1970s, splendidly engineered" Ivan March, Gramophone