Arcadia Lost

01/12/2011
Michael Southern
Pittwater Life (Australia)

Mark Wigglesworth is one of the many young English conductors who are not well known outside the UK, yet occupy a status that ranks them high in the world of music.

Wigglesworth is particularly highly regarded for his conducting of English music in general and of Ralph Vaughan Williams in particular.

The Lark Ascending has become one of the most popular pieces of English music in recent years, and performances rate from the greats (Nigel Kennedy and Hilary Hahn feature here) to the mediocre. Michael Dauth from the Sydney Symphony plays a glittering solo role in what amounts to a fine performance. Flos Campi features viola player Roger Benedict (also of the SSO) in equally glorious voice too and Wigglesworth brings sumptuous sound from the orchestra, as he does in Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem.

On Wenlock Edge sees Davislim in fine voice in a performance that stands well against those from artists overseas...excellent book of notes. Beautifully recorded in SACD.