Oramo conducts Vaughan Williams

Malcolm Arnold never did anything by halves, and when he composed his Fifth Symphony he poured out his soul. Soaring melodies, gleaming colours and raw, heart-on-sleeve emotion: this is British music as you’ve never heard it before. It’s a gripping counterpart to Doreen Carwithen’s Concerto, and the radiance and rapture of Vaughan Williams’s gorgeous Serenade.

For BBC Symphony Orchestra chief conductor Sakari Oramo, British music is a passion – especially the masterpieces that the British themselves have overlooked. The Serenade to Music is a perennial favourite, but today the BBC Singers revive the composer’s ravishing original version. And pianist Alexandra Dariescu is just as committed to the music of Doreen Carwithen – like Arnold, a postwar composer who’s music is richly melodic, atmospheric, and evocative.