BBC Symphony Orchestra/Babbins

At the height of the Second World War, Ralph Vaughan Williams produced a symphony that seemed the very picture of serenity. But is the composer’s Fifth Symphony as untroubled and enraptured as it seems? Our cycle of the composer’s symphonies under the expert baton of Martyn Brabbins continues with this enigmatic, impassioned and ultimately redemptive work that contains some of the composer’s most spellbinding orchestral masterstrokes.

Before it, we hear Vaughan Williams unfettered in his iconic The Lark Ascending and Emily Howard’s startling concerto for orchestra, Torus.