Hallé/Elder – review

Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterThe Spring Symphony is perhaps the most overlooked of Benjamin Britten's major works, possibly because it is uncharacteristically joyous and untroubled, but more likely because this huge choral extravaganza, requiring, among other things, a children's choir, a vibraphone and a cow horn, is prohibitively expensive to perform. Britten admitted that the piece, completed in 1949, had grown into "a bit of a snorter". But the vast orchestra is used extremely sparingly. Robe...

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