Prom 23: BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Otaka – review

Royal Albert Hall, LondonIt must have been grand to live at a time when the golden age lay ahead rather than far behind, and the sentiments expressed in John Addington Symond's 1880 poem A Vista remind us how remote we are even from dreaming of a "loftier race / Than e'er the world hath known". More impressive, perhaps, is the way in which John Ireland harnessed the poem's unsettlingly naked idealism when composing an anthem based on the text for the coronation of George VI in 1937. The result â...

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