This is to mark the 70th Anniversary of the first recording of Vaughan Williams's 6th Symphony. Unusually for a major British work, it was recorded in the USA. Leopold Stokowski made hundreds of recordings over a career spanning more than six decades, many of them recording premieres. This is one of them, made on 21 February 1949. He had just given the work its New York premiere with the city's Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra and immediately took it into the studio.

The four movements have been previously uploaded here separately but for this 70th Anniversary tribute they are linked together to form a continuous work. The transfer comes from Cala Records CACD0537 which also includes music by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Weinberger and Thomas Scott.

Incidentally, Stokowski wrote that "the more I study Vaughan Williams's Symphony in E minor, the more I have the impression that this is music that will take its place with the greatest creations of the masters." His prediction hasn't really come true, at any rate internationally, as the majority of the other recordings of this work have been made by British orchestras. However, Stokowski's performance still remains the fastest on record!

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