Bold and spirited performances from the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra to be sure, but ultimately not a recording of the Sinfonia antartica that I could safely recommend over existing versions (for example, Haitink's Gramophone Award winning account, or Thomson's in his Chandos cycle). Main reservations arise from the decision to supplant the optional spoken introductions of texts by Shelley, Donne and Coleridge, with extended extracts from Captian Scott's journals. True, the booklet-notes inform us that the idea arose from a suggestion by Vaughan Williams himself, but the decision to use such extended extracts and to intersperse them throughout the music (as well as at the beginning of each movement) inevitably hinders the musical flow. For instance, with spoken passages interjecting two or three times within the course of one movement, as they do in the first, it would be very difficult for the listener to perceive any underlying sense of symphonic argument or structure—though I for one would be the first to concede that the Antartica is probably the least symphonic of all VW's symphonies. On the other hand, if your appreciation of the Antarica lies purely in its musical pictorialism, then this particular recording may well heighten your enjoyment still further. Perhaps there lies my problem, for if the novelty factor of this symphony wore off somewhere around my late teens, I must confess that I have never been completely convinced of the symphonic integrity of this curiously hybrid work either. Not for the purists, then, but a novel idea that may find a small niche in the market for those willing to investigate a different slant on this work.
The narrator, actor, Roger Allam, delivers the text most engagingly and the Indianapolis orchestra under Raymond Leppard give a thoroughly committed and polished performance. Their account of the Tallis Fantasia, whilst not perhaps on a par with the best on offer, is nevertheless a particularly noble and lofty account that has an ambience and atmosphere that other versions frequently lack. The recording is vivid and well focused, if perhaps a trifle overpowering at times in the more mettlesome moments of the Antartica.'