Some years ago, comparing recordings of this symphony for BBC Radio 3's ''Building a Library'', I selected Previn's RCA version with the LSO as 'best buy'. The selection is wider today, and now here is Previn's second recording of the work, made with the RPO. It is again a very fine performance, with beautiful string-playing and the recording has a warmth that enables this lyrical, mainly meditative music to emerge in all its splendour. As is often his wont today, Previn is in no hurry. Tempos are leisurely, phrasing very broad and an autumnal glow suffuses all movements, even the spooky Scherzo.
I wonder though, today, if that is all this symphony requires and my answer is no. In his recent Virgin Classics recording with the same orchestra, Menuhin exposes a latent toughness in the score, a sense of unease and brooding tragedy, that relate it unexaggeratedly to the period of its composition—just before and during the Second World War—and to its predecessor in F minor. This is not just a pilgrim's nostalgic progress to England's vanishing pleasant land, but in some ways an elegy for an England full of ghosts and on the verge of—what? Nevertheless, like all good music, it can sustain more than one interpretation. Previn's is a noble view of it and gives both satisfaction and pleasure, as does his equally firm and conscientious direction of the Tallis Fantasia, with the recording capturing faithfully the contrasting layers of string sound.'