Astonishing

One lives one's life with certain favourite composers and certain favourite works in recordings that are familiar, cherished and acclaimed............and then

I have just discovered-from an impeccable source(someone who knew Robert Simpson personally and very well)-that Simpson was extremely disappointed with some of the famous Vernon Handley readings of his symphonies as recorded for Hyperion: Nos. 1, 3, 5 and 8 in particular. They were under-rehearsed and, therefore, tentative

Simpson, apparently, had a far greater opinion of the readings of his symphonies as conducted by Andrew Davis.
Now, there's a turn-up for the books

Anyway...if you want to compare and contrast, I shall, within the next 24 hours, upload four BBC broadcasts of Simpson symphonies to Unsung Composers: the 2nd conducted by the Braga Santos expert Alvaro Cassuto, the 4th in the first performance of the revised version, conducted by Davis, the 5th in its "blistering, white-hot premiere" conducted by Davis(1973), and the 6th in its premiere conducted by Charles Groves(1980).
Now these recordings are from mono tapes so the sound cannot compare with Hyperion stereo but, if you are more interested in performance than sound quality..............

(I shall also upload John Carewe's 1977 broadcast of Richard Arnell's 5th Symphony. David Wright has written that Martin Yates on Dutton "cannot hold a candle to Carewe"
