RMP: Britten and Williams

Benjamin Britten’s orchestral tour de force Four Sea Interludes come from his operatic masterpiece Peter Grimes, about a fisherman on England’s eastern coast, a misanthropic loner who is hounded to self-destruction by the townspeople after the mysterious, but accidental, deaths of two of his apprentices. The opera’s premiere was immediately recognized as a landmark for English opera. In the opera the Four Sea Interludes not only take the listener from one physical location to another, but also go inside the characters’ minds, which throughout the opera are full  of turmoil and doubt. This relentless tragedy evoked from Britten music of overwhelming power with a score that is high-tensioned, surging with dramatic force and orchestral violence, but also includes passages of sublime beauty and tenderness

Hear these two great masterpieces performed by over 300 passionate choral and orchestral musicians, two outstanding Australian soloists and dynamic RMP Chief Conductor Andrew Wailes, widely acknowledged as one of the country’s leading symphonic choral interpreters.