Vernon Handley: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - Simpson: Symphonies Nos 1 & 8

This CD of Robert Simpson's First and Eighth brings us almost to the end of our Simpson Symphony Series. (Only No 11 remains to be recorded.) No 1 has been recorded before (in 1954 by Sir Adrian Boult, its dedicatee, and the LPO) but that recording has never been issued on CD so this is the work's d�but in the medium.The Eighth from 1981 has never been recorded before and performances have been few. In two bipartite sections, it is Simpson at his most intense: a mighty work indeed.All of the music on this album is also available as part of the specially priced box set The Complete Symphonies of Robert Simpson: �One of the outstanding recording projects of our time � this Hyperion series deserves to stand as a monument while other more superficially glamorous ventures rise and fall around it. If it does not do so, and if it does not eventually force Simpson�s breakthrough into the orchestral repertoire, there will truly be no justice� (Gramophone).