Description on Youtube:
Vaughan Williams's 'Pastoral Symphony' dates from 1922 and has its origins in the time that RVW spent in France on active servce during the First World War. It is a rhapsodic, contemplative work representing his emotional response to the countryside and the tragedy of war. In the second movement he recalls a bugler practising on a hill-top and in the finale there's a memory of a milk-maid singing as she passes down a distant country lane.
This elusive work is seldom performed, even in England, so to hear it played by the Philadelphia Orchestra is quite unique, since it is possibly the only extant performance of any of Vaughan Williams symphonies played by that great orchestra. Eugene Ormandy conducted the work, in the broadcast heard here, on 12 October 1972 to mark the composer's 100th birthday.
