Disc1: 1.01 - 1.15 A Sea Symphony (Symphony No.1) [63'50]
Margaret Marshall- soprano, Stephen Roberts- baritone, London Symphony Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox
Disc2: 2.01 - 2.04 Fantasia on Christmas Carols [11'25]
2.05 - 2.20 Hodie. A Christmas Cantata * [57'52]
Elizabeth Gale- mezzo, Robert Tear- tenor, Stephen Roberts- baritone, London Symphony Chorus, Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral *; London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox
EMI 9689342 [Disc1: recorded February & March 1989 for Virgin Classics; Disc2: recorded April 1990 for EMI; this compilation issue in 2009]
[digital download; flacs, cover and inlay scans - no booklet for Disc1, MHS-booklet for Disc 2 derived from archive.org]
Disc1: Recording venue: All Saints Church, Tooting, London
Recording engineers: Mike Clements and Mike Hatch; Producer: Andrew Keener
Disc2: Recording venue: No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London
Recording engineer: Mark Vigars; Producer: John H West
In the case of Disc2, here's an early Christmas present.
Unfortunately, Virgin Classics saw fit to divide up the four movements of A Sea Symphony into 15 tracks. It is difficult to believe that Andrew Keener was responsible but EMI decided to repeat that in this reissue. This was something EMI also inflicted on Vernon Handley's excellent recording of the work. To compound this felony, they also decided to divide the single movement Fantasia on Christmas Carols into four tracks - having made the original issue (and the Musical Heritage Society reissue) correctly with just the single track.
As an accompaniment, here is Richard Hickox's later recording of A Sea Symphony for Chandos. Fortunately, Chandos issued their recording divided correctly with just the four tracks.
02 - 05 A Sea Symphony (Symphony No.1) [66'20]
Susan Gritton- soprano, Gerald Finley- baritone, London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox
Chandos CHSA5047 [recorded June 2006; issued 2007]
[digital download; flacs, cover, booklet and inlay scans]
Recording venue: Barbican Centre, London
Recording engineer: Jonathan Stokes; Producer: Ralph Couzens
Download from Mega.