I remember attending the London premiere of this in or around 1952 in the recently built Royal Festival Hall. Sir Adrian Boult conducted, and at the conclusion, an elderly gentleman came onto the podium and shook hands with him, it was RVW himself, a special memory!

40 years of listening it... every time, it's like the first time in 1980

This music perfectly captures the terror of a vast open landscape which has become claustrophobic through its inhospitability.

This magnificent work and performance gives me a unique impression as a Japanese person My emotion to this splendid performance is beyond description , and unfathomable From Tokyo of the Land of the Rising Sun 🇯🇵

Vaughan Williams was gifted for large evocations. Here, his 7° symphonies evoke the vast icy and windy areas of Antarctica. The genius of Vaugan Williams makes that this as both a precise evocation and an abstract symphony.

Surely one of the most evocative scores for a film ever written.

An aw(e)ful reminder that Nature is greater than us, and to think any different, is at our own peril. It's not mentioned in any of the comments that the Symphony is based on music that RVW wrote for the film Scott of the Antarctic (1948). The Amundsen/Scott story is already one of the great historic tragedies. But then with music like this who needs a movie.

I saw the movie, "Scot of the Antarctica", as a boy 70 years ago and the effect was so profound on one so young, that listening to this beautiful score today evoked the same emotions as those I felt back then. I have never seen the movie again since, but this revived the drama of that ill fated expedition so vividly, I might have seen it just yesterday.

That ghostly voice at 3:06 just flips me out.

At the 25:00 mark, the king of instruments enters and all small subwoofers cry in anguish.

Sinfonia Antarctica - one of RVW's most inspirational and amazing works.

A wonderful tribute to Scott and his team in probably the greatest exploration journey ever made. Included expectations, disappointments, bravery, self sacrifice and showing the fortitude of human endeavour. Scott will always be associated with Christchurch which was his base before departing for Antarctica.

What a monumental masterpiece of music he left us!!! Loved it since i first heard iy in 79 on a Sunday afternoon....

Vaughan Williams symphony 7 and schostakovich 8 both are soundtracks to places and events that capture the imagination and pure genius!

Fantastic rendition and conveyance of this sterile and clinical landscape. RVW has a unique way of expressing atmosphere and emotion.

This is the most brilliant evocation of cold I have ever heard.

This is define a Master Peace. Hauntly beautiful. What a composer RvW is. A true Genies. Thank you for this immortal master work.

A marvellously inventive piece of music that never diminishes with the replaying. I suppose it is more like a concert suite than a Symphony, but it matters little how you view it; it is a triumph. He used innovations such as a wind-machine with women's voices, and let us not forget the climactic use of the organ in the 3rd movement! Each of the movements is preceded by superscriptions that are often read out at performances (these includes passages from the Psalms, from Scott's Journal, etc). My favourite is the one before the Landscape movement, an excerpt from Coleridge:Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain’s browAdown enormous ravines slope amain- Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

One is humbled by the beauty of this piece of work.

I first heard this Symphony as a Uni student in the late 1970's when one of my lecturers played it to a large group of us students 'in hall'. I was so blown away, I purchased a copy next day! The Symphony is as dark and sombre as Antarctica itself . I have always loved RvW music since hearing a part of another Symphony as the theme in the BBC series; "A Family at War"

a true masterpiece. i love RVW.

Sinfonia Antarctica by Vaughn Williams. A hauntingly beautiful piece and strangely loaded for me. For in the unpleasant house of my childhood was an orange armchair and on its back, was a seal skin with a single bullet hole. My stepfather had shot this beast in Antarctica in 1957, to feed the huskies on the expedition he was on. He was my persecutor and abuser so I have not got much time for him, which is a shame but that is history. A bleak man, he went to a howling white desert to find the core of himself. He once showed a slide show of his exploits there. My god it is a terrible place! A terrible beauty. Apparently, the British Antarctic Survey requested a view of the slides for their records and them posted them off to Africa and they were never seen again.

Fine performance of this symphony. Perhaps not the most subtle or complex of his works, it has nevertheless a staggering theatrical effectiveness. You seem to feel a draught when the women's voices are howling, you cannot stop chuckling at the penguin music, and the mighty climax in the slow movement, when the organ bursts in, is one of the best shocks in music --- a real f*** me moment! Never has struggle been more effectively expressed or its futility. Thank you for the upload.

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Impresionante Interpretación,sublime, melancolica, triste y profundamente Espiritual, gracias por subirla.

Warm thanks and greetings from Sweden!

Thank you for adding the excellent performance by Haitink LPO and Armstrong. It has a chilling quality which fits with the local sleet and snowfall today in the UK (Dec 2017)

Symphony que desde niño la he escuchado, sigue estando Portentosa, exuberante, melancolica y Profundamente Espiritual, representa la lucha diaria de cada uno de nosotros y el terminar cada día y esperar el próximo, con nuevos bríos.

A powerful version of this Symphony. Many thanks for uploading it to allow us to hear it.

The 3rd Movement is great. When I was a teenager I used it as soundtrack to Dungeons and Dragons when I sent the players to some magical plane of existence.

Thank you, Twoset of lingling for showing me this

25:26 That sudden organ really got to me. It's amazing.

The organ @25:20 absolutely stunning! 🤘😎👍

My favourite RvW.

The most atmospheric & descriptive music I've ever heard & have loved it from first hearing it in school in the late fifties. The accompanying video is incredible ! How was it done ?

A majestic musical composition with a beautiful video to accompany it. I think not only of the great film epic that this music is associated with, but also of Vaughan-William's great friend, Gustav Holst. I sense Holst's influence in this work, and that feels most apparent. Thank-you so much for uploading this exquisite piece

Extraordinary! Nobody performs this!

The music Stanley Kubrick used during filming of 2001: a Space Odissey... in order to inspire actors and crew!

Wonderful, so different from what I expected. I want to watch the movie now!

To the best of my knowledge the only film score made into a full blown symphony (by one of the greatest composers who ever lived)..

Das Bild sieht aus wie Tungusta und die Musik lässt mich angenehm gruseln .

Wonderful music; thank you. Also, I assume some folks will not be pleased with this comment, yet I see as a dog's head, the rock/ice formatioin behind the ship in this picture.

very underrated symphony

RVW's finest symphony! In my opinion.

Keir Dullea says Kibrick made him listen to this music to get into the mood for the 2OO1 stargate sequence.

Absolutely beautiful

Maravillosa,fantástica como la mismísima misteriosa Antártida.

An astonishing psychological masterpiece. An intense inward journey. Thank you.

"To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite,/ To forgive wrongs darker than death or night,/ To defy power which seems omnipotent,/ ... / Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent:/ This ... is to be/ Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free,/ This is alone Life, Joy," These sentiments I can get onboard with, "Empire", not so much. The music is grand, haunting, wild and frighteningly stark as Antarctica still is. With global temperatures rising, it may become a place to live for many more of us.

You hear how this inspired work by composers like, Goldsmith, Horner and others.

You need to wrap up warmly to listen to this music

thank you thank you thank you! would not now be alive with out the sustenance of your collage/collaboration;

"The visual effects of my journey through time and space were created well after I had finished the film. Stanley filmed me mostly in close-up reacting to something that I actually wasn’t seeing. *He created an old silent movie trick: he played some extraordinary music to put me in the mood. Specifically, a movement from Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antartica.* If you’re interested, look it up and wait for a very mysterioso section of the piece. That’s what helped me react to something I wasn’t seeing. - Kier Dullea, when asked how he reacted to seeing the stargate in 2001: A Space Odyssey. How cool. This piece is beautiful.

From 4.16 - 4.43 you can hear where John Williams got his Harry Potter ideas from'. including the colour of the celesta; and in the latter part you can hear John Adams's inspiration for the third movement of his Harmonielehre, particularly in the use of piano and wind in a high register.

Apparently when George Lucas and John Williams first discussed the musical score for Star Wars, their influences were British composers: Holst, Vaughan-Williams, and Walton. (Strangely, not Wagner or Stravinsky.) Perhaps that's why the later VW symphonies all remind me of Star Wars!

Great Masterwork.-

wonderful, I might buy the CD.

Powerful.

This is perfect for the HMS Endurance expedition.

A ghost ship , ,circling around a cold continent, as in Wagner's composition, they die while searching for a way to other seas and they cannot reach purgatory.It 's so tragic work.

When Sibelius meets John Williams in a fridge.

That organ at 25:20 is majestic!

Beyond the specific topic of music derived from a film on one British explorer to the Antarctic, I'd rather listen to this symphony as a cultural work on all polar expeditions, including the quest for a northwest passage in the Arctic. No people have endeavored this "conquest" of extreme polar environments more than the British and the Scandinavians, with numerous casualties along the way. This music of RVW is kindred to Gosta Nystroem's Arctic Symphony. Maybe not his most complex symphony, as some have commented, but his most evocative of a piece of history that spans back to Martin Frobisher.

The last mov is chilling and wonderful.

For me, the message of this symphony is in the inscription to the first movement: "To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite,/ To forgive wrongs darker than death or night,/ To defy power which seems omnipotent,/ ... / Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent"

MARAVILLOSA

5 billion hits on Gangam style and 2 thousand on RW... kinda says something about how this internet thing has improved our quality of life..

Stanley Kubrick played this "while filming Keir Dullea in close-up as he reacted to his wild ride through the Star Gate." Also for screening "2001: A Space Odyssey" dailies "for the lunar sequences and Star Gate special effects, with stunning results."--Michael Benson, SPACE ODYSSEY: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece.

Sinfonia é algo surreal, é um novo mundo.

The best interpretation I know.

" Titanic " ( this could have been the music for that movie ) .. :) I like RVW a lot.

There are some very bleak, hopeless-sounding moments in this and his related score, "Scott of the Antarctic" that would sound great in a movie adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's horror novella "At the Mountains of Madness", which also happens to take place in Antarctica, like when RVM uses the organ, wind machine and wordless vocals.

This was one of the first music works that I felt an immediate compelling connection with, - or rather, initially the original Scott of the Antarctic film music - when it was first broadcast on the radio sometime in the 1950s, while I was still in my teens. I see that the symphony itself had its first performance in 1963. The Antartica takes me to a very familiar place within, which is both forbidding and at the same time ennobling, and I love this particular performance's balance between shaping the music to bring out the landscape features on the one hand while maintaining a good sense of musical flow and development - of course also the flow and development of the unspoken narrative within the landscape. I've little doubt that in many ways this work (together with Sibelius' Tapiola) has been a major inspiring factor in my own (much more recent) composing work, and helped predispose me towards portraying nature and wilderness in certain works - my 'biggie' in terms of scale and dramatic turbulence being my Symphony 6 (K2 - A Song of Striving and Adventure) - kzfaq.info/sun/PL2QPtPIi_uE4y-O9_FzPW4u6aKPE6DiEk.

Hello everyone. Great news, just as a Christmas present!!! LIVE!!! performance of Symphony No. 7 "Sinfonia Antarctica" in POLAND in February 2024. For all fans of Ralph Vaughan Williams music - simply concert of the year!!!

Reminds me of the Enterprise flying through endless V'ger clouds in The Motion Picture.

Genius.

Love 💘

Colder and yet not as thrilling and affirming as A Sea Symphony, of which my recording was by the same orchestra in 1955. Philip

We never hear any of RVW's works here in Chicago. In fact, I can't think of any American orchestras that programs any of is works. Too busy playing Mozart over and over and over again.

Nothing like this in all of western symphonic music -- have known this piece since 1964

Reminds me of Scriabin's Mysterium.

RVW composed four nature symphonies: salt water (A Sea Symphony), the city (A London Symphony), the country (Pastoral Symphony) and ice (Sinfonia Antartica). I assume he left imagining outer space in sound to his close friend Gustav Holst's The Planets.

I feel cold just listening to it. Try it the next time your air conditioner breaks down in July.

I'm getting some "The Planets" vibes from this piece.

I had Holst on and didn't notice YT was now playing RVW. Still 10 minutes I thought it was Holst. It's quite different from The Lark etc.

i also hear Hungarian music in here.....Bartok would be pleased, I think; except that he had died a few years earlier.

34:52 reminds me of Shostakovich tenth symphony.

My marching band is playing this

9:24 SCOTT OF THE SAHARA!!!! ;)

Jack Nieszche must have had this moment (3.06) in mind when he write the title music for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Even though the wordless soprano has become one of the cliches of spook movies, in this context it still chills.

Faszinierend. Wenn wir auf Werbung nicht reagieren, lernt die KI dass Werbung nichts bringt.

Haitink's symphonic objectivity is like a stress test for British parochialism. RVW passes thankfully.

Keir Dullea brought me here

Vaughan-Williams does for the Antarctic what Strauss did for the Alps.

Haitink brought his accustomed insight and inspiration to this performance of this epic. Remarkably good sound for 1985. Was this on Philips maybe?

Kubrick use this music on the shoot of the psychedelic scene of "2001: A Space Odyssey"

I want to visit Antarctica.

6:16 this section can be heard in the soundtrack for James Burke's series "Connections"

What is this first picture? *water intensifies*? There are probably a million beautiful pictures of the antarctic

Now, listen to this and imagine -- "Atlantis"... (And if you really want to scare the hell out of your friends this Halloween, invite them over to listen to a "selected edit" of this -- in the dark...)