It's a very interesting look at the composer a couple of years before he began his decade-long project of collecting and preserving British folksongs, which was the pathway to developing an individual style: "[M]any young composers make the mistake of imagining they can be universal without at first having been local."
Check out his Symphony No 1 “A Sea Symphony” and No. 2 “A London Symphony.” Then there are other choral works like his Mass in G Minor, Bénédicité, Sancta Civitas, Fantasia on Christmas Carols, Serenade to Music, Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, Greensleeves... So many and all glorious. He is perhaps my most favorite composer (tied with Mahler). I love n’est the recordings with the King’s College Choir directed by David Willcocks for the choral pieces. Sir Adrian Boult for the orchestral works.
RVW had yet to study with Ravel but, even so, this sterling earlyish work seems to be moving in a Russian/Slavonic direction (a style which had, of course, influenced the French Master considerably). I agree with Chris Breemer's comment about the Wagnerian horns at 10:30 but elsewhere the brass does sound Russian, to my ears at least. The triumphal climax is rather impressive....
If I wasn’t aware of the composer I wouldn’t have guessed RVW but neither would I guess Wagner though there are of course a few references but it’s definitely not overall his style.
