Symphony No. 7 "Sinfonia Antartica", for soprano, small female chorus and orchestra with narrator ad lib, was completed in 1952 by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958). It is based on the music Vaughan Williams provided for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic. There are wordless sung contributions by women's chorus and solo soprano in the first and last of the five movements to great effect. Some have dismissed the symphony and even ridiculed it as "penguin music", but for me it is one of the highlights in his repertoire. The average playing time is 43 minutes (AllMusic). I have two versions (both fortunately without narrator), with a slight preference for the London Symphony Orchestra with the London Symphony Chorus and soprano Catherine Bott, under Bryden Thomson on a Chandos CD.
