Britten's Water Music

English composer Benjamin Britten grew up near the North Sea and carried it with him all his life. In his first opera, "Peter Grimes," the sea is almost a character unto itself. Tonight we'll hear his orchestral suite from that opera, the "Four Sea Interludes."

We'll also hear from one of Britten's countrymen, Ralph Vaughan Williams, in the popular tone poem for violin and orchestra, "The Lark Ascending." In a related vein, Fritz Reiner leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's "Song of the Nightingale." Finally, we'll indulge in a little meteorological fantasy with Robert Schumann's "Spring" Symphony.