A pity, perhaps, that collective heads couldn't conjure up a better title than “Vaughan Williams: the Pioneering Pilgrim”. But anyone who loves Vaughan Williams, and those on the way to loving him, couldn't ask for a tastier concert series than the Philharmonia Orchestra's five-pack, spread throughout 2008, the 50th anniversary of the composer's death.

We began with the water symphonies: water frozen in Sinfonia Antartica, hewn from the film score for Scott of the Antarctic; water billowing into symbol and philosophy in A Sea Symphony, hewn from Walt Whitman. They made a great match.

Richard Hickox, conducting, couldn't prove that the Antarctic score pursues seamless symphonic logic, for it doesn't. But who could doubt the work's unity of geography and emotion? We were absolutely freezing. We were inches from death, fighting the gale from the wind machine. Wordless females (Susan Gritton and the LSO choir) wafted over the ice cliffs. Wordless penguins (that's the brass) waddled over the scherzo. I saw heroism, bravery, and failure. The Philharmonia, spick and span, revelled in every adventurous and glacial sonority; if you're hunting for cowpats in Vaughan Williams's music you won't find them here.

Forceful and visionary, the early choral Sea Symphony is another work to blow away clichés, especially when 193 voices of the London Symphony Chorus, salty and exultant, swell Whitman's “vastnesses of Space”. Vaughan Williams's structural engineering may be faulty at times (that epic last movement), but there were no power cuts, not from the composer, nor from the seafaring army on stage.

In tone colour and sensibility, Gerald Finley proved ideal casting as the baritone soloist. Whether puffed with pride over “sailors of all nations” or muted in contemplation, alone on the night beach, his voice radiated natural ease. Susan Gritton wasn't as snug a fit - declaiming, she pushed too hard - but I'd still be happy to sail with her and Finley to anywhere Vaughan Williams wanted to go.

Hickox's understanding and the Philharmonia's finesse worked really well together. Two more symphonies follow in the Philharmonia's next Vaughan Williams programme on May 31.

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