Choral Works

Richard Hickox was a renowned interpreter of the great British composers of the twentieth century. On this disc we hear choral works by three of them: Gerald Finzi, Benjamin Britten, and Gustav Holst. Finzi dedicated his Requiem da camera (1924) to the memory of his teacher, Ernest Farrar, who was killed on active service in September 1918. He offers his own sedate impression of the war, in which ploughboys-turned-soldiers glimpse their last of England before the music, landscape, and innocence are lost in the gathering darkness. Also on the disc are three works by Benjamin Britten. He wrote Deus in adjutorium meum for the 1945 production of Ronald Duncan’s play This Way to the Tomb; Chorale after an Old French Carol was written for the BBC feature Poet’s Christmas in 1944, to words by W.H. Auden; and the premiere of Cantata misericordium at the Proms in 1963 marked Britten’s fiftieth year. Gustav Holst wrote the works that complete the disc, Psalm 86 and Psalm 148, in 1912 whilst he was Director of Music at the St Paul’s Girls School. Hi-Fi News wrote of this disc when first released: ‘The choice of a small choir gives these pieces a sense of intimacy and yet one of intensity; there’s a feeling that Richard Hickox had inspired everyone to enthusiasm for his mixed programme.’ The release is a part of Chandos’ Richard Hickox Legacy series, celebrating the late great conductor’s remarkable discography.