This 1975 recording with Richard Hickox leading the St. Margaret's Westminster Singers brings together two of Edmund Rubbra's five mass settings: the austere but affecting Missa cantuariensis (Canterbury Mass) from 1946 and the severe Missa in honorem Sancti Dominici (St. Dominic Mass) from 1948. Under Hickox's direction, the choir's tone is reverent, diction is impeccable, and the intonation is steady. The two brief unaccompanied carols included here -- Dormi Jesu and That Virgin's Child Most Meek -- are quite different in ...
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This 1975 recording with Richard Hickox leading the St. Margaret's Westminster Singers brings together two of Edmund Rubbra's five mass settings: the austere but affecting Missa cantuariensis (Canterbury Mass) from 1946 and the severe Missa in honorem Sancti Dominici (St. Dominic Mass) from 1948. Under Hickox's direction, the choir's tone is reverent, diction is impeccable, and the intonation is steady. The two brief unaccompanied carols included here -- Dormi Jesu and That Virgin's Child Most Meek -- are quite different in character, neither austere nor severe but rather tender, touching, and instantly ingratiating. Recorded in 1975 with Rubbra in attendance, Hickox says he found the composer after the end of the last session "in the corner with tears running down his cheeks." For listeners sympathetic to his music, this disc may have the same effect. Produced for RCA in stereo sound by Michael Smythe in 1975 and remastered for Chandos in digital sound by Pete Reynolds and Jonathan Cooper in 2007,...
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