Sinfonia concertante / Ode to the Queen / etc

'A mouthwatering reissue comprising four outstandingly eloquent performances...'
Gramophone

Chandos' series of orchestral works by Rubbra has received many awards and accolades. Each release in the series has been a Gramophone Editor's Choice and several have been nominated for Gramophone Awards.

All the works presented on this disc are in some sense tributes: the two orchestral pieces to Holst and Vaughan Williams, and the two vocal pieces in honour of St Cecilia and the new Queen, Elizabeth II.

Howard Shelley's recent recording on Chandos of Piano Concertos by Howells was nominated for a Gramophone Award this year. Susan Bickley has sung with all the major English opera companies and enjoys a busy international career.

The Sinfonia concertante was actually started in 1934, before the First Symphony, and its first version, never performed, was completed in 1936. The work was then revised in
the early 1940s and premiered in 1943. The work is Rubbra's earliest published large-scale orchestral piece. With its continental dance-form scherzo and fugal finale, it appears as a trial run for the masterly First Symphony.

A Tribute was composed in 1942 in honour of Vaughan Williams's seventieth birthday. Although Rubbra was never part of the 'pastoral school', he admired Vaughan Williams's work immensely and the older composer responded with his warm support and encouragement. This short piece, whilst including no specific references to Vaughan Williams's music, is a heartfelt tribute from the younger composer.

Henry Vaughan's poem The Morning Watch so inspired Rubbra that he originally intended to incorporate it into a choral fifth symphony. The setting was already quite advanced when a commission determined him to turn the piece into an independent motet for orchestra. The Morning Watch displays in plenty its symphonic origins, the broad sweep of its material deriving from seeds contained in the long, noble orchestral prelude.

Ode to the Queen was commissioned by the BBC as part of its celebrations for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The work is in the form of three songs and is the only song-cycle by Rubbra to be set with a full orchestral accompaniment.

'The songs… are beautifully sung here by Susan Bickley.'
Gramophone on Ode to the Queen

'…and how eloquently and sensitively it is performed here by Howard Shelley, Richard Hickox and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.'
Gramophone on Sinfonia concertante