Strange but true: this is only the third commercial recording of A Mass of Life (‘Essential Delius’ if ever there was); strange because its celebration of the ‘here’ rather than the ‘after’ comes with all the poetry, vision and much of the late romantic grand spectacle of Mahler’s Eighth or Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder (let us hope we don’t have to wait 20-odd years for the next recording, and that it spares us the lurid shock-tactics of this one’s box and booklet cover). The previous two recordings were the 1952 Beecham (11/53, last on CBS – nla) and the 1971 Groves. On greeting the mid-price CD reissue of the Groves in 1993, I unfairly compared it with the Beecham (never reissued on CD; an omission soon to be repaired), but this time I intend to leave Beecham out of the frame.
You might imagine modern recording would best place this vast canvas between your loudspeakers. And yes, Hickox’s peaks (dynamics) are marginally higher, his perspectives marginally wider and deeper (echoing horns, for example, magically fade ‘over the hills and far away’). Actually, some of this has as much to do with Hickox’s own pacing and shading as the engineering. In general, this ‘idealized’ light and air-filled sound brings a sharper, bright presence for the chorus (and its German words), and such things as the piccolo trilling atop the final “Hymn to Joy”. What it doesn’t bring (and this an increasing trend in modern recordings) is the sense of performers in a specific acoustic space, and the resonance real walls impart to their tone. Heard after the Groves, you might feel a lack of profile for the orchestra’s lower voices (trombones, cellos and basses and drums). The Groves version was recorded in London’s Kingsway Hall, with occasional shifts of balance between movements (and rumble from the Underground), but with generally clearer orchestral activity, and especially full measure for Delius’s bass-line harmonic surprises and the dark power of Zarathustra’s “Midnight Bell”. I have spent some time trying to work out why, for me, the Groves opening “Invocation” is more elating than the Hickox, despite Groves’s comparably opaque choral sound (at this point). Some of the above, I think, explains it; but the net effect with Groves in this opening is that one feels more in touch with an explosion of energy and a tremendous striving.
This must not alarm those who purchased the Gramophone Award-winning Hickox Sea Drift (Chandos, 11/93); here (also working in Wessex Hall in Poole) Chandos provide more of the same. And the Hampshire chorus shine in the prominent role which the Chandos balance gives them, with ringing attack for all entries where it is needed, and singing as confident as it is sensitive, even if one has to make the odd allowance for not quite perfect pitching on high (Delius’s demands are extreme, and the Groves chorus are no better) and moments where they are too loud. The quartet of soloists is a fine one, if less distinguished than that for Groves. Hickox’s baritone Peter Coleman-Wright (the main role: Zarathustra himself) has a good line in stirring, virile address, though little of Benjamin Luxon’s nobility, inwardness and true legato. His tone becomes strangulated in the “Lyre Song” and there’s an uncomfortable landing on the climactic word “Meine Seele” near the close of the “Night Song” (end of Part 1).
What inclines me to recommend the Hickox Mass in preference to the Groves (but only just) is the conductor’s inspired handling of each part’s central dance panels. Let’s be honest, we Delians are unlikely to choose these passages with their quaintly rustic “la-la-la-ing” to make converts to the cause (the work’s opening should do that, in a matter of seconds). But Hickox makes me believe in them, with a judicious drive, lift to the rhythms, and really incisive, eager singing and playing. After the climax of the first of them, Zarathustra does (and has reason to) sound transported.
Which leaves the couplings. Groves has Songs of Sunset and Arabesque, both of which are available in preferable alternative recordings. Hickox has only the second-ever commercial recording of the Requiem: more Nietzsche, but this time dogma not poetry, all the more unpalatable/embarrassing (regardless of your faith) for being in English, but containing much unique Delius (well, almost unique: the celebration of spring in the mountains does seem to draw on ideas from A Song of the High Hills). If you own the work’s premiere recording (Meredith Davies, EMI, 9/68 – never issued on CD) there is no urgent need to acquire this new one. It’s a professional job, but without any special pleading (shouldn’t there be more of a contrast between those final huge questioning chords and their quiet answers?). And perhaps the older recording more valuably captures the individual flavour of Delius’s inspiration, in particular, the gamelan-like sonorities of its closing pages.'