A game of two halves in which the first might be more noteworthy but the second is far better. Paul Spicer discovered Dyson’s 1917 graduation piece Psalm CVII symphony and overture (aka Choral Symphony) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The psalm tells of the expulsion of the Jews from Israel but the nature of the verses is more ceremonial than narrative and so is Dyson’s long-breathed treatment. The composer clearly wanted to establish a sense of exiled longing but the piece can feel ponderous as a result; the climax to the slow movement takes a long time coming and, when it does, sounds rather too much like that from I was glad by Dyson’s teacher, Parry.

I’ll concede that the work reveals something of the goal-oriented breadth some will know from Dyson’s Magnificat in D. Elizabeth Watts will certainly know that piece given her background, and she brings a sense of love and fluidity to her solo contributions. But the Choral Symphony’s relative dullness and impressionability sets it in direct contrast to Dyson’s purely narrative St Paul’s Voyage to Melita. The composer obviously had his ears open in the intervening 20 years and the piece almost justifies Spicer’s bold claim in the booklet note that ‘as an orchestrator [Dyson] was second to none’.

Gone is the parochial rum-ti-tum (despite the subject of a sea voyage), banished is the over-influential spectre of Parry and the sense that Dyson is struggling to keep his textures virile. Even in the opening pages there are textural devices and harmonic glances that colour the tale, while the proverbial sea spray of the storm sequence is thrilling. Dyson’s solution to the appearance of the angel that miraculously saves St Paul’s crew – maintaining momentum via a single drumbeat – is a masterstroke. Joshua Ellicott sings with a true sense of drama and the chorus sound interested and enlivened. Diction is excellent even if the tone from the male singers can be dull. The orchestral playing maintains a degree of edge, too, but the strings reveal that this may have been a rather rapid rehearse-record. Perhaps not a masterpiece, but the Voyage is worth a listen.