These idiomatic Elgar performances from Richard Hickox well merit their mid-price resuscitation within EMI’s British Composers series. Strong competition for the coupling of The Music Makers and Sea Pictures comes in the shape of Bryden Thomson’s committed Chandos release. If Thomson has the advantage of more lustrous engineering (I find just a touch of hardness about this new EMI transfer that I don’t recall from the original issue), Hickox’s admirable London Symphony Chorus scores over Thomson’s London Philharmonic group in matters of intonation and diction. Felicity Palmer (for Hickox) sings commandingly in both works, though her contribution in The Music Makers doesn’t always generate the necessary tear-laden intensity. For my money, neither Hickox nor Thomson quite match the visionary scope of Boult’s 1966 recording (with Dame Janet Baker in glorious voice) or Andrew Davis’s recent Teldec account – the latter conductor in particular evinces a personal identification with Elgar’s inspiration that is rather special. In the Sea Pictures, however, Hickox and Palmer form an intelligent, distinctive partnership, less endearing, perhaps, than many would like in “In Haven” and “Where corals lie”, yet tough and dramatic in “Sabbath morning at sea” and “The swimmer”. It is a thrusting, unsentimental view which I found most refreshing. Excellent orchestral playing too.
Hickox adopts a similarly purposeful approach to the great wartime cantata, The Spirit of England. Like many collectors, I got to know this compassionate and moving score through Sir Alexander Gibson’s extremely fine 1976 recording (originally made for RCA, now reissued at mid price on Chandos). Gibson’s spacious and eloquent interpretation enshrined one of his very finest achievements in the studio, and I’m not sure that this EMI rival matches it in sheer depth of feeling. That said, Hickox draws some magnificent singing from the London Symphony Chorus and his mobile reading compensates with a fervour to which many will positively respond. The fillers are all worth having, especially the sublime coronation Offertory from 1911, O harken thou. Brian Culverhouse’s production lacks nothing in transparency and amplitude, though in The Spirit of England especially one ideally craves a more expansive acoustic than that offered by Abbey Road’s Studio No. 1.'