Carolyn Sampson (s), Marta Fontanals-Simmons (m-s), James Way (t), Ross Ramgobin (bar), University of Birmingham Voices, City of Birmingham Symphony / Martyn Brabbins (dir) 

Hyperion CDA68418 [74:26] 

★★★★★

Stanford’s Requiem was commissioned for the 1897 Birmingham Festival, the one immediately preceding the premiere of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. Irish Protestant Stanford’s Roman Catholic Requiem Mass was better received than Roman Catholic Elgar’s setting of Cardinal Newman three years later. What the two works share is an innate whiff of the theatre: Elgar influenced by Parsifal, Stanford already an experienced opera composer by the time of his Requiem. Conductor Martyn Brabbins’s combined experience of large-scale choral pieces and opera serve him to telling effect in this glorious recording. His finely judged tempi and keen ear for balance and orchestral detail tap into the theatrical qualities of Stanford’s Requiem. Four excellent soloists are matched with the fresh-voiced University of Birmingham Voices and the CBSO. The results are outstanding, the more so when it seems likely most of the performers will not have encountered this work before.