Bells – though not the Westminster Chimes, which emanate from another part of the borough – accompany the opening of Roxanna Panufnik’s Westminster Mass and confer upon it an immediately distinctive identity. The harp has a similar function in the Gloria, which comes next, for though the words are sung in English the ordering is naturally that of the Roman Catholic and not the Anglican service. In a departure from normal practice, a motet, Deus, Deus meus, is interpolated, and after the Sanctus and Benedictus a ‘Memorial Acclamation’. The form is therefore a kind of extended Missa brevis, there being no Credo. Most immediately attractive is the Sanctus: not the usual awe-struck worship but a happy gambolling of children before a throne decked for Christmas. At other points, what might be a frankly popular tune gets so far in that character and then leads a more complicated existence against a changing background. On early and necessarily brief acquaintance it seems an intriguing compound in style and appeal; and the first impression is at least memorable.
Frankly (and personally) I don’t greatly like the ‘feel’ of the programme as a whole. Rubbra’s Mass stands out from the rest as strong and trustworthy. The others have about them a willed mysticism, a voluptuous spirituality, which (with the exception of Howells) they attempt to achieve with formulaic musical techniques. Almost all the choral writing is homophonic: one longs for the energy of clear-cut counterpoint. The famous choir, familiar as it is with the masters of polyphony, makes itself thoroughly at home, the strong treble-tone and deep resonant basses (sometimes overweighty) giving thrust and colour. The Rubbra – work and performance – is cherishable, at once rich and austere, like a sternly gorgeous Byzantine mosaic. But oh, if only somewhere in the programme someone had turned his (or her) hand to a fugue!'