A mouth­watering reissue comprising four outstandingly eloquent performances‚ and an ideal companion­purchase for anyone who recently invested in Chandos’s handsome‚ five­CD box of Hickox’s magnificent Rubbra symphonies. The stand­out item here has to be Howard Shelley’s imperious traversal of the big­boned Sinfonia concertante for piano and orchestra. It was begun in 1934‚ overhauled in the early 1940s and not heard until August 1943 (when the composer himself was partnered by Boult at a Prom). Certainly‚ the opening ‘Fantasia’ exhibits an exhilarating thematic resource and craggy‚ almost Bartókian resilience. It’s the finale‚ however‚ which contains the work’s most rewarding‚ deeply­felt inspiration: this is a prelude and fugue of grave nobility‚ economy and poise‚ whose elegiac countenance reflects Rubbra’s sense of loss at the death of his teacher and good friend‚ Gustav Holst. Next comes an affectionate account of A Tribute (Rubbra’s 70th­birthday tribute to Vaughan Williams – Hadley’s One Morning in Spring and Lambert’s Aubade héroïque were the other two works commissioned for that celebratory BBC broadcast of October 12‚ 1942)‚ followed by The Morning Watch‚ a noble choral setting of Henry Vaughan’s mystic poem (premièred under Boult in 1946) which possesses a power and radiance that cannot fail to impress. Last‚ but not least‚ there’s Ode to the Queen (1953)‚ a BBC commission first heard four days after the Coronation. Employing texts by three Tudor poets (Crashaw‚ D’Avenant and Campion)‚ it’s a charming‚ 13­minute creation‚ the two extrovert outer songs framing a Poco adagio e tranquillo setting of chaste beauty. Mezzo Susan Bickley is ideally cast‚ and Hickox tenders bright­eyed support. Superb sound throughout‚ enormously ripe and sumptuously wide­ranging. Now‚ could Shelley and Hickox be persuaded to give us a new version of Rubbra’s marvellous Piano Concerto‚ I wonder?