‘Remember, remember, the fifth of November’: so begins and ends this ‘opera for young people’, given first in 1975 by an earlier generation of the choir that sings in this present recording. The orchestra, Ex Trinitate, is drawn largely from the school staff and former members of the Croydon-based boys’ choir, so that there may well be some in it who took part in the première. If so, one wonders what the years may have done to (or for) the work. Do its gentler moments still appeal unerringly to the sweet tooth or does the exposed nerve begin to object? Does the occasional dalliance in Act 1 with the idiom of the musical still open a window and let in the party mood, or is the freshness lost? And does it really work, even (or perhaps especially) for ‘young people’, this pocket-storybook history with its desperate and tragic matter rendered with such tuneful ease and happy theatrical contrivance?

Perhaps the questions themselves are enough to be going on with: besides, I’m not very sure of the answers. One thing is for sure: there are few composers who are so expert in drawing out the best from the forces at their disposal. The choral writing encourages operatic energy (it is not music for the choir-stalls), opportunities are provided for a good number of soloists, and all do well here, especially the Catesby (Simon Benn), his faithful Thomas Bates (Duncan Horn) and the alto Guy Fawkes (Richard Wilberforce). Boys’ voices give the conspirators a certain innocence, while adult or broken voices characterise the shifty King (Peter Boothby), the foxy Secretary (James Marsden) and vindictive Attorney-General (Ian Machacek). The orchestra is kept busy, always to good effect and never beyond their means.