This classic mono recording of Delius’s Mass of Life, made in the winter of 1952-53, has been seriously neglected in the age of CD. It makes a very welcome return in a generally clear, full-bodied transfer, if with a slightly glassy top-emphasis that makes percussion sound shallow and tinny. What matters is the incandescence of the performance.
This is a score which in the fast movements – notably the opening choruses of both halves – finds Delius at his most vigorous, a point superbly thrust home in Beecham’s high- powered reading. Not only that, he conveys a hushed tension in the many meditative sections which sustain the expanse of Part 2, over twice as long as Part 1, with complete concentration and no feeling of longueur.
His soloists are all excellent, firm and cleanly focused, unaffected by the close balance. Monica Sinclair and Charles Craig – leading recording artists of the time – are well-matched by Rosina Raisbeck and Bruce Boyce, who as the baritone has much the most prominent part in Delius’s scheme. Yet it is the singing of the London Philharmonic Choir which above all makes the performance memorable, consistently reflecting the conductor’s magnetic way with Delius.
The first disc, offering rather short measure, includes a spoken introduction from Beecham himself, at his most endearingly pompous in trumpeting the claims of Delius as a composer unlike any other. The booklet includes the full German text and a rather stilted English translation. Richard Hickox’s excellent Chandos version, superbly recorded, brings out even more the richness of this most ambitious of Delius’s non-operatic scores, with a performance hardly less incandescent, but the persuasiveness of Beecham in Delius remains irresistible