Recordings of this work always seem to bring out the best in its interpreters and this, the latest in a distinguished line, is no exception. Richard Hickox has conducted Gerontius on a number of occasions over the past few years, and he prepared the chorus for the work's first performance in the Soviet Union (under Svetlanov). Of one of Hickox's London readings David Cairns wrote in The Sunday Times: ''It was one of those rare moments when a great work rises, at the outset, to the highest level of emotional intensity and remains there''. Well, much of that sense of dedication to Elgar's masterpiece, with its sense of coming, as Cairns in the same notice put it, ''from deep and ancient wells of experience'', is conveyed on this set.
As in that live account, the Prelude, played with the utmost urgency and interior strength, sets the scene for what is to come. Throughout Hickox gives us a peculiarly immediate and urgent interpretation—not dissimilar from Rattle's on EMI—that has us thinking more than ever that this is an opera in everything but name or at least a dramatic cantata, not an oratorio. His speeds tend to be quick—he is in within seconds of Rattle's fast reading—but only once, in ''Sanctus fortis'', did I feel that he was hurrying unduly. He—like Britten (Decca) and Rattle—takes the closing pages of ''Praise to the Holiest'' just about as swiftly as the chorus can manage them.
Being a choral trainer of many years standing and familiar for long with this particular choir, he naturally enough persuades them to sing with an impressive unanimity of purpose and with perhaps a wider range of dynamics than any other conductor—you need go no further than their opening ''Kyrie'' to hear how quietly they can sing. Perhaps an element of dignity and grandeur such as you find in Boult's and Barbirolli's EMI readings, both appreciably more measured, is missing, little else. The sound of the chorus and excellent orchestra surpasses that on the Rattle version, Watford Town Hall proving as ever a good venue for the recording of large forces. The singing and sound are equally exhilarating in the two Parry works, though Blest Pair of Sirens runs up against Boult's splendid EMI version, differently coupled. (Boult's Gerontius is even more appropriately matched with Elgar's Music Makers.)
Arthur Davies has a stronger, more secure voice than any other tenor who has recorded Gerontius and, unlike several of them, he is in his prime as a singer. At first I thought that very fact might make his reading too overt, not sufficiently inward. Certainly his opening solo and ''Sanctus fortis'' (that fast speed doesn't help him) are a shade too extroverted and matter of fact. But he improves considerably after that. ''Mary, pray for me'' and ''Novissima hora est'' are sung with the appropriate sweet sadness, ''I went to sleep'' with a sense of mystery, the duet with the Angel tenderly, and of course he has no difficulty entering with terrified power at ''Take me away''. He doesn't have the individuality of utterance or special affinity with the text, as for instance at ''How still it is!'' that you get with Heddle Nash (Sargent—nla) and Sir Peter Pears (Britten) or even quite the agony of the soul projected by Mitchinson for Rattle, but it is an appreciable performance, firmly projected.
I wish I could be as encouraging about Felicity Palmer's Angel. The intentions are right, the understanding is there, but the means to carry them forward are faulty: her singing, once she puts pressure on the tone, is to say the least uncomfortable to hear. We have to be consoled by the depth of feeling she offers in reflective moments such as ''into the veiled presence of our God''. Turning back to the Britten version after a long absence from it, I found the young Yvonne Minton's singing quite lovely, her nobility and breadth of phrase almost unmatched elsewhere, though Baker (Barbirolli and Rattle), Watts (Boult) and Hodgson (Gibson on CRD), all in their different ways, give deep satisfaction.
I thought Gwynne Howell just about the best Priest and Angel of the Agony in any version (at least since Dennis Noble and Norman Walker split the honours in EMI's pioneering 1945 Sargent set). His warm, firm bass-baritone easily encompasses the different tessituras of the two 'parts'. He fails us just once: the word ''gaze'', marked pp in the Angel of the Agony's solo is sung, inexplicably, mezzo forte.
The more I listen to this work (and most other great ones) the more difficult I find it to declare one the best. In January 1988, reviewing the Rattle, I set out the alternatives. Making renewed comparisons for this newcomer changed my perspectives a little. Each time I encounter Gedda's Gerontius the less satisfying I find it—the phraseology is all wrong—and that does put a serious question-mark by the otherwise wonderfully mature Boult reading. But then Palmer is something of a drawback here. Even so, I think newcomers to the work would find this Chandos version a more than worthwhile experience, more so than the Rattle for all its elan, and with the bonus of the Parry works (Rattle has no 'extras'). But the greatest conducting in this work comes from Sargent (1945 version), Barbirolli and Britten (possibly the most searching of all). The Britten is due on CD from Decca in the spring, and the Sargent should follow it from EMI before long—but even then they will not offer us the resplendent sound of at least three of the modern versions.'