CHARLES VILLIERS STANFORD (1852-1924): Mass Via Victrix 1914-1918 for Soloists, Chorus, Orchestra and Organ, Op. 173, At the Abbey Gate for Baritone, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 177 (World Premiere Recordings).

Description: Its vocal score was published in 1920 but Stanford’s 68-minute Mass was not performed until October of 2018 edited from manuscript by Jeremy Dibble. It belongs in the short list of cathartic expressions of war grief such as Foulds’ A World Requiem and Bliss’s Morning Heroes but fell victim to the almost wholesale jettisoning after the war of the performance of works by Stanford’s generation. The coupling is a 12-minute work dating from the same year which sets a poem which was part of the commemorations for the interment in Westminster Abbey of the coffin of an Unknown Soldier in October of 1920. Texts included. Kiandra Howarth (soprano), Jess Dandy (contralto), Ruairi Bowen (tenor), Gareth Brynmor John (baritone), BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales; Adrian Partington.