Edmund Rubbra – The Sixteen / Christophers

   in Choir & Organ (Jan, 2017)
Having caught Rubbra as Radio 3’s Composer of the Week during the autumn, it soon became clear to me that here was one of those British composers whose music had, for many reasons not least his own extreme modesty, fallen out of fashion, eclipsed by contemporaries such as Walton, Tippett and Britten. Yet how unfair is Rubbra’s posthumous reputation (he died 30 years ago in 1986), for his individual harmonic language, full of enharmonic side-stepping, makes for a very recognisable sound, all superbly crafted and with a very particular way with chordal writing. Rubbra’s achievements include 11 symphonies, but his choral music is the focus of this excellent new disc from …