It was bold of Dyson in 1934, when commissioned to write a choral work for the Three Choirs Festival, to choose a subject which invited comparison with Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, first performed with great success three years earlier. The Walton was rejected for the Festival on the grounds that it was too secular; Dyson trod a careful line to keep within the limits set down by the Festival authorities.

It cannot compare with the Walton for memorability but it is a fine work none the less, very well written for the forces used and relying on clean-cut chordal choral writing. The first three sections tell the story of the figures in the Furnace and the fourth figure who is perceived with them “like a son of the gods”, prompting one of the richest climaxes in the work. The fourth and final section is a hymn of thanksgiving and praise, the “Benedicite”. The fine tenor Mark Padmore sings beautifully in the role of the Herald, comparable with the baritone soloist in Belshazzar, while Neal Davies is strong as Nebuchadnezzar. Richard Hickox draws warmly committed playing and singing from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

The shorter works are well worth hearing, too, most of them designed for use in schools; Dyson was a schoolmaster and later a schools inspector. The Woodland Suite consists of four attractive movements in a pastoral vein, basically for strings but with optional woodwind parts. The final piece, “The Elfin Market”, is aptly lively. The Songs of Praise set George Herbert, Robert Herrick and Elizabethan poet George Gascoigne, rounding off the trilogy triumphantly. The Confortare is one of Dyson's last works, written in 1953 for the Coronation; it's very brief but with wonderfully flamboyant writing for brass and timpani.

This very agreeable collection is an excellent addition to the Dyson recordings that Chandos has sponsored and is very well recorded.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [12/2007]