A towering figure of the English musical establishment, whilst remaining an Irishman in his blood and bones until his dying day, Stanford wrote more than thirty works for chorus and orchestra as well as seven symphonies. The Requiem Mass was composed in memory of the painter Lord Leighton, a figure of enormous stature in English culture and society. Although in scale the Requiem almost equals that of the great Requiems of Berlioz and Verdi, the orchestral style is largely content with economical underpinning of the vocal forces and telling use of instrumental solos, a reminder that Stanford was a highly-regarded symphonist. This disc is rounded off with four seductive excerpts from Stanford’s first opera The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, based on Thomas Moore’s oriental romance Lalla Rookh.