Walton’s searing oratorio, Belshazzar’s Feast, written for baritone, chorus and a huge orchestra with an augmented brass section, takes as its subject the scene from the Bible (Book of Daniel) in which, at King Belshazzar’s Feast, a hand appears and prophetically writes a doom-laden message on the wall. Often compared on account of its pulsating drive and barbaric splendour with Orff’s Carmina Burana, Belshazzar’s Feast is now regarded as the finest British large-scale choral work since Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius.