JOHN JOUBERT  

John Joubert (b. 1927) has composed in most genres, including opera, but is best known to the public for his choral music. Though born in Cape Town into a family of Afrikaner descent, Joubert has since 1950 been an important figure on the British musical scene. Based on a fifteenth-century Advent text, his gentle There is no rose (1954) is the antithesis of his even more popular carol, Torches. Mathias’s Sir Christèmas and A babe is born are both written in the typically vigorous style that made Mathias perhaps the best-loved Welsh composer of his generation.