For some years the Third Symphony was a repertory piece, at least on BBC programmes, but it fell out of favour in the late 1950s. Commentators have noticed a certain Sibelian cut to its opening idea (with woodwind in thirds) but everything else strikes you as completely personal.
There's a whiff of Elgarian fantasy in the fourth variation of the finale. It's been called the most genial and relaxed of Rubbra's symphonies but there's a pastoral feel to many of the ideas, bucolic even, in the same way that there is about the Brahms Second Symphony. Brahms springs to mind in the masterly variations and fugue of the finale, for not long before, Rubbra had orchestrated the Brahms Handel Variations.
Hickox and his players give a very persuasive and totally convincing account of the symphony.
Anyone coming to the Seventh for the first time, particularly in this performance, will surely not fail to sense the elevated quality of its musical thought. Its opening paragraphs are among the most beautiful Rubbra ever penned, and it's evident throughout that this is music that speaks of deep and serious things. This performance speaks with great directness and power. The horn playing in the opening is eloquent and the orchestral playing throughout is of a uniformly high standard. These are magnificent and impressive accounts, and the recording is truthful and splendidly balanced.