The English composer Havergal Brian, in a long career, made little concession to the practical economies of performance in a series of orchestral compositions on a grand scale, including 32 symphonies, many of which were for long denied professional performance. The massive Gothic Symphony, the first of these, was written between 1919 and 1927 and includes a setting of the Te Deum. The last symphony was written in 1968. Havergal Brian's works are now at last winning a hearing, after earlier neglect. His musical language is complex but tonal and however eccentric he is never less than impressive.
