Readers of our journal will recall the feature on this British composer published in our last issue, and we trust our efforts will have gone some way in ensuring his work begins to receive the attention it deserves, not least from choral groups and similar bodies in this country and abroad. This setting of the Stabat Mater reveals a thoroughly committed composer of genuine gifts, one who does not strain or expect the impossible from his performers, but continues with no little sense of individual achievement to work in what might be termed traditional musical fields – certainly, with regard to technical demands and accomplishment.

There is a deep sense of pacification running through this fine work, a sense that is surely needed in these trying times, and one that is too infrequently encountered in music today – so often arising from fashion and the latest fad. Osgood’s music may have its roots in what might be termed late Vaughan Williams (of Hodie and the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies) and Edmund Rubbra (the Ninth and Tenth Symphonies), but this is no re-tilling of earlier furrows – such references are given to indicate the inherent nature of this fine and moving work. As Schoenberg effectively said: ‘there is much good music to be written in C major’, and I trust I have given sufficient indication of the kind of musical expression Osgood’s work inhabits to attract lovers of British music to this very worthwhile release.