Reviews

The Tuba Concerto (1978) can rarely have been launched this thunderously and Ross Knight assuredly has its measure …. a final Allegro moving stealthily while suavely to a deadpan (alternative) cadenza and decisive ending.

The Viola Concerto (2023) is a very different proposition, the three goddesses of its title comprising an edgily ambivalent take on the Celtic deity Morrigan, that on the Greek deity Aphrodite whose haunted soliloquy affords the most evocative music, then a portrait of the Roman deity Diana, which surges to an impulsive close.

Most ingeniously, the oboe concerto A Vision in a Dream (2019) unfolds from a starkly percussive Prologue, via a dynamic and eventful Duologue then a sensuous yet plaintive Pastorale, to three Round Dances whose Dionysian energy indicates, as does a rarefied Epilogue, inspiration in Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn: its subtitle that of this collection.

A Song for Bram (2024) pays tribute to the late conductor Bramwell Tovey in heartfelt and hymnic terms, and A Song for Sue (2020) does likewise to the composer’s wife in its warmly emotional discourse.

… with Ross Knight, Jennifer Galloway and Rachel Roberts fully attuned to their respective concertos …. informative notes by Paul Hindmarsh and the composer enhance a release that presents Gregson’s music in an unfailingly positive light

Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone (November 2025)