it "monotonously hearty", while his colleague Andrew Porter thought it "fine and forthright." Among the other choral works in which Brannigan sang the bass solo parts were Haydn's Creation and Handel's Messiah and Acis and Galatea. In addition to the classics, he also gained popularity in radio and television programmes of Northumbrian and other folksongs and art songs, especially by English composers such as Thomas Morley, Charles Edward Horn and Arthur Sullivan. Together with Sir William Walton, Brannigan took part in a celebrated prank at the Royal Festival Hall in 1961, at a concert celebrating the musical humorist Gerard Hoffnung, who had died in 1959. The management announced that Walton had agreed at short notice to conduct an excerpt from his cantata Belshazzar's Feast. Walton and Brannigan entered, and bowed. Walton raised his baton, and the chorus bellowed the single word "slain" from the score. Walton then put down his baton, shook hands with Brannigan, who had not sung a note, and they both bowed and left the platform to gales of applause. Recordings Brannigan recorded all his major Britten roles under the baton of the composer. Of these, some critics regard his Noye as his most notable legacy; others find his Nick Bottom to be incomparable. He recorded Purcell's The Fairy Queen in 1970 for Decca, also under Britten's baton. For Sir Thomas Beecham, he recorded Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann in 1947, a recording which formed the soundtrack for a 1951 film of the opera. For Sir Adrian Boult he recorded the bass solo part in Messiah and the role of Polyphemus in Acis and Galatea. For Sir Malcolm Sargent, he recorded the following Gilbert and Sullivan roles: the title role in The Mikado (1957), Don Alhambra in The Gondoliers (1957), Wilfred Shadbolt in The Yeomen of the Guard (1958), Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore (1958), Private Willis in Iolanthe (1959), the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance (1961), the Usher in Trial by Jury (1961) and Sir Despard in Ruddigore (1963). He also sang Willis in the BBC recording of Iolanthe in 1966. His interpretation of the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance was so admired that he was invited to make a second recording of it, for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, in 1968. The Penguin Guide to Opera said, "perhaps the greatest joy of this recording is Owen Brannigan's Sergeant of