time of Adrian's birth married to Rubbra's neighbour Hugo Yardley. Compositions Rubbra did not base his composition on formal rules, preferring to work from an initial idea and discover the music as he composed. His style is more concerned with the melodic lines in his music than with the chords, and this gives his music a vocal feel. He found his method of composition, working from a single melodic idea and letting the music grow from that, to be very exciting. Symphonies It was not until 1937 that Rubbra's first symphony was completed. Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 and 4 followed in quick succession, the fourth being completed in March 1942. He described them as being 'different facets of one thought', since each was a reaction to the last. His Fifth Symphony was started in August 1947. Enough time had elapsed since the Fourth Symphony to allow this new symphony to be unrelated. Grover recognises a "sense of relaxation engendered by a greater flexibility in the handling of materials" which sets this work apart from earlier symphonies. The sixth and seventh symphonies followed in 1954 and 1957. Rubbra's last four symphonies again show a change of approach. He himself identified this when he said, "in much of my later music a particular musical interval rather than a key underlies the building of the structure". These symphonies were composed between 1968 and 1979. All are available on CD. Richard Hickox recorded the complete cycle of symphonies on Chandos Records. Shortly before his death Rubbra embarked on the composition of his Twelfth Symphony, but only one page of manuscript short score (bearing the opus number 164) was completed. Vocal music The vast majority (42 of 59 works) of Rubbra's choral works have religious or philosophical texts, in keeping with his interest in these subjects. His first choral work was his Op. 3, written in 1924, and his last was Op. 164, written in 1984, only two years before his death. He wrote for children's voices and madrigals, as well as producing masses and motets, including the Nine Tenebrae Motets, Op. 72, setting the Responsories for Maundy Thursday in an intensely dramatic manner. In 1948, he composed Missa Sancti Dominici, Op. 66, to celebrate his conversion to Roman Catholicism. The reason for this particular title is that he was received into the church on the Feast of St. Dominic, 4 August. His Magnificat and