On 6 September 1956 Gerald Finzi conducted the ftrst performance of the full orchestra version ofIn Terra Pax at the Gloucester meeting of the Three Choirs Festival. It as a work that had been conceived some thirty years earlier during a Christmas Eve visit to Chosen Hill (a favourite spot for Ivor Gurney and Herbert Howells), when he heard the midnight bells ring out across the Gloucestershire countryside. He recaptured the magic of that moment when, in 1951, he ftrst began to consider a setting of Robert Bridges’ words:

After the festival he decided to take Ursula and Ralph Vaughan Williams to see Chosen Hill for themselves.The sexton's cottage he had visited so many years before was still there and they were invited in by the occupants, unaware of the dangers that the chickenpox their children were recovering from might have for someone who, like Finzi, had suffered from Hodgkin's Disease. By 14 September he was in great pain, and by 21st September it was clear that he too had contracted chickenpox. He was taken to the Radcliffe Inftrmary in Oxford. His condition, however, worsened and it was there, during the evening of Thursday 27 September, that he died.

But that was not the end of the story.In some respects it was only the beginning, for the formation of a Finzi Trust in 1969 created an intense interest in his life and work. Recordings of his music attracted the attention of the musical world and ensured that his published works were readily available. Regular meetings of the Friends of the Trust took place at Ashmansworth and at the Three Choirs Festivals, so that he quickly achieved a cult status almost unique among English composers. All this was carried out under the watchful eye of Joy Finzi, who died on 14 June 1991.

Ferguson's story, however, had many more years to run.On laying down his composer's pen he turned his attention to meticulously researched, practical editions of important keyboard music.