Ralph Vaughan Williams after Boult, Sargent and Barbirolli are Vernon Handley, Richard Hickox, Sir Mark Elder and Sir Andrew Davis. Record companies with extensive lists of Vaughan Williams recordings include EMI, Decca, Chandos, Hyperion and Naxos. Vaughan Williams refused a knighthood at least once, and declined the post of Master of the King's Music after Elgar's death. The one state honour he accepted was the Order of Merit in 1935, which confers no prenominal title: he preferred to remain "Dr Vaughan Williams". His academic and musical honours included an honorary doctorate of music from the University of Oxford (1919); the Cobbett medal for
BBC Symphony Chorus Holst's "Choral Symphony". In 1977, the Chorus adopted its current name of the BBC Symphony Chorus, in recognition of its status as a choir appearing in professional concerts under leading conductors, "with a repertory second to none". It made its first appearance under that name in the "Sea Symphony" by Ralph Vaughan Williams on 12 October 1977. In September and October 1978 the Chorus travelled to the Festival of Flanders, appearing under the baton of the new Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, as well as that of their Chorus Master Brian Wright. They sang the Mass